There have been some interesting things going on in British newspapers this past week or so. We had Prince Harry’s gaffe reported as he was on videotape calling an army friend a “p*ki”. Immediately on the tail of that we had his father, Prince Charles, in the papers for having called an Asian Businessman “sooty”. Continue reading
Jan 12
Tearing up the Public Speaking Rulebook
I’ve written about the various tips and techniques of creating effective public speaking skills. A quick google search or a run through some of the peeps on my blogroll can reveal a lot more of the Dos and Don’ts. There’s advice on effective openings, structuring the body of your presentation and so on and so forth. But sometimes I really don’t think it’s necessary. Sometimes I think that the techniques we learn from books, workshops or places like Toastmasters can be thrown out the window entirely! Continue reading
Jan 08
Public Speaking Advice: Reading Audiences
I was General Evaluator at a Toastmasters club recently and, half-way through my evaluation, I noticed one of the audience members in the front row falling asleep. I’m not normally known for being the sort of soporific speaker to send someone into a slumber. My mind immediately began racing through my potential options whilst my mouth carried on on auto-pilot. Here were the choices as I saw them: Continue reading
Jan 07
Humour in the Workplace
There seems to be a lot of information out there at the moment about the benefits of using humor in the workplace. In fact on Google there are about 363,000 results (at the time of writing), so clearly it’s quite a popular subject area. But it’s a topic that concerns me. Gravely concerns me. Continue reading
Jan 04
What have you loved, learned and laughed at in 2008?
Happy New Year! So here we are right on the cusp of a new year (it’s the 4th of January 2009 as I write this). I always like to take this time of year for a little bit of reflection. I try not to just plough on into a new year without taking the time to have a little think about the previous year and remind myself what I’ve achieved and what I have yet to achieve.
Personally, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. I prefer to… Continue reading
