By Barry Mohn Miles Davis’s album, Kind of Blue, is regarded as one of the most influential jazz albums of all time.   Its music offers lessons for musicians of all genres, and its techniques offer interesting parallels and lessons for presenters. Here are three jazz elements that apply to presentations: 1. Improvisation – Miles Davis called for almost no rehearsals before recording Kind of Blue.   He provided the other musicians [...]

After reviewing hundreds of writing samples from workshops in 2011, three writing basics stand out as necessary to make writing positive and clear. Test your daily writing for these: 1. Positive wording:  Attitude, attitude, attitude.  Doesn’t it make a big difference? We all enjoy working with people who come at a problem with a constructive approach—those who take time to consider all possible solutions.  These people’s attitudes are reflected in [...]

By Andrew Moore I recently had a chance to review your work and what I found shocked me. Of course, I don’t know you from Adam, but did I get your attention? Are you curious to know what shocked me? An opening line that draws in your readers is the best way to generate interest in your writing. In journalism, it’s called the lead, and it’s the most important sentence [...]

By Alison Rosen I’m one of those weirdos who actually enjoys public speaking, so I was surprised, early this summer, when the thought of giving a toast at my sister’s wedding began to fill me with dread. It wasn’t so much that I had to stand up in front of people and talk—I’ve been doing variations of that sort of thing on TV, on the radio, on podcasts, in front [...]

By Andrew Moore Have you ever opened an email to realize you need to block out half your day to get through it? How many of us have opened one of these monsters and scrolled to the end before even beginning to read it, just to mentally prepare ourselves? Email has revolutionized the workplace, but like all communication, it’s only effective if it gets and maintains our attention.  And in [...]

By Barry Mohn Occum’s Razor, loosely interpreted, is a principle stating that the simplest method is often the best.  Philosopher William of Ockham surely would have approved of clustering then. Clustering, believed to have started in Roman times, is a technique that helps create a hierarchy of ideas around a central purpose or problem.  Circa 75 BC, Cicero etched clusters for his speeches on clay tablets.  Today, third graders mark [...]

By Andrew Moore In a famous scene from the Steve Martin remake of “Father of the Bride,” Martin’s character heads to the supermarket in a huff, tasked by his wife to buy something for dinner. Frustrated that hot dogs come in packages of eight and buns in packages of 12, Martin begins opening the bun packages and ripping out the extra buns, telling a stunned clerk that he is removing [...]

In school, we were taught to write sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, and to package that writing into a neat narrative.  Maybe our teachers thought we would all grow up to be journalists or authors.   I don’t know about you, but the dreams of hiding out in a rustic mountain cabin, sipping scotch, and laying down eloquent words onto the pages of my next great novel ended a [...]

That’s right, Star Wars.  You know—Luke, Leia, and lightsabers—the George Lucas classic that we’ll never forget.  That one. So what on Planet Alderaan does Star Wars have to do with presentations? Let me explain.  Star Wars follows a quintessential three-act structure.  In fact, not just Star Wars, but many movies, plays, and books progress this way.  So too should your next presentation.  Why?  Because a three-act structure provides an organized [...]

Funny.  I came across a pamphlet the other day from a workshop that my grandfather attended in 1958 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  The title of the workshop was Making Meetings Effective.  I had to laugh because, 52 years later, I deliver a workshop on that very topic. Furthermore, after flipping through the 19-page pamphlet, I realized that the tips my grandfather learned so long ago are nearly identical [...]