Wait, What? But I Don’t Have a Slide Deck. Speaking Off the Cuff

By Tim Berry

This is a very useful talk by Matt Abrahams of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, on how to optimize when you get to speak on the cuff, and don’t have time to prepare, organize, or create the slide deck. It’s almost an hour long, and a privilege to be able to watch. It was originally part... Read More »

Chris Anderson on What Makes a Great TED Talk

By Tim Berry

For a video today I found this delightful TED talk about TED talks. TED, which stands for technology, education, and design, has become an amazing collection of great 5-to-20-minute talks, some of the best anywhere. If you want examples of great public speaking, excellent presentations, you go to TED. So when I was at the... Read More »

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Fear

By Tim Berry

Whether you’re making a speech before thousands of people in an auditorium or just two people in the small conference room, there are professionals who proclaim confidence is key. Stay poised – be bold – win your audience with self-confidence. I’ve noticed a much different pattern with myself, though, when public speaking. It came up... Read More »

Will Success Spoil Ted.com?

By Tim Berry

I’ve watched dozens of TED talks online and never seen a bad one. TED stands for Technology, Education, and Design. It started in 1984. Since 1990 it was located in a conference center outside of Monterrey CA. Since 2001 it’s been curated mainly by Chris Anderson. Most TED conferences were amazing. I’ve never been, but... Read More »

1 Great Tip for Better Story Power for Business

By Tim Berry

Here’s a great tip for anybody presenting anything to an audience: Skip the boring preamble. Many times we feel like we have to do a lot of prefacing, but four minutes goes by quickly. If you spend two minutes on background, you’ve lost an opportunity to grab attention. Far better to leave the identifying bits... Read More »

Do You Understand the Power of Instant Rejection?

By Tim Berry

A friend referred me to Vinod Khosla’s Five-Second Rule at Forbes.com. It’s about the slide decks we use for presenting, and its wisdom is a lot like what you get in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink or thousands of blog posts about the importance of headlines. Here’s the Vinod’s test for slide decks: he puts a slide... Read More »

Stage Fright Can Be Good For Your Career

By Tim Berry

I’ve noticed a pattern with myself, public speaking, and fear of speaking. I wonder if this holds true with others. I think it was good for me that my job required a lot of speaking even when I was still pretty young. Before I was 25 I’d done radio and standup television for UPI out... Read More »

Guy Kawasaki and the Zen of Not Zen

By Tim Berry

I admit it. I got really jealous of all the Zen of this and Zen of that writing, dating all the way back to the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I wanted to like, tried to like, but couldn’t. Yes, I gave into the horrible temptation, and even posted Zen and... Read More »