My buddy Laura Fitton pointed me to a terrific explanation of visualization techniques. The article is called “Data Visualization: Modern Approaches,” and it’s in Smashing Magazine. The techniques and uses examined are mindmaps, displaying news, displaying data, displaying connections, displaying websites, articles & resources, and tools & services. This picture is an example from Time [...]
Here’s a video featuring editors and reporters from the Wall Street Journal, Wired, TechCrunch, Seattle Times, and Seattle Post Intelligence discussing how entrepreneurs should pitch the press. You can also read the wrap up if you’re too busy to watch the video. Also, here's a video featuring only Michael Arrington from November, 2006. The short [...]
Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. This is her explanation of the top nine types of stories that people like to talk about. If you’re pitching your company to investors, customers, partners, journalists, vendors, or employees and you don’t use at least one of these story lines, [...]
There was such a positive response to the speaking tips of Doug Lawrence (email) that I asked him for more stuff. Taking a cue from the fact that “Bite your tongue” was the most popular tip, here are more: Warm-up with a towel. Singers often have to get their chops “up” in their hotel rooms [...]
I know that you might be sick of my Art of Innovation speech, but Zentation has created a very good way to view a PowerPoint-based speech that shows both the speaker and the current slide. Here is a sample to show you how it works.
My buddy Doug Lawrence has been a professional singer, music director, and speech coach. He is a highly respected concert artist having sung for almost forty years in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, and throughout Europe with conductors like Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson-Thomas. In the last forty years, in addition to singing, [...]
I love cool graphs. Here’s a visual representation of the federal budget. Guess what that big blue circle is on the left side of the chart.
Pam Slim provides a great list of things to do prior to making a presentation. If you make speeches, presentations, or pitches, you need to read this. Here’s one more power tip: Show up with your own Countryman E6i microphone. (And tell your host that you need a Shure or Sennheiser body pack.) This has [...]
Slideshare.net announced the winners of the World's Best Presentation Contest today: Winners (chose by judges) ShiftHappens by Jbrenman Meet Henry by Chereemoore Sustainable Food Lab by Chrislandry People’s Choice Winners PaniPuri--An Introduction by Thakkar ShiftHappens by Jbrenman Meet Henry by Chereeemoore The commonality you’ll see in these winners is big fonts, big graphics, and a [...]
At the Elite Retreat I gave an off-the-cuff answer to a question concerning getting the attention of venture capitalists. My buddy Wendy Piersall blogged about my answer, and it was a very popular. However, to truly help entrepreneurs, I’d like to provide a cogent list of the tips to get the attention of a venture [...]
SlideShare.net, a site for sharing PowerPoint presentations, today announced The World’s Best Presentation Contest. The judges are a “who’s who” of presentation gurus: Bert Decker, Garr Reynolds, Jerry Weissman, and me. Contestants upload their presentation files to Slideshare.net, and people from anywhere can rate the entries. Their votes will determine the “People’s Choice” winner. The [...]
More TED Talks are now online—though not the ones from this year. The last time I blogged about TED Talks, I made that claim that Majora Carter was as good as Steve Jobs and that created a controversy. One of my favorites is Richard St. John’s. It’s from 2005, but it’s still highly relevant. He [...]
This is a picture of my copy of Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days. It has broken my record for the “book with most stickies.” My system is that the stickies on the top edge are ideas for my next book, and the ones on the side are ideas for this blog. As [...]
The Nancy Ortberg sermon called “Jesus & Your Job” is now back online. Watch it and reap.
I heard a sermon this morning called “Jesus & Your Job” by Nancy Ortberg of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. This is a wonderful example of a powerful message delivered in a powerful way. It contains an excellent description of what makes good leaders and how to derive the maximum value from one’s work. I doubt [...]
George Lakoff is a professor at U.C. Berkeley Linguistics Department. He’s written a book called Don’t Think of an Elephant His message in this interview concerns how Republicans appear to be good “framers” and Democrats are lousy ones. Here are two questions from the interview: Question: How does language influence the terms of political debate? [...]
Check out this excellent compilation of visualization methods called “A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.” This came to my attention via a convoluted path from BoingBoing (who thanks Mike Love) to Seth Godin to Acorn Creative. Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler created it. You might also enjoy reading their paper, entitled “Towards a Periodic [...]
Communications coach Bert Decker just named the ten best and worst communicators of 2006. To whet your appetite, here is the ten worst list: Nancy Grace Barry Bonds Mel Gibson Ray Tillerson Lindsay, Paris, Britney, and Nicole Senator George Allen OJ Simpson Shaquille O’Neal Rosie, Katie, and Meredith George Bush Check out his ten best [...]
Here’s a New Year’s resolution for entrepreneurs: ”I will fix my pitch.“ And here’s a suggestion on how to do this written by Bill Reichert, my colleague at Garage Technology Ventures. Endless articles, books, and blogs have been written on the topic of business plan presentations and pitching to investors. In spite of this wealth [...]
Scott Kirsner wrote a great article called “12 Guidelines for Great Panels.” Check it out here. If you read "How to Be a Great Moderator" and "How to Kick Butt on a Panel," you’d have panels down to a science. I have an additional insight regarding panels. Most panels have audiences of 100 to 250 [...]