Dahle Communication

Combining Music with Imagery -- The Watchmen Trailer

I am not a big comic book fan.  I've bought a few here and there as a kid, but I never got into it.  The same thing with Graphic Novels, it just wasn't my thing.  However, a good friend of mine gave me 'The Watchmen' graphic novel about a year ago and I was amazed at how good the design, the literature, the imagry and everything about it was.  On 3-6-9 (hopefully) they will be releasing the movie version of the graphic novel.

If you haven't seen the trailer that is posted above, watch it and pay attention to the music that is used from about 1:20 into the trailer right up to the end.  The song, from one of my favorite bands Muse, was edited perfectly with scenes from the movie.  The combination of the visual and the music is very powerful and it makes me want to see the movie even more than I already did.  Having parts where the video is slowing down with the type of music playing, the phrase "You'll Burn in Hell" being repeated in the song with the images of fires being started and a mushrome cloud in the background and how it just stops before the last line is the perfect combination of video and music I have seen in a movie trailer for some time.

What does this have to do with communication you ask?  Good question.  What I want people to think about is this: are you effectively using your resources in your presentations?  While the trend has been going towards being as minimal as possible, there are times when an image or a combination of pictures and video or music can put an emphasis on your project.  Is it going to be movie trailer worthy?  No, and it doesn't have to be.  But think about when you are presenting, that sometimes you need more than just simple text and simple graphics.

I will say to be very cautious -- don't go overboard just to be flashy.  It's a thin line to tread, but it is definately worth looking at.

Travis

Solving Problems With Communication - President Obama Interviews With Al Arabiya

President Obama's first interview after he was sworn into office was with the Al Arabiya channel with people have been calling "Muslim TV" (which personally I think is in bad taste, we don't call CBS 'Christian TV' or anything like that).  This was a bold move for President Obama.  This is not a political blog and I don't want to get into the politics of should he or shouldn't he and what impact it will have.  From a communication aspect however it was a great move.  Too many times the problems we have in our workplace, our home lives and between nations is that we just don't communicate effectively with each other.  What President Obama did was reach out to the Arab community by granting them the first interview of his presidency.  Doing this is going to give him some good will and will hopefully bring in more dialouge with countries that have not been too keen on listening to us.

Do you do that in your business?  If you have had problems with a worker, a co-worker, a client or anyone else, do you reach out to them to try and solve the problem or do you let it simmer?  This is why effectively communicating with people from the start is so important.  We waste so much of our time trying to fix things that could have been prevented had we communicated our expectations from the beginning.  Take a look in the mirror this week and see if you are communicating effectively in your job.  If you are not, then think about what you need to do to improve it.  Believe me, it can only help you.

Travis

White House Press Briefing -- The Voice of the President

Robert Gibbs has a job that has to be one of the hardest jobs in America: he is addressing a group of around 300 people who are constantly trying to get him to give them something to write about.  The White House Press Core is not out to get him, however, they do want information and know that he does not want to give out all of the information -- so there is a lot of dancing around questions and avoiding the questions.

What skill does this require?  Obviously you have to be able to think on your feet at a moments notice.  You have to know what the audience is trying to get and what you want to give them.  While Gibbs did a fairly good job, he stumbled a lot and you could tell he was surprised by some of the questions and had to manuver around them.  He still has some work to do to become a better speaker, especially since he is the voice of the President.

How about you?  Can you think on your feet?  If you had to answer to a group of people (maybe some board members or investors) that had some tough questions would you be able to answer them in a coherent and intelligent manner?  If you are presenting to a group of people and there is time for questioning afterward (which you should allow) you need to be preparred to answer some tough questions.  In order to do that, make sure you prepare yourself to answer those questions.  There are some easy things you can do to work on this:

1. Prepare a set of questions that you would ask if you were in the audience. 
2. Present in front of someone before your presentation and have them put together some questions that would be asked. 
3. Do a drill where there is no time limit and all they are doing is asking you questions (almost like a cross-examination period in a courtroom).   

Doing those steps can help you when it is time for your presentation.  If you come off as polished during your presentations, but then sound like you don't know what you are talking about when they question you, you will lose that business or possible investor.  Being over-prepared is better than under-prepared.

Travis 

Life After Death by PowerPoint -- A Humorous Guide by Don McMillian

If you are like most people, humor is a great way to get your attention to something that you might have ignored previously -- like improving your powerpoint presentations.  Don McMillian presented a humorous look at what people do wrong in their presentations.  He covers everything from putting too many words on the screen to spell check.  While you won't be able to figure out exactly what to do with your presentations from watching this...hopefully you will learn what NOT to do in your presentations.  In some of the comments on youtube people have remarked that this should be required viewing for every presentor and I would have to agree with them.  I will note that the quality is not that great, however, the message is still good.

Travis

Lesson # 3: Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice...

If you haven't heard, President Obama had to re-take his oath of office the day after the inauguration.  The Christian Science Monitor stated simply that

Not to worry, said White House Counsel Greg Craig. This was just a precautionary move.

“We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the President was sworn in appropriately yesterday,” Craig said in a statement. “But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time.”

In reality, he didn't need to re-take it, but in order to prevent any discussions as to his legitimacy they decided to re-take it.

What does this tell us about presentations and public speaking?  PRACTICE!  Am I saying that Chief Justice John Roberts, clearly an extremely intelligent man, needs to work on his inaugural oath?  Well, not every day since he only has to give it every 4 years.  However, before 2013 he may want to ensure that he has it right.

Are you going to mess up your speech?  Are there going to be millions of people watching you?  No and No (or at least, not yet).  However, I would caution you to practice you speech.  This is almost as important as developing the message itself.

The first time you give a speech it will be pretty bad.  The second time will go better, but will still have some major flaws in it.  The third time you are still going to stumble from time to time.  By the time you get to the fourth practice you will start to feel more comfortable, but there will still be problems.  The fifth time: its getting there.  I would suggest that you at a minimum practice your speech 6 times.  This may seem like a lot, but it really is not -- it is the minimum you should do.  Sometimes you can only go through your pitch once and you don't want to screw it up if you are trying to get investors, sell a product, gain customers or improve your business.  

So please, practice -- it takes time, but it is well worth it.  

Travis

Tell People What They Need To Hear -- Not What They Want To Hear

This is a simple concept -- don't be the nice guy who doesn't want to ruffle some feathers by telling it like it is: sometimes it has to be done.  Take Barack Obama's inaugural address as evidence of this.  For a candidate who campaigned on hope his speech was not filled with a lot of it.  It was a little somber and it had a call to action for all American's to get into the game so we can change America for the better: this is exactly what we needed to hear.  There are times when just telling people what they want to hear is not only bad, it can make the situation worse.

Take this approach when you are presenting: If there is something that your company (or the company you are presenting to or consulting for) needs to work on, don't hide it!  People will respect you if you are honest with them.  Sometimes a company is blinded by their own successes or perceived success (the phrase, too close to the forest to see the trees comes to mind) and they need to hear what you have to say.  

A word of warning: use tact while doing this.  This is a pretty obvious statement, but sometimes we forget it.  While telling people what they need to hear is important, there are also times when you need to state it with caution or at least know when to say it.

When I was listening to President Obama's speech I was a little surprised at his choice of words and how serious of a speech it was.  However, the more it sank in and the more I thought of it I understood why.  Obama knows that this is not the time to say everythings going to be great and we're going to all be fine and dandy.  He knew that we needed to hear his message.  Because of this, I feel that his speech will be remembered for a long time to come because of his call to action.

So don't be shy or back down.  Take charge and tell people what they need to hear.  They may not like you for it at first, but they will appreciate you and respect you for it and your credibility will increase because of it.

Travis

Lesson # 2: Creating a Demand with your Speeches -- Barack Obama Style

The above picture was taken on Monday Jan 19th, 2009 outside of the Senate Hart Building (or Dirksen, I can't quite remember...and besides, they're connected).  The people waiting in line were going to see their senator so they could either pick up their tickets to the inauguration or beg and plead for one.  Luckily, I was in line fairly early and didn't have to wait as long.  In the line we met people that didn't have tickets, but were going to see their senator to see if there were any left that were not picked up.   It has been crazy around the D.C. area over the past couple of days.  If you haven't been here, I am sure you have either seen it on the news, the internet or read about it on-line.  The energy and excitement is like nothing I have ever seen before -- and it is all for one person.

The question now is: how can I create THAT type of excitement for my product or services for a speech that I am giving?  Well, unless you are a historical candidate for the highest office in America, you probably won't get this type of a turnout.  However, your goal should be to engage your audience to the point that they WANT to come and listen to your speech instead of wanting to leave your speech.  So, when you are planning on your speech keep a couple of things in mind:

1)  Is this information adding to my speech or is it just more information -- unfortunately most people add information and add information because they think it is needed -- it usually is not
2)  Are the special features you are adding to your slides really improving it -- or are we going to be seriously annoyed by them?  Too many people get caught up in the cool things that people can do with powerpoint and other programs like keynote -- don't be one of those people.

While these two things are small steps, they can greatly improve your speech.  While you may not be getting acolades like President Obama, you will at least become a better speaker and be more successful.

Travis

Obama Inaugural - The Excitement Builds

I am somewhat of a political junkie; I love following politics, discussing politics and being involved in politics.  I also love to study history and read about history.  The two disciplines do have a lot in common -- a lot of what happens in politics determines what our history is and what happens in history can dictate our politics.

However, on Jan. 20th, 2009 politics and history will merge like never before for President-elect Barack Obama's inaugural address.  I have never seen this much excietment and buildup to a presidential speech in my years of following politics.  The only thing I can remotely equate it to is what I have read about in regards to JFK's inaugural address.  There are a lot of reasons for this: the first african-american President in our nations history, the desire for change after the past 8 years and the speaking ability of Barack Obama.

I have been fortunate enough to get tickets to this momentous event, along with my wife and two daughters (I'm not bragging, I'm just stating).  I plan on taking a lot of pictures (which I will post on my flickr account) and will blog about his speech after I get back to the hotel that night.  I am sure there will be a lot of people out there in the blogging world who will be critiquing his speech -- everything from his content to his style.  I am going to look at it from a speaking point of view (not political) to see how effective he was to the thousands of people who will be watching him in the audience, not those in front of the tv.

I'm excited and can't wait to experience my first live presidential inaugural address!

Travis

You are the Focus of the Presentations - not the PowerPoint - Why it might backfire for Apple

  One of the main tenents of any presentation is that YOU as an individual should be   the focus, not the PowerPoints.  If you are the focus, then the audience is more engaged; they will not be sitting there reading the text and ignoring you, but will genuinely listen to what you have to say.  No one portrayed this better than Steve Jobs of Apple.  While most of us have applauded Steve Jobs and his successful presentations, in an ironic twist, it may end up hurting the company.  Unless you've   been siting in a hole somewhere and haven't heard, Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence from Apple to focus on his health.  First off, I wish him well and hope for a speedy recovery.  Secondly, as an article from the New York Times points out: 

Still, there are those who worry that Mr. Jobs’s absence will have an impact even beyond Apple.  “The whole world is concerned about Apple. I’m concerned about Silicon Valley,” said Mr. Perlman, the entrepreneur. “I need Apple to be harrying Microsoft. We need someone stirring the pot. God forbid that there is no one stirring the pot anymore. We’ll become Detroit.”

I think it is a rightful concern for everyone.  Design is very important in ALL businesses, that is why we as communication coaches are trying to help people become better speakers and presentors -- it is central to being a successful person, a successful small business and a successful company.  Apple has been a pioneer in quality design that is simple and effective.  We need people who are in front of millions of people to be leading the charge in quality presentations and Jobs was a great one -- Bill Gates should not be! 

So, while we usually say that YOU should be the focus...if you are the head of a company, you might not want to become the sole focus as Jobs did with Apple...unless you are going to live forever.

Does Design Matter? Speaking About Presenting Organizes a Debate

Olivia Mitchell at Speaking About Presenting decided to undertake a big project over the christmas break.  She wanted to get a lot of different experts in the presentation world together to discuss what they wanted to see in 2009 in regards to presentations.  It was quite the project and her post on design matters has some good debate on it and it has links to the rest of the collaborators and their thoughts.  Check it out, there are some great discussions going on and a lot of intelligent people (including Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin) giving their thoughts on presentations and where they should go in 2009.  There is a lot there, but it is worth the read if you have the time.

Travis