Talk to the Human™

http://www.speakerblogger.com/

I’ve been working with Arlen Busenitz on a new project, and we have taken it live this week. SpeakerBlogger.com is our new site to Help  individuals take their experience & passion and create a platform to help others and make a profit. 

Take a look now, and sign up to get our free e-book, 7 Steps to Turn Your Passion & Experience into Profit.

Check back as we’ll be putting 2-3 posts a week and going into more depth on the 7 steps. National experts will also be sharing their thoughts through guest articles.

Are today’s students learning the wrong lesson from college?

I decided to try this Starbucks place everyone is talking about. No, it’s not a flashback post. I’m just not a coffee drinker, so I’m sitting here drinking an Orange Mango Smoothie, extra plastic top, extra grande straw, looking for a different view on things as I write today’s post.

My usual hangout for this type of change-of-scenery is Barnes and Noble. But since I’m a book-and-a-half behind schedule (see myLinkedIn booklist) I didn’t want any temptation to buy another book for the queue (and, there are two books in my Amazon cart screaming at me to click ‘buy’).

Bam! As luck would have it, a group of college students are chatting, led by someone with an interesting accent. She is going over some information for what must be some type of business class project. Did I mention that I like the accent? I hear occasional references to manufacturing, distribution, sales forecasts and other related issues as they huddle around a 15″ widescreen laptop, enjoying the same free Wi-Fi as I am.

As I sit here typing, I hear numbers changing and evidence of a running simulation. One surprising fact I notice -  the laptop is a Gateway. Hmmm. I thought college students all used Macs, especially ones who meet at Starbucks to do their homework over a grande half-caf tall latte. Myth busted.

Oh well, back to the point of the post. What could the wrong lesson be? Good question. As they were discussing strategy and distribution channels, one of the team asked a question, and the fearless leader replied “I outsourced the manufacturing. It was easier.”

Shipping jobs out of the country, even hypothetically, is bad enough when it’s because of being cheaper (and yes, they mentioned that fact too).  But tell me that you are doing it in because it’s easier, and now I’m worried.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naive. I know ease (i.e. managerial laziness) is one of the more compelling reason to outsource. For all the talks of cost savings, it’s becoming more evident that some of our big corporation outsourcing efforts really don’t save the money expected, once you take all of the costs into account.

Have I rambled on enough for you to figure out the real point of this article? That’s right. This isn’t about college, politics, or outsourcing (all fun topics, to be sure). It’s about writing. Can you handle the truth? When you sit in the same room day after day, you are in danger of becoming stagnant.

Have you ever noticed that happening with your writing, or your speaking? What are you prepared to do to get out of that funk? Are you willing to chip-in $6.37 to keep your local Starbucks afloat? Are you willing to sit in semi-comfortable pleather chairs and listen to your local college students solve the world’s problems? What is stopping you from making the change?

Believe it or not, tonight’s post wouldn’t have had a single word about outsourcing if I would have written it at home. And while I don’t expect to write any more on the subject soon, going on a different tangent once in a while frees up the mind to consider some new points of view.

Side note: do some research later on Mac vs. PC use at the local University, and write a post about the wonders of free Wi-Fi relative to not-so-free coffee.

So maybe I’m wrong, and this team of five students isn’t learning the wrong lesson in college. Maybe instead they are helping me learn the write lesson at Starbucks…

In Part one, you learned the first steps to creating an Icebreaker speech; the first speech you will give in your Toastmasters club.

For this lesson, we’ll take our example message and work on our opening remarks. You may wonder how we can craft these without determining our three main points, right?

Good call. Let’s draft out those three points first. In part four (after developing the closing in part three) we will deal with developing those three points further. But for now we can use a farily easy technique to draft out these points.

For the example message, lets look at a basic chronological Icebreaker speech.
First Point: Where I grew up
Second Point: Where I work
Third Point: My family and hobbies

For the opening, we want to:
1. Avoid pointless pleasantries
2. Make our promise
3. Provide a road-map

What are pointless pleasantries? Things like “glad to be here”, “nice weather”, “Mr. toastmaster”, or anything that doesn’t add to the value of your conversation with the audience. Better to open with a powerful question, a story or a relevant quote.

What about the promise? “In the next five minutes you are going to learn a bit more about me and what brought me to this Toastmasters club”

And the road-map? This is just a way to let them know what those three main points are.

“Dr. Stephen Covey says the seventh habit of highly effective people is to ‘Sharpen the Saw.’ In the next 5 minutes you are going to hear a bit about my life, and what brought me here to sharpen my saw with you. First, you’ll learn about where I was raised, then what I do for XYZ company here in Wichita. Finally you’ll hear about what I like to do with my off-work time and why I’ve added Toastmasters to my life.”

Then you’ll finish the opening with a transition to first main point:

“Of course, being a Toastmaster isn’t what I thought I would be doing when I grew up. In fact, would you believe in high school I wanted to be an Architect? Here’s what really happened…”

That is a simple opeing for the Icebreaker speech. Next would be that first point about growing up. We’ll discuss that more later in the week, along with the other main points.

Tomorrow, we’ll work on the closing statement. This is where you want your best story or other material. You may look to tie it to the opening, such as “I may not have become an Architect, but now I …”

The rest of the closing tomorrow…

<Editors note: Here is an excellent (and recent) related blog entry from Craig Valentine. http://www.craigvalentine.com/open-your-speech-and-open-their-minds/>

I read another great post today on Men with Pens. This post, titled How to find your writing voice leads with the same picture as this post (yes, I stole it). My point: when you want to find your speaking voice, you may want to start by examining your writing voice.

In fact, the main reason I read writing blogs like Men with Pens is to improve my speaking. After all, how can I write great (or even decent) speeches if…I…can’t…write???

Just a thought…

<Note: Part Two of the Icebreaker post is being pushed to tomorrow>

For the next few days, let’s learn about crafting an Icebreaker speech for a Toastmasters meeting. The Icebreaker is generally the first speech given in a Toastmasters club, and sometimes elicits a bit of anxiety in new members.

For most speaking, I would suggest beginning with some audience analysis. Who is your audience and how can your speaking benefit them? For this project, the main thing to consider is that your audience is a group of Toastmasters who want to see you succeed, and the best way you can benefit them is to let them know a little about you.

For future projects, we’ll take more time with this concept. But for the Icebreaker, it’s not as critical.

After you know your audience, the next step is to decide on your message. Again, this is one of those rare projects where the overarching plan is there for you: tell who you are. Since you have but a scant 4-6 minutes, you do want to be a bit more specific. Here are some ideas:

1. Talk about who you are in your current job
2. Talk about your experience as a college student
3. Talk about your experience in the military
4. Start from zero, and give a brief overview of your upbringing
5. Tell what made you decide to join Toastmasters, and what your goals are

As you determine your message, it may lead you to decide on how to deliver that message. You also may need to take some time to determine the best method. That is the last step, deciding on your delivery.

You can use many techniques in delivering your message, but the one that tends to work best for the Icebreaker is Chronological. We’ll discuss some of the other techniques in future projects.

With just 4-6 minutes, you may choose to tell one or two stories, or you may decide to use three main points (i.e. 1. Where you were born and went to High School, 2. College, and 3. Where you work).

The three main points method is easy to set up in structure, and wil work well for a variety of projects in the future.

For the next step (tomorrow’s post) we’ll take an example message and work though the process of creating an opening and a closing, and then move on to our three main points.

<Ed Note: Part two will be posted on Thursday evening>

Do you struggle to get your ideas heard and remembered? Maybe you are having trouble deciding what your core message is? Maybe you don’t know that you need a core message?

In the book Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, the authors discuss a logical and repeatable two step process you can use to make your message stick.

Have you heard (or read) the story about the guy who gets drugged and wakes up in a bathtub full of ice? The “stolen kidney story” has pretty serious stickiness, where your last meeting probably does not. Chances are you can describe a number of specific facts from that kidney story, but nothing from the last staff meeting you attended. What is the difference?  

First, the message is simple. Not simple as in dumbed-down, but simple as in “core”. What is the message? “Don’t take free drinks from strangers.”

Second, it fits into the SUCCESs formula, described in the book: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions and Stories.

Simple: The message not to take free drinks from strangers
Unexpected: Waking up in a bathtub full of Ice? Hello
Concreteness: Very specific steps in the process
Credible: E-mailed to you from a friend, happened in Vegas (in some versions) and we all know anything is possible there, and we know there is a black market need for kidneys (according to TV and Internet sources)
Emotional: You could lose a kidney!
Story: Presented in a short, readable story format

Knowing that, you can take the first step in getting your message received and repeated like the kidney story. Find your message, and make it simple. 10 words or less is ideal. If you can’t state it clearly, how will your audience understand it?

Simple: Find your message

Are you struggling for a topic for your next college paper, staff meeting, or pending speaking opportunity? One of the ways to get a number of ideas on the table is to do a brain dump. Now, don’t confuse this with simple brainstorming, which is very similar. This type of brain dump won’t be about simply generating ideas, but about getting what’s already cloggin’ up your mind down on paper.

I attended a class recently, and the instructor made a great point by saying that we tend to manage our time and schedules from multiple lists, including one in our head. I won’t belabor the studies and statistics, but the fact is moving all of your lists to a single location does three things (and did for me):

1. Puts all or your obligations in one place – easy to sort and control
2. Frees up space in you mind, less worrying “did I forget something?”
3. Lets you identify “quick victories” that you can knock out and be done with.

One misconception: If you put it all on one list, the list will be too long. Guess what? The list is already that long. You are just hiding the length by not looking at it as a whole. I know I was and so were the others in my class.

Now the class I took, ran by The Effective Edge, suggested placing this list into MS Outlook as tasks. I agree with that idea, if you are an Outlook user. If not, grab a pen and paper or open a word processing program and let’s get started.

Another misconception: Your work list should stay at work and your home list should stay at home. Really? Does anyone truly compartmentalize that list in their own minds? Probably not. One list. Period. It doesn’t mean you do a bunch of home stuff at the office, but if it’s on the same list, you can see it and not have to worry about it.

Also, are you asking yourself how this is a writing tip? Here’s the answer. Anything you write is writing. For those of you that are expert writers, this is a great idea for emptying your mind. For those that are not great writers, this is a great way to get some thoughts on paper and find out that you can write!

Here are the steps:

1. Spend 10 minutes listing every thing you can think of that is on your mental “to-do” list and just write them down (or type them).
2. If you get stuck, go through all of the major categories in your life (i.e. work, home – yourself, home – family, car, house, church, school, spouse, kid(s), parents, siblings, Toastmasters, etc.)
3. Breathe

Don’t worry about prioritizing. Just categorize it. For big items (i.e. finish college), figure out the next task (i.e. finish economics report). Once you do that task, you can figure out the next one.

Just getting this part done will really free your mind up. You may want to repeat this exercise from time-to-time, as you may find yourself migrating back to your old mental list style. Bonus! This list could serve to give you some ideas for that next paper or presentation we talked about in the opening. If not, it should at least free up your mind to think about some things besides your to-do list.

Put it on paper and keep moving forward!

This week I’m going to add something new to the blog: The weekly column. Starting early next week, I’m going to do a weekly post on a series of topics. The first series will be about habits of successful entrepreneurs. This will be loosely based on a similar concept to Covey’s Seven Habits, and based on my experience and learning how to be successful as an independent consultant.

The reasons?

Like the book reviews on Sundays, this will be something I intend to do on a regular basis.
I can cover a variety of topics over a specific period of time.
Reader can have something to look forward to.

This might be something you could try for yourself, as a writer or as a speaker. Come up with a topic and spread it out over a few weeks, and work on one point per week until you have your topic covered.

Expect to see the first weekly column this Monday evening.

Once again I’ve been surprised by some killer content.

I recently posted on my woes with customer service at a well-known blog. I was looking for help with my blog-writing skills, and I found a product that sounded promising. When there was a snafu with the automated process and a lack of support from the site owners, I decided to start looking elsewhere for the right product.

I want to clue you in on a couple of sites I found, although I will say up front I haven’t made any purchasing decisions yet. The reason I want to make these sites seen is that they make my list of sites with great free content as well as the option for premium services.

The first one I found is remarkablogger.com, written by Michael Martine. If you’re able to look past the fact that he lives in Vermont (now you know they have the Internet there), I think you’ll find his blog interesting and his writing creative and fun to read.

For his premium content, he has a course on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for WordPress users (like me). All hail WordPress. His program has a book, audio files, and video lessons and has caught my interest. At $127.99 it could be a really good investment. If you happen to have used this product, or even any of the parts (e.g. the $47 book), I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Michael’s site led me to Chris Garrett’s site. I’ve heard Chris’ name before, but had just never checked out his site. One thing I found of interest right away was his attitude. He has a very positive focus and the thing we all need: a successful acronym. His regular readers will know that one of the things he teaches is what he calls the “ARC System” which stands for (this part taken from his blog):

• Attraction – Getting people to come to you
• Retention – Getting people to stay
• Conversion – Getting people to take an action, usually a purchase

His site also had some interesting premium options. If you look at www.authorityblogger.com you will seewhat looks to be a very extensive product for being successful with your blog. In fact, if you’re early in your blog/business life and really need a jump-start, this looks like a program you may want to consider.

Why this post? I love reading great (free!) content, and I love getting ideas and trying out new things with my speaking and writing. Are there too many good blogs out there? Maybe, but as I keep finding ones that could be interesting to my audience, I’ll keep letting you know about them.

After I wrote my post on why you should be brief, I received a request for a more practical “how to” series to improve your writing and speaking by being brief.

The first step to being brief is to eliminate unnecessary words. Take the following example:

I went to the store, with my dog, to shop for some groceries.

You have three ways to work with a sentence like this:
1. Eliminate the prepositional phrase, “with my dog” – best if you don’t really need to include the dog in the story
2. Eliminate the redundancy of store and groceries – I went shopping or I went to the store for <something specific>
3. Eliminate the lack of humor – You may wonder why I took my dog grocery shopping? He never knows what flavor of kibbles he wants until he sees them.

Brevity isn’t always about shortening your first draft. It’s really about finding the best way to deliver your message without wasting words or repeating yourself (first draft said “repeating yourself unnecessarily”). Take that first draft and see where you can eliminate the needless words.