Public Speaking Articles: Week in Review [2008-04-12]

Every Saturday, we survey the best public speaking articles from throughout the public speaking blogosphere.

Topics featured this week include:

• the connection between presentation skills and career advancement;
• speech openings and transitions;
• speechwriting and preparation techniques; and
• three articles related to Al Gore.

Week in Review: Six Minutes

One article was featured on Six Minutes this week:

• 10 Ways Your Presentation Skills Generate Career Promotions
  Shows how your career improves as you develop superior presentation skills relative to your peers.

Week in Review: Public Speaking Blogosphere

These are the best public speaking articles from the past week:

• Lisa Braithwaite ponders speech transitions and provides 10 ways to move from one point to the next. [This was just one of several great articles from Lisa last week.]
• Sue Hershkowitz-Coore suggests a clever opening that you can use if you are self-conscious about a speaking accent.
• Daily Writing Tips point out five words you can cut from your writing – just, really, quite, perhaps, that. I would argue that you can usually cut these from speeches too.
• Pete Ryckman argues that you (+ a camcorder) are best able to evaluate your performance.
• Cliff Atkinson delivers a tutorial to go from speech concept to completed 16-slide PowerPoint slides in one hour.
• Carmine Gallo analyzes Barack Obama’s techniques.

Al Gore Connected Articles

• Here’s a speech critique of Al Gore’s 2006 TED talk.
  Garr Reynolds describes the best and worst of Al Gore’s 2008 TED talk.

• Tim Ferris is the bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek.
  Dan Pink is Al Gore’s former speechwriter, and the author of The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.
  Tim interviews Dan and extracts a series of tips for preparing and delivering presentations.
• Ian Griffin reports that Bill Clinton has earned almost $52 million in speaking fees.

And to close…

For speech inspiration, here’s an index card gem from Jessica Hagy.

Use contrasts in your speeches. Contrasts, as we see here between “falling in love” and “marriage of convenience,” are a classic speechwriting element. You can use contrasting concepts as the base for your speech, or you can use contrast as an effective technique to make your points clearer to the audience.

Jessica’s book Indexed is an inexpensive, but rich source of speech inspiration.