Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 12th, 2021Doug Ford’s mis-management of the COVID-19 crisis has put the Ontario premier in the crosshairs of parents, teachers, restaurant owners and frontline workers alike; it’s caused health care leaders to […]
read more...Four communication lessons from Doug Ford and Jason KenneyIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
December 22nd, 2020A woman once told me about having attended her thesis supervisor’s presentation at an academic conference. It took him almost 20 minutes to read his research paper aloud. When he […]
read more...How to reduce your dependency on speaking notesIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
December 2nd, 2020“I’m trying to sound smart.” These words broke my heart when I heard them from a workshop participant last week. The young woman who uttered them is so accomplished that […]
read more...4 incentives to liberate you from reading your speaking notesIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
October 6th, 2020“Find another profession.” That was the blunt assessment of one high school student who sat through a presentation I gave in Saskatoon 15 years ago. The youth-targeted media literacy book […]
read more...The value of candid criticism from reliable sourcesIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
December 11th, 2019I don’t recommend crying on stage if you can avoid it. So I didn’t. But I wanted to. Last month, I got to deliver a 15-minute TED-style talk to a […]
read more...Cry if you want to: Anatomy of a 15-minute high-stakes keynoteIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 25th, 2018Why would 80 women who spend most of their working hours talking to people from the front of a room be nervous enough about their speaking ability to sign up […]
read more...Women need to let go of perfectionism: it’s the enemy of good (and of engagement)Effective Communication
July 18th, 2017“Great lectures, bad hair.” Clearly, I’m no Einstein, but in the fight for my most memorable student evaluation as a university communications instructor, that comment from 1992 runs neck and […]
read more...Critical feedback is one key to successIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 15th, 2017I undermined the impact of my opening. I relied on my notes too much. I failed to advance my slides as intended. Those are just three of the critical observations […]
read more...Storytelling and the power of visual feedbackIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
April 27th, 2017Brilliance, without the capacity to communicate it, is wasted. I learned this in grade 10 chemistry from the intellectually-gifted, but communicationally-impaired Mr. Philipps. Sadly, that’s about all I learned (and […]
read more...Five Steps to Overcoming Public Speaking NervesIncrease Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
November 3rd, 2016My cabinet minister client was a speechwriter’s dream: She had deep knowledge of, inspirational passion for, and a lifetime of stories relevant to her portfolio. She also had a great […]
read more...Less is more (how your mobile’s stop watch will improve your speaking)