The new technology is terrifying…and terrific! Taking ChatGPT Out for a Spin Today, I spent about an hour fooling around with ChatGPT for the first time. (Here’s the excellent YouTube tutorial I started with:) Then I wrote a newsletter about it. The newsletter briefly describes what ChatGPT is, gives a short list of things it Read More
Public Speaking Tech: eMail to Conference Calls, Social Media to PowerPoint
How to Create a Good PowerPoint Presentation
(HINT: It doesn’t start with slides!) Lots of folks are going to disagree with me about this, but I think PowerPoint (or Keynote, the Mac equivalent) is a wonderful tool for mapping out a presentation. Used correctly, PowerPoint helps you: Capture your ideas, Shuffle them into sections, Flesh them out with (minimal) words and images, Read More
What If PowerPoint Isn’t the Problem??
Is bad PowerPoint to blame for all the world’s public speaking ills? Well, to paraphrase the National Rifle Association’s infamous claim that guns don’t kill people, people kill people… Bad PowerPoint Doesn’t Put Audiences to Sleep. Bad Presenters Put Audiences to Sleep! Think about the leading causes of bad PowerPoint: Too much information (the presenter doesn’t Read More
These 5 Conference Call Tips Will Help You Be Heard
Why Conference Call Tips when video calls are the big new thing? Because conference calls (meetings that take place by phone) are still a thing, too — and, like video calls, they can be a mess! Often, you’re dealing with bad tech, background noise, people popping on and off, dueling egos, and different time zones, as Read More
For Public Speaking (and Business) Success, Pick Up the Phone
Twice this week, I’ve had to remind sophisticated clients that you can pick up the phone when you need information: In one case, a client who’s applying for an academic job realized that she could get an inside track on what they were looking for by asking the acting department head. Another client, who’d just Read More