All this adapting may have you running short, or long. Running short is usually not a problem provided you cover all your material: it doesn’t impinge on your audience’s schedule of activities following your talk, and it gives you more time for interactions during and after the talk.
But never…
Never run long, and never start late. […]

If you’re going to be a successful public speaker the first thing you need to accomplish is to have your audience pay attention and remember what you say during your talk, speed, presentation, or seminar. To do this you’re going to have to be quick on your toes, and adapt. Here are a couple of […]

For most of us, learning to communicate effectively with the spoken word is a much longer process than learning to write effectively.
Part of the reason for this is that the most effective communicators learn to adapt to, and finally resonate with, the particular audience they are speaking to at the particular time they are […]

When planning any oral interaction—private or public—you must keep in mind that your goal is to communicate with your audience. We talked about this with writing, and the same thing applies to spoken communications.
Say it clearly the first time
In fact, the focus on audiences’ understanding is even more critical with the spoken word than […]

We have stressed the importance to a technology career—a career on a technical or management track—of being able to communicate effectively in writing.
In fact I said, “If you can’t write well, you might as well stay home.”
Oral communication, which has public and one-on-one speaking components, is a little different. Let’s focus on public speaking in […]

Everyone has something to say. Most of the success I have in dealing with people is in making them feel valued, helping them feel as if they have a meaningful role to play in what is going on around them. People in all situations feel valued when they feel they have impact or influence on […]