Best Public Speaking Articles: Weekly Review [2008-08-23]

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

Topics featured this week include:

• speechwriting;
• speech organization;
• storytelling advice;
• speech openings;
• a new PowerPoint addon, pptPlex;
• engaging the audience;
• and more.

Week in Review: Six Minutes

The feature article this week continued the Toastmasters Speech Series:

• Toastmasters Speech 4: How to Say It
  Emphasizes the use of rhetorical devices and sensory words and phrases to add life to speeches, and includes several speech examples.

Although this article series adopts the framework of the introductory Toastmasters manual, the advice applies to all speakers looking to hone their craft.

Week in Review: Public Speaking Blogosphere

Speechwriting

• Nancy Duarte offers up the LATCH acronym (Location, Alphabet, Time, Category, Hierarchy) as an aid for organizing information. Four of these methods (all except Alphabetical) are suitable alternatives to organize your speech outline.
• Marci Alboher extracts 5 tips for telling better stories from an interview with storytelling experts William Lee and Rick Patrick.

1. Keep it simple.
2. Openings and closings are very important.
3. Be mindful of your story’s spine.
4. Make sure not to alienate your audience.
5. Tell the truth.

• TJ Walker advocates starting your presentation by discussing what the audience cares about the most: themselves.

I can assure you that Jim and Sally and Sandy find this opening incredibly interesting because it is about them. They are riveted to the presentation because it doesn’t seem like a so-called formal presentation. It is personal and about them, therefore it is about the most interesting subject in the world to them.

• John Kinde reflects on the difficult task of finding your signature story.

A story which is relatively simple and predictable is less likely
to strike it rich as a signature story. And a story which belongs
to someone else will never make YOU famous. You want to work for the original and compelling stories which have substantial real life drama.

Visual Aids

• There is much buzz this week surrounding pptPlex, a PowerPoint addon from Microsoft Office Labs which adds a canvas to slideshows from which you can zoom in and out at multiple levels. Check out An Overview of pptPlex and other pptPlex videos.

Speaker Habits

• Lisa Braithwaite helps you develop better speaker habits with two articles: proper use of a lectern and where to put your notes.
• Denise Graveline engages her audience with three novel techniques. As a member of the audience, I’d love this; as a speaker, do you have the courage to try them?

Open with the audience’s questions.

Let the audience see itself.

Create an electronic handout.

Toastmasters Articles

• John Spaith reminds future contestants in Humorous Speech Contests to know the judging criteria.