Are you listening?

Want to speak? Be prepared to listen. Really skilled communicators, really dynamic and engaging speakers  actively and intimately listen to and observe their audience.  By giving his audience his full attention, a speaker is able to figure out what the audience needs to perceive, needs to feel, needs to hear in order to adopt the…

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Ethos Going Up Like Tinder

There is a by-election in the Ward 12 area of my hometown. A seat on city council, left vacant by a counsellor who rose to the ranks of federal MP, is currently being eyeballed by no less than 29 candidates. Among those who declared their intention to run is 22 year old Nicole Szymanowka, who…

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Resolutions, resolutions

Note: This is a longer post than usual, but it will give you a jump start on making your 2016 “Become a better speaker” resolution reality!    Whether you love or hate New Year’s Resolutions, they have most certainly filtered past your field of awareness at least once over the past few weeks. And most…

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Confidence rattled? I’ve got some suggestions for you!

I’m currently reaching to new audiences through a series of guest posts on a variety of blogs. Naturally, I don’t want to leave you in the dark, faithful reader, so for your ease and convenience, here is a teaser and link to my latest guest post. This post is featured on Success Consciousness. 3 Surprising Confidence…

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In person, over the phone, on the screen

  Each method we use to communicate has its own ups and downs, its own source of comfort or anxiety.   When we communicate in person, we have a wealth of information to take in. We can see the person’s body language, hear the tone of their voice, feel the energy or vibe.  Sometimes that…

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Same message, different source

The message doesn’t always have to be new to have impact. How often do we go looking for information on the same old topic? How many times can we hear a similar message from different people and still be interested? Sometimes we don’t need new information – we just need to hear it from a…

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Quality of voice

There’s been a lot of flap in gender politics over the quality of voices.  Many have vehemently said that we shouldn’t judge someone based on how they sound. I agree with this.  We shouldn’t.  But expecting people to not make these judgements is about as unrealistic as the old cliche about not judging a book by…

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Are you listening?

Here are some questions you need to ask yourself when working with an audience: Do you listen?  I mean it – do you really listen to what your audience is telling you? Have you turned of the internal chatter? Are you taking in what they are telling you, or are you trying to think of…

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PowerPoint is not your enemy, Prezi will not save you

  Slideshows are a contentious issue. I often hear people complaining about PowerPoints. I also hear them talking excitedly about the latest presentation software that will make any slideshow a work of art.  When Prezi came along, it was like the annunciation of Slideshow Christ. But the Prezi presentations were no better than the PowerPoint presentations…

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