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Permission to Speak – Leadership Blog – Kelly Vandever Interviews Dr. Elizabeth Morrison on Employee Voice & Encouraging Employees to Speak Up

Permission to Speak

Leadership Video Blog & Podcast

Hosted by Leadership Communications Expert Kelly Vandever

About Elizabeth Morrison:
Dr. Elizabeth Morrison is a Professor in the Management and Organizations Department, the ITT Harold Geneen Professor in Creative Management, and the Vice Dean of Faculty at the Stern School.

Dr. Morrison’s research …

Wednesday, August 9th, 2017 Category: Employee Engagement, Leadership, Permission to Speak, Speaking Up at Work, Workplace Environment No Comments

5 Ways to Evaluate A Slide

By Tom Nixon

What are the basic criteria that determine if your slide is working? How can you evaluate a slide or even a presentation to see if it will work and deliver your message cleanly and effectively?

I look for five basic things.

Is there a BIG IDEA? Is there one concept that ties the slide together and fits in with the BIG IDEA that the overall presentation is trying to communicate. There cannot be more than one concept per slide and the audience should be able to get it quickly and without …

Monday, August 7th, 2017 Tags: effective PowerPoint slides, headline for PowerPoint slide, images in PowerPoint slides, rehearsing speech
Category: Business Presentations, Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tips No Comments

Who Are You Speaking To, Anyway?

By Claudia Brogan

Back when I was in high school speech class, little did I guess that my life’s journey would be focused upon ways to improve speaking skills and communication in the workplace. All I knew back then, as a junior in high school, was how fascinated I was to learn the principles of public speaking…and survive my next assigned speech for Mrs. Witmer’s class.

One day, she really got our attention with a provocative question, and her words that day have stayed with me all my life.

“There are three most important …

Monday, July 31st, 2017 Tags: audience interaction, engaging the audience, good speaking tips, personality models, public speaking
Category: Audience, Audience Interaction, Presentation Coaching, Public Speaking as a Leader, Speech & Presentation Coaching, Storytelling in Presentations No Comments

Two Quick Ways to Improve Your Boring Bullet Points PowerPoint – Use Design Ideas or SmartArt Graphics

By Kelly Vandever

You’ve seen it a million times.

A boring list of bullet points.

Is it possible to make a boring list of bullet points look more interesting? Yes!

But I must start by making a plea for the slow method first!
The Slow Way – Create One Slide for Each Point
My “go to” recommendation is don’t include a list of bullet points in your presentation in the first place!

Give each new idea its own slide and add visuals to increase the appearance and make the slide more memorable. See this blog post for more details.

But if you are pressed for …

Monday, July 24th, 2017 Tags: bullet list, bullet points, Design Ideas, Graphics in Presentations, interesting PowerPoint slides, SmartArt
Category: Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tips No Comments

Permission to Speak – Leadership Blog – Kelly Vandever Interviews June Cline on Leaders and Humor

Permission to Speak

Leadership Video Blog & Podcast

Hosted by Leadership Communications Expert Kelly Vandever

About June Cline:
June Cline is a Keynote Speaker, Best Selling Author, Humorist and President of The Center for Laughing and Learning: Where ROI Meets LOL. June shares her research and expertise using the power …

Wednesday, July 19th, 2017 Tags: leadership
Category: Book Recommendations, Communication, Company Culture, Leadership, Permission to Speak, Workplace Environment No Comments

3 Questions to Ask to Get to Know Your Audience

By Bob Goodyear

I’ve presented to several groups over the last few months about how to create a great presentation. One of the first things I mention is the need to “know your audience.” I even wrote a blog post about this earlier. In my conversations with these groups though, I’ve heard that they know this but what they want to understand is WHAT they need to know about the audience. They want some specific questions that they can answer. Today I’ll share three of the questions that I …

Monday, July 17th, 2017 Tags: audience, audience demographics, audience interaction, know your audience, target audience
Category: Audience, Audience Interaction, Presentation Tips No Comments

How to Get Pictures for Your Slides without Even Leaving PowerPoint: Image Add-Ins

By Kelly Vandever

Back in the olden days of PowerPoint, you could insert images from a Microsoft library of images. And you were cleared to use the images, as long as it was for non-commercial purposes.

Eventually Microsoft phased out the image library. But now, it’s back… kind of… with Add-Ins.
What Are Add-Ins
Add-Ins are mini programs or apps by third parties that you can “Add-in” to your version of PowerPoint whether in the copy downloaded to your computer or in Office 365 online.

These add-ins to PowerPoint can do any number of things but for this post, we’re focused on …

Monday, July 10th, 2017 Tags: Add-ins for Powerpoint, Free images, PowerPoint graphics, Powerpoint Images
Category: Graphics in Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tools No Comments

Permission to Speak – Leadership Blog – Tom Nixon Interviews Kelly Vandever! Kelly Talks about Work Place Communications and Why the Focus of the Podcast Is What It Is

Permission to Speak

Leadership Video Blog & Podcast

Hosted by Leadership Communications Expert Kelly Vandever

Permission to Speak is the video blog and podcast that loiters at the intersections of leaders who want their people to speak up, technology that facilitates connections, and results that serve an organization’s higher purpose.
Our interviewee for this episode: Kelly Vandever!
Our Guest, Tom Nixon, Interviews Kelly about Workplace Communications and Why Topics of the Podcast/Video Blog Are What They Are

About Tom Nixon:
Tom Nixon is an amazing speaker, a fabulous executive speech coach, an enormously …

Wednesday, July 5th, 2017 Category: Book Recommendations, Communication, Company Culture, Employee Engagement, Leadership, Permission to Speak, Social Business, Speaking Up at Work, Workplace Environment No Comments

Transitions — a great place to start rebuilding your slides

By Tom Nixon

Imagine the typical slide deck with 20 or 50 or 70 text-filled slides. Some of them bullets, some just chock-full of text, maybe a few PowerPoint generated charts and graphs — all displayed on the same bland, mind-numbing template. Where do you begin the process of rebuilding? How do you start opening up the presentation, making it more engaging, viewer-friendly and less boring?

One way to reboot this snooze-fest is to add some interest with transition slides. Transition slides signal you are moving from one subject area to the next. …

Monday, July 3rd, 2017 Tags: boring PowerPoint, engaging PowerPoint presentation, PowerPoint Presentations, transition slides
Category: Business Presentations, PowerPoint Slides, Presentation Tips No Comments

Spit and polish: Trimming your speech will win you big points

By Claudia Brogan

I once worked as speaker-coach for a highly-educated scientist who was invited to make a presentation on the topic of his professional research. He brought to our first planning meeting a script of 11 double-spaced pages. With a greeting and a straight face, he placed them on the desk. I read through the pages with great respect, then set them down with care, and asked him, “Dr. C, what are the three most essential points you want to make in this presentation?”

Silence. Finally he pointed to the 11 pages …

Monday, June 26th, 2017 Tags: long speeches, short speeches, speaking topics
Category: Audience, Speech & Presentation Coaching No Comments

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