I’ve been having an ongoing dialogue with myself about my bilingual audience for some time now. It’s true that many of my professional friends, clients and readers speak excellent English. It’s equally true, however, that a significant number of the above-mentioned group simply find it more convenient to read German than English on any given day of the week.
This blog will be a selection of older posts from this blog, excerpts from my homepage, as well as posts from Presentation Warrior™ and 360° of Diversity - all written in German. It will also include new post, Slideshare presentations and German-language podcasts.
So, if you’d like to continue following Creating Tomorrow and it’s simply easier for you to get your daily CoachingByte in German: Click. Read. Enjoy.
As a presentation trainer I am always looking to learn from the experience of my peers; esp. those on the cutting edge of the industry. I first ran into Garr Reynold’s blog, Presentation Zen, back in 2005 and was really inspired by it. In addition to confirming many of my own learnings from a career of presenting ad campaigns throughout Europe, he was also a fantastic source of new ideas and a differing - Asia-influenced - perspective.
Garr’s presentation for authors@google reminds me so much of my own sessions, particularly where the responses from the audience are concerned. It’s a bit long, but - if you are at all interested in improving your own presentation skills - well worth the watch!
Thanks to @TimKeil for bringing this to my attention!
“…Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider real value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life…”
Clients pay you for your big strategic or creative ideas, just as the members of your team or organization follow you because of your vision.
So: How do you cultivate the necessary ‘executive presence‘ to convey the right amount of leadership to sell those ideas and communicate that vision - succinctly, understandably, passionately?
I’ve always loved the rush of being onstage. I am probably one of the few people who looks back fondly on Easter and Christmas programs at church or school plays in elementary school. I even survived that momentus Easter Sunday I stood on the small stage in the basement of our family church in Steelton, Pennsylvania and realized by the look of maternal horror on my mother’s face that I had begun reciting my sister’s Easter poem instead of my own.
You guessed it: I had learned both our poems by heart….
When I first moved to Germany I worked as an EFL teacher in front of an adult audience for several years. My first professional presentation, however, came back in the late 80’s when I got a job working for a company that developed international brand names for new products, services and companies. The first client meeting I attended was held in English, so - without really warning me beforehand - our managing director decided that I - as the native speaker - should present our proposals to the client. Of course I was nervous! But the natural performer in me kicked in and I put everything I had into making those brand name proposals comes to life - and laid a further cornerstone for my future as a passionate presenter and accomplished presentation skills trainer.
Storytelling is becoming an ever more essential tool within the skillset of the modern leader. Now that corporations and organizations are beginning to grasp and accept the fact (five minutes to midnight as it is, economically speaking) that an excellent manager is no substitute for visionary leadership, people are realizing how important storytelling can be, for example, in :
joining people together as a cohesive group
making people familiar with a common history
exemplifying leadership style
inviting people to join in a common vision
establishing transparency about the rôle each individual plays in achieving organizational goals
While I am putting the finishing touches on some of the written training material I am preparing, I am starting a monthly series on great presenters I’d like to award Creating Tomorrow’s ‘Presentation Warrior‘ status.
Dalton Sherman is a third grader from Dallas, Texas. He was chosen to be the keynote speaker at a teacher’s conference and gave an empassioned and fearless speech encouraging educators to not give up on the young minds in their classrooms.
I did a brief online interview as part of fellow coach Ed Batista’s “Three Questions” series. Ed, who has been a full-time leadership coach at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in California since 2006, is also an avid blogger. A comment I left on his entry “Friedrich Nietzsche, Executive Coach” led Ed to my blog - and a brief email exchange began.
Ed was especially interested in my perspective as a coach who works biculturally, as well as how the talent I have as a presenter positively impacts my coaching style. During the course of our correspondence we also discovered that we both grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
One of the biggest problems unsure presenters have is knowing what to do with their hands. Some presenters feel they must keep their hands at their sides at all times in order to appear professional and business-like. By doing this they instead appear stiff and distanced.
We all know that no two meeting rooms are created equal. Usually, though, there is sufficient space at the front of the room for presenters to move around:
from their laptops to point out something of significance on the screen,
over to people in the audience to ask a question or make a point, or
simply to pass around product samples or documents
Why is it that many presenters take up a space no larger than a postage stamp, but still feel as though they dance around wildly in the front of the room?
