Communications Pro Blog

Archive for May, 2010

We gave a talk today about LinkedIn. I think the group was surprised when I shared that I don’t LinkIn to someone unless I have actually had a face-to-face meeting or a decent phone conversation with them.
I see so many people competitively collecting connections as if they are going for some prize – and in the long run, I think these folks are really losing out –big time.
I would much rather have quality connections versus quantity connections in life and social networking.
There are two or three people on my LinkedIn connections who seem to have connected with the world. Yet when I approached one of these individuals recently to see if they could open the door and pick up the phone to introduce me to one of their connections, the response was – ‘well, I really don’t know him well enough to do that.’ Then why on earth are you LinkedIn to that person. It’s just a waste of time really.
So the next time someone asks you to LinkIn, ask yourself, do I know this person well enough to pick up the phone and open the door for them to one of my connections. If the answer is no, just don’t do it.

We are just back from the Main Line Chamber of Commerce’s Society of Professional Women, held last night at the Radisson in King of Prussia. The topic of the talk was “What Not to Wear to Work.” Three brave women within the SPW ranks were ‘nominated’ for makeovers. The panel did a fantastic job in terms of co-presenting. Often co-presenters step on one another’s toes, but in this case they all worked together as a team.
Megan Kristel of Kristel Closets served as the moderator and fielded questions to Beke Beau, a Make-up Artist, and Van Ou, owner of Bubbles Salon in Bryn Mawr. Audience members went to a central microphone to pose their question, which was so much better than having audience members shout out their questions.
Co-presenting or being a part of a panel discussion takes a lot of pressure off of you as a public speaker. The event was very well organized and just a fun evening of networking and receiving valuable image information. Kudos to the Main Line Chamber and the Makeover Team.

Just back from a professional meeting of trainers in the Greater Philadelphia area. The speaker, who was billed as a public speaking expert, failed to deliver on so many fronts. Her topic was Web 2.0. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when their were two screens set up with projectors aimed at each screen. But what I wasn’t expecting were animations coming at me left and right. My head still hurts.

The lights were fully dimmed at the front of the room, so she was not able to make eye contact with her audience. The lights to the rear of the room were full blast and shining down on the audience, forcing us to strip layer upon layer of clothing off. It was not pretty.

There was no attention getting opening. There was no personal story. There was little to know gesturing or vocal variety. There was no connection with 97 percent of her audience. The 3 percent who tuned into her were geeks who stole her show.

Forty minutes into the presentation I stopped taking notes and shutdown. I wrote a note to a colleague who drove into the city with me that my head hurt and I would meet him in the lobby when he had had enough. He was through too. Just as we made the decision to bolt, the fire alarm went off. Saved by the bell and we were out the door before the announcement came on that it was a false alarm.

Usually I would try to stay through the presentation and give the speaker the benefit of the doubt. However, this was a classic case of knowing when to fold.

According to a Gallup poll, more Americans fear public speaking than they do death. A full 96 million of those polled put public speaking at the top of their list of fears, followed by death as a close second.

Sometimes the fear is warranted. If you don’t develop your message and properly plan for your speech, you will have butterflies, dry mouth and a shaky voice. To relieve the tension, make sure you have put in the proper amount of planning and practice time for your talk.

On-Site
Once you are at the event, set up early, even if you have to set up, walk away, and come back at the appointed time. If you are using your own laptop for a PowerPoint presentation, make sure you have the proper cables to hook into a projector. If you are using someone else’s laptop, send them a copy of the PowerPoint well in advance to ensure that your version is compatible with their machine.

Co-present
If you have someone you can co-present with, it takes a lot of pressure off of you as the sole presenter. However, you must practice with the co-presenter to make sure you don’t step on each other’s toes. If you have access to a wire-free lavaliere microphone, you will be able to roam some and not be stuck presenting behind the podium.

Don’t Hide
Station yourself at or near the door to greet and get to know your audience. You might ask if you could sit in on the group’s meeting a month or so before your talk to get to know your audience.

Dealing with Stomach Butterflies
Do deep breathing exercises and repeat this mantra: “I am relaxed, confident, and calm.” Do not try to calm down by using alcohol or drugs. Also, the old saying of visualizing your audience in their underwear really doesn’t work.

Develop a strong opening statement that connects with the audience and memorize this statement. Make sure you have some Imodium or other anti-diarrhea medication on hand just in case you need it. Take it in advance of the speech if you feel your insides caving in. The last thing you want to do is excuse yourself to deal with intestinal issues.

Dry Mouth
Take a glass or bottle of water to the podium and take a gulp as you are being introduced. You might consider a small mint, like a Tic Tac, placed strategically inside your cheek. Do not suck on a full-size mint as you will only distract your audience. If all else fails, bite your tongue to stimulate saliva.

Wardrobe
You should wear comfortable and polished shoes – your feet help “balance” your voice. If wearing a tie, don’t tighten the knot too much as it will effect your breathing and intonation. Remove keys and change from your pockets so that you don’t jingle them and distract the audience.

Do not wear anything too flashy that might detract from your message; This includes low cut blouses, mini-skirts and dangling earrings. If you are not used to wearing high heels, then don’t try to on the day of your speech – you will be focusing on your aching feet and not your message. Control top pantyhose will inhibit your ability to breathe and relax.

Pregnant pauses
Ask a friend to count your “ums” and “ahs” and practice replacing them with pregnant pauses in which you simply breathe deeply for a second or two. Use pregnant pauses particularly while fielding questions, and definitely repeat the question so that the whole audience can hear it. Remember, a question is your opportunity to reinforce your message to the audience.

Practice, Practice, Practice
Sign up for a six-month membership at a local Toastmasters Club. At these meetings you can practice your speeches in a supportive environment. The more you present, the less you will stress when going to a podium.

The more you get used to doing presentations, the less stressful they will become. Even after doing hundreds of presentations, we still get a bit nervous before a presentation. After all, we are only human. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

I babysit for two boys not far from my home twice a month. I don’t do it for the money. I do it because my three nieces and three nephews are pretty well grown up and I really, really like children. These boys let me get back to my inner child, and that’s a good thing. They don’t watch TV and the older one visits the web on rare, supervised occasions.
So when I visit their lovely Victorian home every other week, we simply play. Sometimes we play a game we made up called the Magical Maze of Mystery on the trampoline. Other nights we play Uno, or Candyland, or Twister! What fun. Their mom usually goes to the library or for a bike ride or cross country skiing and leaves us to our play. She usually prepares a nice (mostly) vegetarian meal and I finish it off and serve. After the dishes are done, we play some more. Fusball, freeze tag, Chutes and Ladders – are all fare game.
Recently there has been a haze over all of this. First, the family car was accidentally left unlocked one night and some creep took two backpacks and some small change. Their mother thought she might have had a spare key in the vehicle, so the locks were changed too. Then the next door neighbor’s home was burglarized. Not good.
This is where the power of suggestion comes into play.
My husband informed me that a gas station, in between their home and ours, had been robbed at gunpoint at dusk one night. He reminded me of this as I was leaving for my play date on a Wednesday night, which is not my typical night to sit.
The older boy was psyched to go with his Mom and his friend to a book signing and talk by an author they were big fans of. It was the first time the younger boy, age 5, and I would be home alone together.
I approached their home and saw my lively crew on the deck having an early dinner. We chatted for a spell. Life was calming down to their pace; no cell phones, no Internet, now worries, or so I thought. Then, while the younger boy was seeing the group off out front, I went back to my car at the rear of the property to retrieve my cell phone ‘just in case of an emergency.’ He was out front for all of two minutes, and I was back and forth to my Jeep in that time. But the doors were open and that could have been enough time for someone to enter the home. I didn’t think about it at the time, but once we were inside I suspected we weren’t alone. Something just didn’t feel right. I thought I heard noises.
We played a storytelling game for a while and then I suggested we write the story down and illustrate it. My young study was all game. As we were in the process of putting ‘our book’ together, I absolutely did hear noises upstairs. I left him alone and went to explore. The noises were not coming from the family cat as she was clearly in sight by the window – one of many windows and doors in this house. I went up the stairs and continued to hear noises, and then some moaning in the master bath. I announced myself and said I was calling the police. The only response was more muffled moaning. My heart raced and I will be the first to admit that panic set in. I picked up a Swiffer mop in the hallway as my only defense, and ran down the stairs with phone in hand ready to call 911.
I told my charge that someone was in the house and we should go quietly out the side door. His eyes grew wide, but he trusted and followed me. I called the police. Why wouldn’t I?
Once on the side of the house, I felt safer and as I was giving details to the dispatcher I noted that there was a strange car in the front driveway. The boy tugged on my now perspiration-drenched sundress and told me it was the cleaning lady’s car. Ding. I felt like a fool and told the dispatcher that I think we solved the mystery. Still, because it was a 911 call, they needed to send an officer out. I went in and confronted and then apologized to the cleaning woman, who had been upstairs for some time and the boy figured she had left. The moaning I heard was from her trying to scrub mildew off the stall shower, which is why she didn’t hear me. The mother and older boy, in their rush to get to the book signing, failed to tell me that someone else was in the home. We all had a good laugh about it after the fact.
The younger boy now had bragging rights to tell his older brother that the cops showed up and he had talked to them while his older sibling had missed out on all of the excitement by going to ‘some silly book signing.’
The whole episode raises the issue of the power of suggestion. Do you find yourself reading the business pages and hearing how bad the economy is, and using it as an excuse when you don’t get a piece of work? If you say you are hot and cranky, you and others around you, tend to become hot and cranky. Before I get up to give a talk, I have a mantra I say over and over again. “I am relaxed, confident, and calm.” It generally works. Next time, use the power of suggestion to your advantage and see if it works in a positive way.