Six Minutes began 5 years ago, with a speech critique about a novel presentation style. Hundreds of articles, thousands of subscribers, and millions of visitors later, we’re still going strong thanks to you, our readers.
To celebrate our 5-year anniversary, we have compiled our 50 most popular speaking articles.
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[…] an iron curtain has descended across the continent.
On March 5, 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill delivered one of his most famous speeches. Though he was not the first to use the phrase “iron curtain”, this speech brought the phrase into common usage and is thought by some to mark the beginning of the Cold War.
In Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, William Safire writes:
This is a Beethoven symphony of a speech. […] this is the most Churchillian of Churchill’s speeches.
This speech analysis article examines how to use charisma tactics in speech writing. It is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.
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When you think about charisma, who do you think about? Bill Clinton? Martin Luther King Jr.? Steve Jobs?
What about you? Do you have charisma?
Many speakers and non-speakers hold the belief that charisma is an innate gift — either you are born with it, or you aren’t.
But can you learn charisma? Recent research suggests that you can!
Six Minutes weekend reviews bring the best public speaking articles to you.
This review features topics including:
Full-day training courses offer many challenges for speakers, including:
If you can overcome these challenges, you can provide significant value for your audience.
This past week, I was fortunate to attend a series of full-day training courses (Usability Week 2012 in San Francisco, offered by the Nielsen Norman Group). While my focus was building my usability knowledge, it was also a great opportunity to learn from people who speak regularly around the world. One of these speakers was Marieke McCloskey, who taught my first session of the week.
This article offers 28 tips for designing and presenting training courses inspired by Marieke’s strengths and areas for improvement.
Every speech does not need quotations, but every speaker needs to know why, how, and when to use quotations in their speeches.
In this article, we examine eight benefits of using quotations in your speech, and then discuss twenty-one tips for superpowering your speech with effective quotes.
Ryan Avery was selected as the 2012 World Champion of Public Speaking a few weeks ago at the Toastmasters International international convention in Orlando, Florida.
I was delighted to discover that Ryan is a Six Minutes reader, and was doubly delighted when he agreed to an interview.
His story is that of a champion, not only of a contest winner but a young man with big dreams and the commitment to make them happen.
Six Minutes weekend reviews bring the best public speaking articles to you.
This review features topics including:
This article reviews the 2006 TED talk by Ken Robinson about whether our education system kills creativity. As I write this speech analysis, his talk is the most-viewed TED talk in history. Not surprisingly, it is rich with lessons for speakers.
Robinson’s talk demonstrates many lessons, including:
This is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.
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No, the triplets are not adorable humans. We’ve recently added three more social media platforms: Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest.
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