What quality is vital to virtually all creative art forms, including literature, music, painting, sculpture, photography, drama, and speechwriting?
What quality both sharpens the attention of your audience and makes them understand you better?
Contrast!
In this article, we’ll define contrast, explore its benefits, and examine many strategies for using contrast in your next presentation.
[…] 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.
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!
Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences is the second book from presentation superhero Nancy Duarte.
It is also the second book of hers which I strongly recommend you read — immediately.
This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.
Presenters, teachers, and students all resist design-centered slide design on the basis of a perceived lack of time. Since I know that the visually-driven, Zen approach works, I am not deterred by this resistance; instead, I use one simple phrase to help cultivate strong design from presenters whose time is limited.
If you want to create beautiful, impactful, and audience-centered slides but don’t have 20 hours or more to devote to designing a slide deck, just remember the acronym C-R-A-P *, and create slides that embody strong Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity.
This article reviews a thought-provoking speech by Dan Pink about the surprising science of motivation, which was delivered at TED in 2009.
Pink delivers a masterful speech which demonstrates many strong speech techniques, including:
The strength of this speech isn’t surprising at all, given Pink’s former role as chief speechwriter for Al Gore.
This is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.
This article reviews a wonderful speech by Jacqueline Novogratz about escaping poverty, which was delivered at TED in 2009.
In this speech, Novogratz demonstrates several strong speech techniques, including:
This is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.
I encourage you to:
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