Notes from Barbara Tannenbaum’s talk

Main Concepts:

  1. All speaking is public speaking.It can be in the form of:
  2. interviews,
  3. phone conversations.
  4. Business plan presentations.
  5. Intentional or unintentional.
  6. A rhetorical perspective on public speaking.
  7. It is an investment in yourself.
  8. What sways an audience is you.
  9. Corollary to you swaying an audience is that all bad speaking is composed of habits you usually have had all along. This leads to thoughts on your habits:
  10. If you don’t change the behavior you wont grow past it.
  11. Intermittent patterns are harder to change.
  12. Using either positive or negative interventions are usually necessary.
  13. We have a very distorted view about our own selves.
  14. Try using coaching ofanother speaker to improve your abilities and feel good and proud of your speaking in public.
  15. When addressing audiences, it is important to access their listening in words and dress.
  16. An example was a problem for lawyers who were doing pro bono work and wanted legislation to cover it without success. They changed the title to “access for justice.” This worked.
  17. Takeaway: Don’t change the issue, control the frame.
  18. Aristotle says there are two things we are trying to balance.
  19. What is my goal and
  20. what is my audience.
  21. Reasons and beliefs sway your audience.
  22. Find the language that works.

You can sway your audience usually in three ways:

  1. Thru the use of Logic.
  2. Conveying Credibility: expertise; similarity ( similarity trumps expertise); need trust; Establishing credibility. On the Phone, its 75% tone 25% message. Difference between a successful financial engineer and others is how they present their information.
  3. Appealing to Emotions: trust, vested interest in your audience.
  4. How we are perceived: round off the following to remember proportion. Snapshot in time. When we communicate how it is received.
  5. 55% -60% NON verbal,
  6. what you look like: most people forget what you are saying,
  7. most judge what they see, the visual.
  8. first impressions don’t change;
  9. What are biases.
  10. size matters,
  11. how you stand.
  12. How big people perceive you. How you take up space.
  13. Culturally proper.
  14. If sitting. Feet have to reach the floor. Dangling doesn’t get us anywhere.
  15. Better to stand than sit. In chair slightly forward.
  16. Not William f buckley.
  17. To cross or not to cross. Barbara says.
  18. Otherwise skewed off center. Spots of red are pooling blood, varicose veins. But my skirt is short. Not longer when crossed. Depending upon your goal and audience. Non verbal what to wear. In general to help the audience.
  19. Dress for position you want not what you have. Think upward and dress upward.
  20. Don’t constantly pull and tug on yourself.
  21. Darker is generally seen as authoritative. Red or burgundy shows power. Rough texture strobes, movement affect to tie not face.
  22. Glasses should be antiglare. Once coated dirt magnets. Have to clean them often, don’t use dirty glasses. Don’t put on and off often. Some people swear by mimicking. So as to be similar to your audience. But not too much or they will send you to a shrink. Don’t wear jewelry that moves.
  23. Women: Feet shoulder width apart. Not usually how you stand or have been allowed to stand. Someone is going to peak. Legs crossed I have to pea, back wall position. With quiet voice. Deferential Head tilt, show the tilted neck, seeking of approval, dogs surrender, not all women, not about age. Begging for approval. Head on straight.
  24. Males- weight on one hip the dance back and forth. Empty pockets so they don’t jingle. Don’t use short socks. Bill beaman crotch display. Many of us hold breath. Use diaphragm. Woman smiling more raises the voice. Weight swings back and forth. Maybe one foot slightly forward. Dancing eddy. Audible gasp when he stopped dancing. Eye contact, voice changed etc. think about this all the time. Movement and gestures should be purposely. Protect what they need to. Flapping fig leaf. Good posture is important.
  25. Power point, no more than three points per slide and no more than three words per point. Worst is death by power point. Don’t read slide. Control gaze with flying them in quietly. Just because technology can, it doesn’t have to.
  26. Sit slightly forward. Not William F. Buckley style of“come to me.”
  27. Be active and engaged looking
  28. To cross or not to cross that is the question.
  29. If women cross, they are now off center. Take up less space. Spots on legs are blood pooling.
  30. Hair off of face as much as possible. Jewelry that moves.
  31. No flowery scarves small writing on shirts, no hats for presentations
  32. Male cross which is equivalent to a crotch display. No sale price on shoes, use highsocks, no hairylegs. Empty pockets of keys and jingling items.Remove Glasses if they go on or off constantly. Darker the color the more powerful one seems to be. Comfortable neat and clean. No one will tell you, everyone will notice.
  33. What to do with the hands. Neutral hands down by the side is best. Take up space with gestures, ie. increase retention. Underscoring. Use open hand.
  34. Cover the room in the shape of an “m” or a “w.” A neutral position allows the largest number of questions.
  35. Stage fright is higher on the list than death. Everyone has it and few people will notice. And then we tell them. Ask if people can tell you are nervous. Re-label fright as excitement. Don’t fight it look at it as energy. Practice in front of other people not mirrors. Modeling confidence will help you feel more confidence.
  1. Appearance is very important.
  2. The more traditionally dressed the more radically one can speak.
  3. Dress for the job you want, not what you have.
  4. Not selling a product selling yourself:
  5. Vocal non fluencies. Verbal discontinuities.
  6. They are distracting. Ums, ahs, and “like” are distracting, makes us seem less knowledgeable.
  7. Pause, seems more wise-buying time. Those with the longest ums have the largest vocabulary.
  8. Are we fabricating the data.
  9. We live in an increasingly international world. Um means female genitalia in Turkish.
  10. Internalize the tag upspeak,
  11. get rid of qualifiers, I just think. Not good.
  12. diminshes the doer of what you are saying.
  13. Really really important. 60/30/10 need eye contct voice and poise. Pitch high and breathy. Women smile more than men. When what we say and how we look contradict each other, we go with what the nonverbal portrays.
  14. Posture and focus:
  15. look at screen or at audience.
  16. Locked jaws- only sing as the saints come marching in . 150words per minute. Don’t lose comprehension as they go faster. Speak quickly and use pauses.
  17. Powerpoints:
  18. Talk to the audience not the visual.
  19. What is your business proposition.
  20. Who is the audience.
  21. What is the role of the audience.
  22. Be prepared for the worst to happen. No lights or outlet.
  23. Be prepared to do it without it.
  24. The worst ones are death by powerpoint.
  25. A lot of text on one slide,
  26. they read it to you and we read ahead.
  27. Total disconnect from the speaker and the speakers credibility.
  28. Slides:
  29. No more than three points on a slide and
  30. not more than 3-5 words per point. We remember things in phrases and not in whole sentences.
  31. Don’t ever start with the slide up first.
  32. Establish your credibility first. We need to get to know the person.
  33. Control the readers gaze one by one.
  34. We don’t’ need bells and whistles. Just because technology can, doesn’t mean it has to.
  35. How to connect with the audience.
  36. Energy always attracts us.
  37. Nervousness can be used as excitement.
  38. What makes someone approachable.
  39. Don’t look stern up there.
  40. A smile might be nice.
  41. Humor is good. Will increase retention.
  42. Stories are better than jokes less dangerous.
  43. Confidence in what you are saying comes from the inside out.
  44. 2 recommended books.
  45. Self esteem, and
  46. Bell Hooks rock my soul. People will grant confidence. Change gets people to reinvest. Professors wait on average 2 seconds before they answer their own questions. Find out in advance
  47. Assessment of others.
  48. Come up with a critique form ahead of time.
  49. Did establish credibility.
  50. Could they fit into time frame.
  51. What was the main point.
  52. Did they build common ground.
  53. Humor is dangerous. Increases retention.
  54. Humor, gestures, repetition, wont change attitudes. Can defuse. Danger is it can offend people.
  55. Humorous stories are better than punch lines. Usually disappointing. Latecomers to class have to tell a joke.

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