Creating Tomorrow

Dear Friends,

It’s no secret that the world around us is changing. In order to meet that challenge bravely and successfully, we need to actively apply additional ”senses” as we expand the way we view the world and the role we play in it.

The above excerpt is from a presentation I held for an audience of young advertisers in Hamburg on Friday. The “right versus left brain” theories found their way into advertising more than a decade ago. However, inspired by Dan H. Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind, I welcomed the opportunity to talk with a new generation of advertisers about the challenges they face today when handling their brands and establishing a meaningful dialogue with consumers.

This is an area where advertisers can and should be prepared to take on their share of the leadership role where building strong, sustainable brands - and innovatively creative, cross-medial campaigns to promote them - is concerned.

In the end, isn’t that what their clients are paying them for?

Trina

Dear Friends,

Even though I am considered a passionate presenter and effective presentation skills trainer, I notice that I go against my own better judgement when it comes to the amount of information I put on any given chart. This occurs most often when I’m presenting in front of new (read: conservative) audiences or conducting teleseminars. This often leads to a collection of ’neither fish nor fowl’ charts that probably have both me and my audience frustrated.

Why is that?

I guess I feel I have to offer more information on the charts in order for what I have to say to also look substantial. That’s wrongful thinking at its best, of course! Any message that has substance and is delivered with conviction doesn’t need an extra dollop of the written word to lend it weight.

That’s why this mini-presentation by Guy Kawasaki put a big smile on my face as I nodded and inwardly sent my “I know; I know…” out into the Universe.

Trina

Dear Friends,

Once again I’ve had the opportunity to discuss leadership competencies with a group of ambitious and interesting women, each of whom has there own corporate hill to climb. In addition to touching the general bases of leadership orientation and attitude, we talked about the needs, contributions and growth areas for those leadership styles I dubbed “shark”, “salmon”, “dolphin” and “whale”. Each of the ladies zeroed in on their own leadership style, as well as the predominant style within their own organization. As you can well imagine, there was some interesting discussion - though no final solution - on the question of exercising AUTHENTIC leadership style versus ADAPTING your leadership style to better fit into the leadership ranks of an organization.

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“…MANAGEMENT is doing things right; LEADERSHIP is doing the right things…” 

(Source: Peter Drucker)

 

Dear Friends,

Presentations are nothing without PASSION:

• Passion for what you do.
• Passion for what you have to say.
• Passion you want to share with your audience.

In my opinion, real passion will get you to places in the hearts and minds of your audience that only learning all the so-called ‘right steps’ of a good presentation can never take you!

A prime example of exactly the type of passion I’m talking about is the presentation “Greening the Ghetto” given by activist Majora Carter at the 2006 TED summit. Although there are several formal points of improvement I could suggest to Ms. Carter, her presentation vibrates with energy and emotion and conviction for her cause. In other words, Majora Carter is a living, breathing example of Authentic Presentation Personality™!

Do have a look at Ms. Carter’s presentation. Her message is worth hearing and deserves all of our attention!

Trina