I recently had an inquiry from a reader regarding the embedding of my avoiding death by PowerPoint video. This got me thinking. I quite often use video clips within a presentation for a number of reasons. They are great for demonstrating a particular technique. Ever tried to explain how do do something using only words?…

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This morning I attended a networking meeting in Winchester with members of 4Networking, it was a great event with some really great people and I was particularly impressed by the communication skills of some of the group members. They spoke with confidence, authority, humour and engagement. One member had volunteered to give a 10 minute…

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I was particularly impressed with the way Rich matched his energy and pace of delivery to the story he was telling. At the start his pace was slow and measured as he described the rather boring car journey where he was too small to see much out of the car window but clouds. Then, when he arrived at his gran’s the pace picked up dramatically as he described zooming into her house (an Aladdin’s cave for a five year old boy!) with his arms outstretched behind him pretending to be a plane. The pace stayed high as he described how he explored and played and then slowed a little as he started to describe the other family members present. The pace slowed further as he brought us up to the present day and how things had changed. How his granny wasn’t as energetic as she had been, how the food wasn’t as home cooked as it had been and so on. This “gear change”change of pace brought a poignancy and a sense of reflection to this speech that worked beautifully and lead us up nicely to Rich’s take away message.

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In my last post I focused on the delivery side of an impromptu speech but what about the content?   How do I stop by brain going blank and running out of things to say? Well here are two further technique to help you wow your audience ; Use the PEP model Position – Start…

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Delivering a prepared speech can be nerve-racking enough, the thought of being put on the spot to give a short speech without any preparation or advance warning can seem to some people like their worst nightmare. other people cope remarkably well with these situations so what can we learn from them? Well for a start…

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Some people find it hard to plan and structure their speech effectively.  There are lots of models out there but here is one of my favourites. It’s called the aeroplane approach and  is particularly useful when you know how you want your speech to finish but are not sure how to get to that end…

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I have been enjoying watching the first two episodes of “The Speaker”, the BBC’s new public speaking competition for teenagers. Already there have been some outstanding performances and it’s been interesting to see who and why the judges have chosen to go through to the top 20. I have also been feeling for the people…

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presentation self-evaluation - scales

What to do after a presentation As well as writing about public speaking and presentation skills, I love to read and learn from my peers.  Today, I read a great post from Coachlisab about what not to do at the end of a presentation. She was reminding us of the importance of not being too self-critical,  Below…

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