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How to Lose the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ from Your Speech

July 31st, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Presentations

“Hey there. One of my largest pet peeves as an audience member, I have to admit, is a platform speaker who does not have his or her ‘ums’ or ‘ahs’ under control. Sure, these involuntary ‘placeholder,’ ‘filler,’ or ‘bridge’ noises are understandable in their way. However, in my opinion, one of the hallmarks of a professional teacher, trainer, or public speaker is that his or her speech just f-l-o-w-s as naturally as possible, and is relatively or completely free from extraneous filler words. In this blog post I will share a technique that has helped me to solve this problem.”

Don’t Just Add, Replace. Own the 100%

July 31st, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Leadership

“Here’s a sample snippet of a coaching conversation I have often had with executives. To set the scene for you, it usually happens after we’ve discussed a project or strategic initiative and its value alignment for their organization.”

17 Pithy Insights For Startup Founders

July 28th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Entrepreneurship

“Regular readers of this blog will know by now that brevity is usually not one of my talents. So, I thought I’d make an attempt at capturing a series of small entrepreneurial ’sound bites’. The idea is to have a short thought or pithy lesson from my 12+ years of working with startups. I’m hoping that the value/word ratio is reasonably high. Apologies if some of these sound trite, but I couldn’t avoid it.”

14 Tips for Communicating Ideas

July 28th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Presentations

“I’m doing a lot of speaking all of a sudden, related to my pre-launch plans around a new media company. I’m finding that there are certain skills in communicating the information and building understanding that are important and useful. I thought I’d pass on some thoughts along those lines.”

THE FATAL-FLAW MYTH

July 27th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Business

“Because we underestimate how much variation can be caused simply by luck, we see patterns where none exist. It’s no wonder that management theory is dominated by fads: every few years, new companies succeed, and they are scrutinized for the underlying truths that they might reveal. But often there is no underlying truth; the companies just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

Business books reading list

July 27th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Business

“Who knew business people were so well read? BusinessWeek Online tapped a bevy of prominent professors and business professionals and asked them about their favorite books, business or otherwise. Browse around and discover what made those books inspirational, instructive, or influential in their thinking and their careers. What would they advise you to read if you had the chance to ask them?”

Management Methods, Models and Theories

July 25th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Leadership

“Management portal explaining 250+ methods, models and theories on strategy, performance management, finance, valuation, change, corporate governance, communication, marketing, leadership and responsibility. Value Based Management.”

The story of Zingerman’s Deli

July 22nd, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Entrepreneurship

The story of Zingerman’s Deli and how the company expanded while remaining local and committed to its ideals. The author of the article wrote a book called Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big and Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig was a speaker at Taste3.

RedRoller

July 19th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Business

“RedRoller is a one-stop shipping solution that lets you compare rates and service options among top [parcel] carriers [such as FedEx, USPS, DHL, Overnite Express and Eastern
Connections] and then complete your shipping transactions in a snap… You choose the service you want, and RedRoller takes care of creating the shipment with the selected carrier, generating a label and arranging for pick-up or locating the nearest drop off location (whichever you choose).”

Wise Words

July 19th, 2006 | Comments Off | Posted in Presentations, XPLANE

“A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a pictogram is worth so much more… A good BoND [Back of the Napkin Diagram] can also assist with employee recruitment, team alignment, sales and technology build outs. The vocal [Rick] Segal comments, that ‘As the prospective client, employee, or VC engages, both parties can use the drawing as a central reference point. It’s a very useful tool that is often overlooked in favour of mountains of text laden painful power point slides.’ In fact, BoNDs can be used throughout the business, according to the Grandfather of business visualizations, Dave Gray, Founder and CEO of XPLANE (the business visualization company behind the powerful BoNDs you see in Business 2.0 magazine).”

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