Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 251) – Marie Curie
“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.” Marie Curie
When is your next public speaking engagement?
It doesn’t have to be a TED Talk or a formal presentation at a conference. It could be a five-minute status report on your project at the next team meeting; it could be saying a few words about a colleague at a farewell lunch; it could be Skype call to your sales reps. It all […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 250) – Seth Godin
“You are not being judged, the value of what you are bringing to the audience is being judged. The topic of the talk isn’t you, the topic of the talk is the audience, and specifically, how they can use your experience and knowledge to achieve their objectives.” Seth Godin
Huge mistake at the Oscars and the lessons to learn
I didn’t think that I would be writing another post of this nature so soon after the huge mistake that was made at the 2015 Miss Universe Pageant, but here we are. Again. This time, it was the Oscars.In case you missed it, chaos reigned at the end of the 2017 Academy Awards. The presentation […]
Squeezing the last minute out of a session
Seth Godin is the author of several books about “marketing, the spread of ideas and managing both customers and employees with respect”. They are bestsellers. His blog is one of my favourites. squeezing In this blog post from 21 February 2017, Seth reminds us that less is more and that conclusions are important. Plan appropriately so that […]
R.I.P. Hans Rosling (1948 – 2017)
I was saddened to learn of the death of Hans Rosling early this morning. He was a Swedish doctor, statistician, public speaker and Professor of International Health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. He was also one of the best known presenters at TED. Rosling had a passion and a gift for making complicated data interesting and understandable for […]
Lessons in Simplicity from Apple's Former Ad Agency Creative Director
I recently read an article in a British Airways inflight magazine about the lessons in simplicity that we can learn from Apple. It was written by Ken Segall and is entitled “Keep it simple”. Segall served as Apple’s ad agency creative director for more than 12 years. The article contains a number of insights about the power of […]
Analysis of Donald Trump's Inaugural Address
On 20 January 2017, Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. He takes office at the end of the most acrimonious campaigns in recent history, and with Americans deeply divided, as witnessed by the protests that erupted across the country (and the world) the next day. Embed from Getty Images […]
Some "very" good advice
“Very” is a dangerous word. Mark Twain once gave the following advice to writers: Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. American novelist and columnist Florence King was of the same opinion: ‘Very’ is the most useless word in […]
Tagged grammarMark Twainpublic speakingself-developmentverywriting