In case you missed the debate, this was the moment:

So what lessons can we learn from Perry’s cringe-worthy moment?

1. Be prepared and have your key points down cold. Yes, we are all human. Yes, we all make mistakes. But … good grief, the man is running for President of the United States! And he was not talking about some esoteric issue; he was talking about shutting down three major federal government agencies. That’s huge. If you are going to take that kind of position, you have to be able to name the agencies and articulate the rationale for abolishing each one at the drop of a hat.

2. Deal with the mistake quickly. Had Perry acknowledged that he had forgotten (around 0:15), he would have minimized the damage. But like a punch-drunk boxer, he kept coming back for more and each attempt just made it worse. By the end of the clip (at 0:53) you can hear someone (another candidate or one of the moderators) say “Oh my!”. It would have been much better if Perry had said “… commerce, education and … I’m sorry but I’ve just drawn a complete blank. I’ll come back to you with the third agency in a moment.” Doing so would have minimized the time spent on the issue, it would have moved the debate along and it would have given Perry time to collect his thoughts.

3. Organize your notes. At around 0:50, Perry shuffles through his notes to find the answer but quickly gives up. Your notes must be prepared in a manner that makes them useful. They should not be handwritten; they should not be typed in small font; they should not be written in paragraphs like an essay. They should be: (a) key points with sub-points; (b) typed in large, easy-to-read font; and (c) organized in a way that allows you to scan them easily, and quickly find what you are looking for.

4. Use humour, but use it the right way. Perry tried several times to use humour to defuse the situation, but he went about it the wrong way. Instead of poking fun at himself, he ended up making fun of the substantive issues:

• (0:15) “… and the, uh, what’s the third one there? Let’s see …” Remember the issue he is discussing—closing down a federal agency. He was just too glib about the “third one” as he tried to remember it. I doubt that many federal agency employees or their families found it funny.

• (0:25 – 0:30) In response to a suggestion by Mitt Romney that the third agency was the Environmental Protection Agency: “EPA! There you go! No, I’m kidding. Hah! [Slaps table.]” If Perry was looking for a quick way to alienate environmentalists, he succeeded. Worse, the line resulted in Perry having to offer a pitiful “No sir, no sir” to the moderator who asked if he was serious.

• (0:57) “Oops.” Really? “Oops”?! It’s not like he forgot to take out the garbage. He forgot which government agency he is planning to close!

Perry should have directed the humour toward himself. He could have, at the same time, taken a good-natured shot at his rivals. (After all, this is politics.) So, for example, he could have said something along the lines of “Clearly, I’ve been spending too much time around Mitt Romney.” Or, because he drew a blank while looking at Ron Paul, he might have said, “I’m sorry, I was momentarily hypnotized by Congressman Paul’s tie.” The important thing is to take yourself lightly but treat the issues with the utmost respect.

5. Don’t just say that you can’t remember; promise to find the answer. If you don’t know the answer to a question or if you forget your point, don’t just leave it at that, like Perry did. Instead, promise to find the answer and come back to it. Of course, in a televised debate, you don’t have the luxury of phoning the office or checking your email during a coffee break. Either you remember the answer or you find it in your (well organized) notes. (See Point 3 above.) In fact, later in the debate Perry did manage that the third agency was the Department of Energy, but by then it was too late.

Do you have any thoughts on Perry’s brain freeze? Or do you have any other ideas about how to handle the situation when you forget what you wanted to say?

My sincere thanks to all of you who have visited this blog. It has been a pleasure writing it. I am glad that so many of you find it useful, and greatly appreciate all the comments, emails, social media shares and constructive feedback.

Until the next post …

At 2:00 a.m., Anika’s turn to speak finally came.

Anika is to be commended for her presentation. By her own admission, she “hates public speaking” and was very nervous. There is certainly a lot that could be said about the ways in which she could improve her public speaking skills. But that would miss the point.

Anika is to be commended because she had the courage to speak in front of others—in a very public forum, no less—on a subject about which she cares deeply: preserving Toronto’s public libraries. Notwithstanding her nerves, Anika chose to speak rather than remain silent. I’m glad she did; her words clearly resonated with the audience.

We can all learn a lesson from Anika’s speech. Nerves are a normal part of public speaking. But if our nerves prevent us from sharing our ideas with the world, we are doing ourselves and others a great disservice. In the coming days, I will put up another post with some tips on handling public speaking nerves.

As for Anika, I hope that this experience bolsters her confidence and that she soon finds herself in front of other audiences. I suspect that she has many good ideas to share. With practice, persistence and patience, she could become an accomplished speaker.

For more on Anika’s story, here is an article from the Toronto Star. Thanks to my friend and fellow public speaker, Chris Colaço, for sending it to me.

The name “Helvetica” comes from Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland. Because I live in Switzerland, I am very familiar with the term. Swiss coins are stamped with “Confœderatio Helvetica” which is Latin for “Swiss Confederation”. That is also what the “CH” on Swiss license plates stands for.

Helvetica is an excellent font for presentation slides for several reasons:

• It is simple and elegant.
• It is easy to read.
• It is sans-serif.
• It is neutral and not distracting.
• It comes in a variety of weights and is very flexible. Here are 40 well known corporate logos that have been created with Helvetica.
• It works well on slides with lots of “white space” or “negative space”; i.e., space (of any colour) that is not filled with text, charts, etc.
• It is appropriate for all kinds of presentation situations; from conservative and serious to fun and unconventional.

What I did not know about Helvetica is that it is also the subject of a documentary film of the same name by Director Gary Hustwit. My thanks to Jan Schultink over at Idea Transplant for bringing it to my attention. (Be sure to visit Jan’s blog for excellent insights into presentation design.)

The film premiered in 2007 for the 50th anniversary of Helvetica. Here is a description from the film’s website:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

Here is the trailer for the film to give you an idea of just how prevalent the font is in our daily lives. Helvetica looks great. (The film and the font.)

So there you have it. A bit of history, a presentation tip and a movie recommendation all rolled into one post about the little font from Switzerland that has gone worldwide.

I could not let the occasion pass without expressing my sincere thanks to you, my readers, who have have provided me with terrific support, encouragement and feedback over these past two years. I will continue to do my best to make reading this blog worth your time.

The same holds true with our speeches and presentations. Every time we speak in public, we are being given an opportunity to toss a pebble into the still water that is our audience. Although we can never be entirely sure how far the ripples will extend, the possibilities are almost unlimited.

I recently had the privilege of working with members of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the World Health Organization (WHO) on their presentation skills. They are doing incredibly important work to rid the world of an age-old scourge. If you are interested, here’s how you can help.

As the workshop approached its conclusion, I left the participants with a final thought on the far-reaching effects of our words. I said that they can change the world in ways that we cannot know at the time we are speaking. And then I offered the following scenario:

• A member of the polio team prepares thoroughly and delivers a compelling presentation with conviction and passion.
• Because of the presentation, a member of the audience is persuaded to make a large financial contribution to the fight to eradicate polio.
• Because of that contribution, extra vials of vaccine can be purchased and additional personnel can be hired to distribute them.
• Because of the extra vaccine and additional personnel, the vaccine reaches a village that would otherwise have missed out.
• Because the vaccine reached the village, a little girl (or boy) is vaccinated.
• Because the little girl was vaccinated, she does not contract polio.
• Because she does not contract polio, she is able to concentrate in school and get good marks.
• Because she gets good marks, she is able to go to university where she becomes an engineer or an artist or businesswoman or, perhaps, a doctor.
• Because she becomes a doctor, she is one day involved in groundbreaking work that ultimately leads to the cure of some other disease.
• Because a cure is found, the lives of thousands of people are saved.

Now, stop and play it backwards:

• Thousands of lives were saved because a cure for a disease was discovered.
• The cure was discovered because the doctor was involved.
• The woman became a doctor because she went to university.
• She went to university because she got good marks in school.
• She got good marks because she was able to concentrate and work hard.
• She was able to concentrate and work hard because she did not get polio.
• She did not get polio because she was vaccinated.
• She was vaccinated because the vaccine reached her village.
• The vaccine reached her village because there was enough money to purchase the vaccine and hire the personnel to deliver it.
• The money was available because a person was persuaded to make a donation on the strength of a presentation.
• The presentation was compelling because the presenter put effort into its preparation and delivery.

Will this happen? I don’t know. Could it happen? Absolutely. And keep in mind that this is just one possible scenario of the effect of one presentation on one member of an audience and the impact that it had on one little girl. In my scenario, if you factor in the other members of the audience (and other audiences) and all the other children who are vaccinated as a result, the mind begins to boggle with all the exciting possibilities.

So whatever the subject matter of your next speech or presentation, spend a few moments thinking about the effect that your words could have. Like the ripples from a small pebble, they could extend far and wide in many directions.

Photo courtesy of zander x

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) American Orator and Political Leader

“I believe that one always does himself and his audience an injustice when he speaks merely for the sake of speaking. I do not believe that one should speak unless, deep down in his heart, he feels convinced that he has a message to deliver. When one feels, from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head, that he has something to say that is going to help some individual or some cause, then let him say it; and in delivering his message I do not believe that many of the artificial rules of elocution can, under such circumstances, help him very much. Although there are certain things, such as pauses, breathing, and pitch of voice, that are very important, none of these can take the place of soul in an address. When I have an address to deliver, I like to forget all about the rules for the proper use of the English language, and all about rhetoric and that sort of thing, and I like to make the audience forget all about these things, too.” — Booker T. Washington