Effective Communication and Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 12th, 2021
Doug 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 publicly weep in frustration. Governing effectively in uncharted pandemic territory is like leading a country in wartime: the challenges are legion and unpredictable. Addressing them […]
read more...Four communication lessons from Doug Ford and Jason Kenney
Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
December 22nd, 2020
A 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 looked up at the end, she was the only one remaining. Everyone else had bailed from sheer boredom — and he hadn’t even noticed. (She […]
read more...How to reduce your dependency on speaking notes
Increase 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 she earned a coveted academic research grant usually awarded to PhD students even though she’d just completed a bachelor’s degree. She also speaks three languages. […]
read more...4 incentives to liberate you from reading your speaking notes
Increase 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 that had earned me the speaking invitation, In Your Face – The Culture of Beauty and You, was an award-winning Canadian best-seller. But my ability […]
read more...The value of candid criticism from reliable sources
Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
December 11th, 2019
I 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 global leadership conference hosted by the International Women’s Forum. The IWF’s 1100-plus attendees were assembled in a cavernous Toronto hotel ballroom featuring massive screens designed […]
read more...Cry if you want to: Anatomy of a 15-minute high-stakes keynote
Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 25th, 2018
Why 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 for a presentation skills workshop? I asked myself this the first time the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) hired me to deliver such workshops. […]
read more...Women need to let go of perfectionism: it’s the enemy of good (and of engagement)
Effective Communication, Improve your Writing and Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
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 neck with this one from 1998: “Puncuashun, and speling, to strick.” Translated, this means “Punctuation and spelling too strict.” (Which, I’m pretty sure, totally redeems […]
read more...Critical feedback is one key to success
Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
May 15th, 2017
I 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 I made after watching a video of myself delivering a conference keynote in Winnipeg. That’s the bad news. The good news is that 1. the […]
read more...Storytelling and the power of visual feedback
Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
April 27th, 2017
Brilliance, 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 it wasn’t the lesson he was intending to teach). Although my parents may have been disappointed that I dropped sciences in grade 11, I’ve never […]
read more...Five Steps to Overcoming Public Speaking Nerves
Increase Your Impact as a Speaker and Presenter
November 3rd, 2016
My 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 sense of humour, and a strong and unique voice, which I could hear in my head as I wrote. Because she was a minister, and […]
read more...Less is more (how your mobile’s stop watch will improve your speaking)