Opening Keynote

Books for Meeting Planners and Speakers

2008-06-17T12:15:00.002-05:00

Here are two excellent resources for meeting planners and speakers:

* The 60 Second Self-Starter (Adams Media, ($9.95), is an action guide to help career professionals become more accomplished and satisfied with work and life. Its earlier version, the "60 Second Procrastinator," has been published in Arabic, Chinese Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Turkish, and in English India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

* The 60 Second Organizer (Adams Media, 2nd edition, $9.95) is a fun book offering 60 solid techniques that help you to maintain organization at your desk, office, home, car, and elsewhere. It has been published in Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese, and in English for India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

During this month only, receive both books, autographed, for $16 total, shipping included. Order at www.breathingspace.com/content/view/752/192/
1) at "description" type in: 2 Book deal
2) at "amount" type in $16.00, and hit enter

While supplies last!

What is the Speaker's Impact

2008-05-25T14:53:00.001-05:00

A strong positive reaction from the audience members and the visible exhibition of learning are desirable outcomes for any speaker. A larger question, however, is "what impact did the presentation have on job performance?"

It behooves you to make follow up efforts to determine what changes in behavior, if any, on the parts your audience members resulted from a speaker’s presentation. Have audience members done anything differently since the presentation? Has their behavior changed? Has their performance improved? Do groups handle their responsibilities with greater ease? The simple speaker evaluation rating sheets that audience members complete directly following the presentation don't and can't answer these types of questions.

The Wisdom of Staying on Time

2008-05-20T09:14:00.001-05:00

Here a few ideas from Effective Meetings.com on the topic of staying on time:

* State that the meeting will begin promptly at the scheduled time and that all participants should be on time.

* Send a reminder e-mail thirty minutes before the meeting begins and encourage meeting participants to arrive on time.

* Ensure that you begin the meeting at the scheduled time. If you've encouraged others to be prompt, don't embarrass yourself by showing up late.

* Close the meeting room doors at the scheduled time.

* If your meeting starts a little late, still finish the meeting at the scheduled time. It's inconsiderate to assume the participants' schedules revolve around your meeting, so wrap up the meeting when you promised.

* Consider creating a "latecomer jar" to which meeting participants must contribute one dollar for each minute they arrive late to meetings. At the end of the week, you can buy muffins or donuts for everyone who attended the meeting… courtesy of the latecomers!

Record all Presentations

2008-05-06T09:10:00.002-05:00

The advantages of recording all conference presentations can't be overlooked. Particularly if you use your own equipment, the cost is nearly negligible, while the benefits abound:

* You get to review what was said and maintain the recording in your archives.

* The recording may be sellable.

* A transcript of the recording may be sellable.

Such considerations need to be cleared with the speakers in advance. Many will be amenable, and will allow such recording based on negotiation, perhaps at no extra fee. Some simply ask that they get a copy. Obviously, any recordings containing presentations not worth retaining can simply be discarded. Sometimes, organizations witness fabulous presentations that represent landmarks for their members, but unfortunately, the presentations were not recorded

Good Speakers Eliminate Risk

2008-04-29T11:28:00.001-05:00

“Consider the risks a buyer faces if the speaker he or she hires doesn’t fulfill the desired outcome,” says sales trainer Ron Karr. “I once received a call from a client looking to hire me. He talked about how he always holds his breath when the speaker takes the stage, because his neck is on the line. Now that is a risk.”

If a meeting costs a company $500,000 to produce, Karr notes, including travel, meeting location, food service, and so on, the meeting planner is under intense pressure to ensure the group has the best speaker(s) available to generate a proper return on investment.

The risks of the organization not achieving its overall objectives, such as a 10% increase in sales, or the attendees learning a set of skills or leaving with a renewed attitude, is considerable. So, what does a good speaker have to offer? Desirable outcomes -- return on investment.

Bargaining with Speakers

2008-04-22T14:16:00.002-05:00

Are there instances when speakers can legitimately fit an organization's budget without altering their fees? "Absolutely" says negotiating specialist Jim Hennig, Ph.D. Speakers can legitimately charge different fees in different situations:

1. Multiple Engagements: two or more bookings deserve quantity discounts.

2. Dual Purpose Engagements: when the speaker accomplishes several thing at once speech.

3. A Shared Speaker: when an organization cannot afford a speaker, they include another organization to share the costs.

4. Product Sales: book, audio and other products:

5. Trades: Many speakers will trade for a needed product or service from host organization.

6. Different Fees for Special Groups: non-profit organizations, government agencies, etc

7. Time of Year Fees: lower fees for slow months, such as August or January.

Identifying the Right Speaker

2008-04-10T09:55:00.001-05:00

Speakers bureaus have been an effective way of identifying and retaining the right speaker for your upcoming meeting since the time of Mark Twain. Yet, many meeting professionals have still not tapped into the power of using speakers bureaus to identify the right speaker with the right topic at the right price, thereby saving a ton of work.

One of the common myths that prevail today, which has kept some meeting organizers from employing speakers bureaus, is the pervasive belief that somehow it is more costly to retain a speaker through a bureau than by trying to contract with a speaker directly. In rare instances this may be true, but among ethical speakers and ethical bureaus, which represent 95% of each industry, the fee of retaining a speaker is the same whether you contract with that speaker directly or book the speaker through a reputable speakers bureau.

For example, if a speaker charges $8,500, that $8,500 is the same to you whether you pay the speaker directly or you pay the bureau. The bureau takes a percentage from the speaker, hence the speaker is paying the bureau’s fee, not you.

Why would a speaker ever want to be booked through a bureau when ostensibly he or she could consummate bookings directly? The short answer is that many speakers do not wish to engage in marketing; they do not have the time, energy, or resources and haven’t developed a long-term client base, as a good bureau has done. The fee that the speaker pays to a bureau to be booked with you is well worth it for the speaker. He or she gets to lower overhead and spend more time on presentation skills, subject matter development, and understanding of your industry and your audience members’ needs.

Speakers Bureaus offer Benefits

2008-03-25T09:50:00.002-05:00

Five advantages of working with a speakers bureau for meeting planners include the following:

1) Should the situation arise in which you are not happy with the speaker's performance or any other aspect of your interaction with the speaker, you have a legitimate third party, the bureau, to handle your concerns. You are in a position of even greater leverage because it is in the bureau's best and long-term interest to ensure that you are happy.

2) The bureau's loyalty is to you--you are the customer--not the speaker they assign to meet your needs. Some speakers never quite understand that, but the bureaus have a very clear understanding of who signs the checks.

3) In the rare event that the original speaker cannot make the appointed date, the bureau can more easily get you the right back-up speaker than if you face this task by yourself, especially at the last minute.

4) Many bureaus require speakers to sign various pledges indicating, for example, that they will abide by certain travel expense limitations, not use offensive or off-color language, and so on. In this manner, working with the bureau affords many more protections than you might otherwise have when working with a speaker directly.

5) The bureau can also help enforce your policies regarding selling from the platform and engaging in other types of promotional behavior. A small percentage of speakers will flat out upset the tone of your meeting by using a portion of their time in front of your group to engage in aggressive marketing. The incidence of this happening when retaining speakers through a bureau is far less, and for the most part can be eliminated all together.

Don't Offer a False Front

2008-03-17T12:14:00.001-05:00

Dr. Dean Ornish once said that the elaborate effort to support a false front is one of the most stressful things a person can do. In the context of speaking, that means be yourself: you'll have more energy and you'll connect better with the audience.

Addressing a Group's Anxiety

2008-03-13T16:39:00.004-05:00

John Kenneth Galbraith once said, "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

In the context of speaking to a group, what can you do to address their major anxiety and give them a path, or hope, so as to raise the value and impact of your presentation?

Cruise for Free

2008-03-05T10:07:00.003-05:00

Would you like to draw upon your expertise take a cruise for free? Robert Otterbourg, writing for Kiplinger magazine explains exactly how you can do it.

Present like Steve Jobs

2008-02-12T13:55:00.002-05:00

Writer Carmine Gallo assessed how Apple CEO Steve Jobs makes sterling presentations:

1. Set the theme.

2. Demonstrate enthusiasm.

3. Provide an outline.

4. Make numbers meaningful.

5. Try for an unforgettable moment.

6. Create visual slides.

7. Give 'em a show.

8. Don't sweat the small stuff.

9. Sell the benefit.

10. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

For details see Business Week Online

Don't Over-Pack the Conference

2008-01-31T16:24:00.000-05:00

Packing the day looks good in the conference brochure but wears on attendees. Give them a mid- morning and a mid-afternoon break of 20 to 30 minutes. The day and whole conference will go better for everyone.

Overcoming Audience Resistance

2008-01-08T17:04:00.000-05:00

Noted speaker Nido Qubien has observed that "Barriers resulting from audience resistance fall into two categories: external factors that cause people to tune you out, and internal factors that prevent them from giving you their complete attention."

1) External Barriers
People often form first impressions on the basis of external factors say Qubien. "If the first impression is negative, you won't get the person's attention. Look for characteristics of dress, speech and actions that may be turning people off. If your dress is too casual, frivolous or distracting, you may be losing listeners. If your voice is strident, shrill or guttural, people may find you unpleasant to listen to. In certain areas, regional accents may turn people off. If you speak with a pronounced regional accent and are doing business in a region where that accent is not commonly heard, you may have to look for ways to overcome this barrier. You may want to work on acquiring a more generic accent. Or you may want to spend some time cultivating the person's confidence."

2) Internal Barriers
"Internal barriers to communication may stem from a lack of interest in what you're saying or a lack of understanding," he says. "If you discern a lack of interest, find some way to lead your listener to identify with your message. How does it concern your listener personally? What bearing does it have on the listener's job, income, health, family, or security? Once you establish that point of identity, you'll have attention."

In conclusion, "People have a way of erecting defense mechanisms and emotional barriers when they feel threatened by what you are saying or by the way you are saying it. Studies have repeatedly shown that people, like other creatures, feel protective of their territories. Invade those turfs, or act in a threatening manner, and you will be sure to turn off their attention. When your task is to deliver an unpleasant message or to persuade your listener to take some unpleasant action, look for ways to neutralize the negatives and to reassure the person who feels threatened."

Learning at Any Age

2007-12-16T09:37:00.000-05:00

Matthew Blakeslee writing for Discover says, "If old dogs haven’t been able to learn new tricks, maybe that’s because no one has known how to teach them properly. Until quite recently orthodox neuroscience held that only the brains of young children are resilient, malleable, and morphable—in a word, plastic."

"This neuroplasticity, as it is called, seems to fade steadily as the brain congeals into its fixed adult configuration. Infants can sustain massive brain damage, up to the loss of an entire cerebral hemisphere, and still develop into nearly normal adults; any adult who loses half the brain, by contrast, is a goner. Adults can’t learn to speak new languages without an accent, can’t take up piano in their fifties then go on to play Carnegie Hall, and often suffer strokes that lead to permanent paralysis or cognitive deficiencies. The mature brain, scientists concluded, can only decline."

"It turns out this theory is not just wrong, it is spectacularly wrong. Two new books, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain (Ballantine Books, $24.95) by science journalist Sharon Begley and The Brain That Changes Itself (Viking, $24.95) by psychiatrist Norman Doidge, offer masterfully guided tours through the burgeoning field of neuroplasticity research. Each has its own style and emphasis; both are excellent."

Exhausted Audiences

2007-12-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

"For years, sleep researchers have been preaching the dangers of lost sleep: People who are fatigued can't pay attention to routine tasks, have trouble learning and are prone to a laundry list of health problems, from depression to high blood pressure," says Kathleen Facklemann in USA Today

"New research suggests an added risk to losing sleep day after day: Humans and animals that have chronic sleep deprivation might reach a point at which the very ability to catch up on lost sleep is damaged, according to Fred Turek, a sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois."

"His research on sleep patterns in rats appeared this summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That, together with findings from a human study, suggests people who lose sleep night after night might not recover the alertness they need to perform well during the day. So far the studies don't tell researchers whether the damage is permanent. But they do suggest that people who go to work fatigued day after day might perform consistently at a subpar level."

The upshot for speakers and meeting planners: more than half of what your audiences require from a presentation is high energy.

Adding Humor to a Speech

2007-12-03T09:11:00.000-05:00

Sprinkle in humorous quotes from family members.

Add a completely incongruous slide to your A/V presentation.

Prepare a ready list of comical "blooper comebacks" for possible miscues.

Offer a Davids Letterman-like "Top-10 list" related to your message.

Devise "What's In and What's Out" parody related to your topic.

Exercise While You Speak

2007-11-30T18:15:00.000-05:00

"Scientists have found intriguing evidence that one major reason so many people are overweight these days may be as close as the seat of their pants. Literally," reports Lee Dye for ABC News. "According to the researchers, most of us sit too much."

"In most cases, exercise alone, according to a team of scientists at the University of Missouri, isn't enough to take off those added pounds. The problem, they say, is that all the stuff we've heard the last few years about weight control left one key factor out of the equation. When we sit, the researchers found, the enzymes that are responsible for burning fat just shut down."

Jeff's take: I knew it! I've always felt energetic standing in front of audience. I even I switched to a stand up desk in January 2006. Anthropologically speaking how could it be any other way?

A Frequent Conference Query

2007-11-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

In seminars and workshops I offer on having more Breathing Space, invariably someone poses a personal dilemma: "No matter how conscious I am of saving time throughout the day, I still find myself racing the clock. What, if anything, am I doing wrong?"

My answer, consider that any one-hour activity you undertake in the course of the day, each day, will consume one solid year out of the next 24 years of your life. One hour is to 24 hours as one year is to 24 years. With this realization, consider the cumulative effects of reading junk
mail for only 30 minutes a day or spending 15 minutes a day in line at the bank -- both of which could and should be avoided if you used mail, phone, or email services.

Super Speed, Greater Learning

2007-10-22T16:19:00.000-05:00

Don Clark writing in the Wall Street Journal reports that Intel Corporation has reached "a new milestone on the way to developing computers that use inexpensive optical components to
achieve massive increases in communication speeds. The company said it has fabricated the first modulator made from silicon that can encode data onto a beam of light at a rate of 40 billion bits per second, or gigabits. Modulators are key components in using lasers to send data down fiber-optic cable."

"Such speeds -- roughly 40 times faster than the most sophisticated corporate data networks -- now require expensive materials, a factor that helps push the cost of existing 40-gigabit modulators into the thousands of dollars. "

As technology breakthroughs continue to come at a furious pace, the need for trainers, teachers, and instructors to explain it all will only broaden.

Cut Through Dialing Clutter

2007-10-10T16:22:00.000-05:00

Planning a meeting and when on the phone do you want to cut down how long you're either put on hold or forced to push an endless series of buttons? Visit www.gethuman.com for dialing short cuts to all the top airline, hotel, and travel sites.

It feels great to actually reach a live person in record time!

Social Isolation Growing

2007-09-30T08:01:00.000-05:00

"Americans are far more socially isolated today than they were two decades ago," says
Shankar Vedantam, a Washington Post Staff Writer. "And a sharply growing number of people say they have no one in whom they can confide, according to a comprehensive new evaluation of the decline of social ties in the United States.

A quarter of Americans say they have no one with whom they can discuss personal troubles, more than double the number who were similarly isolated in 1985. Overall, the number of people Americans have in their closest circle of confidants has dropped from around three to about two.

The comprehensive new study paints a sobering picture of an increasingly fragmented America, where intimate social ties -- once seen as an integral part of daily life and associated with a host of psychological and civic benefits -- are shrinking or nonexistent. In bad times, far more people appear to suffer alone.

The implication for meeting professionals: the need for face-to-face meetings will never die. People will be amenable if only to stem some of the tied of the growing feeling of isolation in their personal lives.

Online Presentation on "Change"

2007-08-30T09:32:00.000-05:00

Is managing rapid change a challenge for you? Here's a webinar you may enjoy from the Best Practice Institute featuring yours truly: "Prospering in a World of Rapid Change" schedule for September 11, 2007 at 2 p.m. EST.

This is a LIVE 45 minute webinar. Here's the description: Everywhere you look there are life-long career professionals losing confidence in their ability to stay competitive in our rapidly changing society. Concurrently, no one in society has a long-term lock on any market niche and no body of information affords a strategic competitive advantage for very long. The reality of our times is that everyone is feeling at least a little unsure of himself and in that sense everyone is in the same boat.

It's normal to be confused. In this presentation, I'll lay out what top professionals do to maintain confidence and balance, independent of the frequency of change to which they're exposed, and how they maintain a sense of breathing space along the way. If you work for a living, you won't want to miss hearing this.

Subtopics:
* The roots of uncertainty and what to do about it
* The importance of seeking small victories
* A new approach to learning
* What part self-confidence plays in mastering change
* New choices for new results

Banishing "Um" "Ya know" "Like"

2007-08-26T09:27:00.000-05:00

Patrica Kitchen, writing in Newsday reports Interview Stream.com monitors and exposes celebrities use of filler language such as "likes," "umms," "ya knows," "I means." The company
has announced an "Umm Like All-Star" list which includes Britney Spears, "who was caught uttering 73 "likes" and "ya knows" in a five-minute video interview on YouTube."

Neither Paris Hilton nor Nicole Richie made the list. The underlying concept "is to bring students' attention to the overuse of such 'verbal crutches' when they go on job interviews."

"Other offenders found at InterviewStream.com's companion site, UmmLike.com, include Eminem and Michelle Wie, "who used 15 'ya knows' and 'I means' in a one-minute interview. "

"A certain number of fillers are normal, but when speakers flip into overuse, they can come across as unfocused and unprepared," says Judy Cavallo, a speech-language pathologist and director of New York Speech Solutions, which evaluates and treats speech disorders, in Oyster Bay. Her first step is to heighten awareness among clients, who are "usually shocked" when she plays back tape recordings of them speaking.

Hire an Author to Speak

2007-08-23T08:24:00.000-05:00

According to an Association Press-Ipsos poll (AP) "one in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year. " !!

"Of those who did read, women and seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices. The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year -- half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven."

The upshot for meeting planners: Hire an author to speak to your group because the odds are that few people in the audience are reading book length works, they'll probably appreciate the words of someone who has the rigour to write a book, and some may be inspired to actually read the book.