I’ve been speaking in front of groups for 40 years. The current pandemic has turned some of those live events into virtual connections or recordings. The audience is remote, or missing. And that changes things completely. A speech or class is not a one-way communication. Obviously, if there is an audience, they can ask questions….
I never planned on speaking five times at the Content Marketing Conference. Because that’s just nuts. The conference is in Boston on 16-19 April. This will be my fourth time speaking there; Byron White of WriterAccess curates a great collection of speakers and it’s always a blast. Honestly, I go to a lot of conferences,…
I delivered my Writing Without Bullshit workshop and seminar this morning to 72 people at the Content Marketing Conference. When you are in front of an audience, you can immediately tell what resonates — you hear laughter, see heads nodding, and hear a warm murmur of sympathy. So what resonated with these writers? “81% of…
I made a pretty decent living as a writer this year, and I’m grateful — not many writers can say that. I thought it might help other writers and whatever friends and fans I have out there to peek into how I did it, so here’s a retrospective of a writer’s life in 2017. I…
The PRSA 2017 International Conference is in Boston this year, starting this weekend. My talk on Monday at 5pm is called “How to Think Like an Analyst (or Influence One).” It’s in the Suffolk room at the Marriott Copley Place. I’ll be covering topics including: What is a thought leader? How are thought leaders different…
As an author, I get called on to do speeches from time to time. My Writing Without Bullshit speech is now connecting pretty well, based on how audiences are reacting to it. The reason is that, like my writing, it’s tight: every slide has a purpose, and most of those purposes have a payload. It…
My speaking schedule is filling up. You can hear me talk about the absurdity of the way we communicate — and what to do about it — at the following events. Yankee Chapter of the PR Society of America (PRSA) Newington (NH) May 2 at 3:30pm Great Lakes Oracle Conference Cleveland, May 18, keynote speech at 9:45am, then…
The best way to hook an audience is to start with a story. The best way to get people to read what you write is with a descriptive title and a few summary sentences (or as journalists call it, a lede). How do you resolve these contradictory pieces of advice? When I got this question…
Donald Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress was typical of such addresses. It was unusual for Trump in that it was clear, well-structured, and got most of the facts right — but like the average State of the Union, it was a mixed bag of gritty legislative proposals and pabulum. Let’s take a look at…