I did not watch the Oscars last night.  My latent jealousy of never pursuing my promising yet totally imaginary acting career makes it too painful.  But flipping back and forth between The Apprentice and the Oscars, I did pause to see Meryl Streep win for best actress and listen to her acceptance speech.

Watching her acceptance speech made me naturally draw comparisons between a great acceptance speech and a great presentations.  Here’s what I observed from Meryl’s speech that translates to our …

Despite my aversion to political speeches, I watched President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address… on YouTube… at this link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgfi7wnGZlE

This is the “enhanced” version of the speech posted on the White House YouTube channel.  The “enhanced” version includes the text of the speech as well as presentation slides which came in and out of the speech occasionally.

Based on President Obama’s speech, here are some of the things he did well that the rest of us can learn from.

 
Get Right to It
There was no blah, blah, blah opening.  After the obligatory welcome message, he started …