Dahle Communication

How To Get Ahead In Your Career -- Speak Well

According to a new survey, people who are speaking up in meetings are more likely to be viewed as better leaders and move up in their careers faster.  Speaking About Presenting, a great blog that I have mentioned before, has an excellent summary of what the research is saying and some tips on how to use the information to help you move up in the world.

What I found most interesting about the research is that people who spoke up were looked at as more knowledgeable -- regardless if they were or not!  Great, so people who are louder than the rest appear to be smarter than the quiet genius sitting in the corner.  Sad but true.  If you are quiet and feel like some of the best ideas are just not being addressed, you need to check out the survey and start practicing some of the tips that Olivia Mitchell points out in her blog.

Travis

Best of FlowingData - How to use charts

One of the biggest problems with presentations is how people use charts and graphs.  People have a tendency to put too much information on a screen or the information is so incomprehensible that no one knows what the presenter is trying to get across.  Unfortunately what is lost is the fact that graphs and data can be an extremely powerful tool in your presentations -- if done correctly!

FlowingData, a blog that "explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better - mainly through data visualization" is a site that you should check out if you want to see how effective data and graphs can be.  The recently put together a Best of Flowing Data for January that you can check out as a starting point.  It is a great blog and one that I check regularly because of the quirkiness of it, the effectiveness of the data and the great designs that go into the presentations.

Travis