I own a car. When it dies, I may not buy another. In fact, I may never own another car again in my lifetime. I don’t want to be careless. I’d rather be carless. This is a shocking statement for a middle-aged Michigan suburbanite to make. For a time, I worked in the auto industry. …

Sometimes, voice typing can come in handy for really unexpected reasons! It’s October 1, and it’s freezing. My poor fingers are now cramped from typing in a cold room all morning. Google Voice Typing to the rescue! I’ll open up Google Docs, activate voice typing, and talk through a first draft.  I can always go …

Hey remember third grade? You got up and you did show-and-tell and  you loved it. ❤ You didn’t feel nervous or anxious. So what changed? What made you thrilled about public speaking when you were eight… and anxious about it as an adult? Three things: One: you’re more inhibited as an adult. You now know you stand the risk …

Some people feel scared or nervous before they deliver a speech. To gain confidence, they might go somewhere private right before they speak and strike what’s called a power pose. This is a broad, expansive gesture like putting your arms over your head and looking up. It’s a classic pose of someone who just won! …

Consider these four questions. You’ve seen headlines like these in your social media feeds: Who suffers more: Alzheimer’s patients or Alzheimer’s caregivers? What’s more important: presentation content or presentation delivery? Office work or remote work: which is better for productivity? Why would anyone need to go to college when they could just take online classes? …

Three years ago, I organized an online web conference. At the request of an organization, I interviewed three of their Subject Matter Experts to get background information for a presentation. The following photo is a re-creation of what I saw in this online meeting: Uh-huh. That’s right. For almost the entire interview, I stared at …

After a student gives a class presentation, I’ll sometimes conduct a quick poll. I’ll ask the entire class: on a scale of 0-10, how nervous did the speaker appear? The audience might give the speaker a 2 or a 3. But the speaker? A nervous speaker might rate themselves a 7 or 9. That’s a …

As a public speaker, you’ll want your audience to understand you. You’ll want to be clear. To gain insight about your speech clarity, try this insightful and easy exercise. Take the one-minute “speech pace” exercise I posted last week. Then, upload your one-minute video sample to YouTube. Within a few moments of uploading your video, YouTube …

Mastodon? Mastodon? Do we really need another social network? And do we really need to name it Mastodon? That’s hard for people to spell off the top of their heads. If you’re wondering why people are talking about Mastodon and what it looks like, I give you a glib and superficial glance at this open …

Microsoft Sway is now freely available online. If you’re a story teller, check it out. Take a few minutes to watch the Microsoft tutorial video.  It will give you a broad overview of what Sway is and how you might use it. Then, go monkey around with it a little. It’s at Sway.com. Whatever you do, …