Geronimo Leadership Coaching

A Totally Millennial Birthday Card!

Saturday November 28th, was my birthday.

Usually, I receive a one or two hilarious & creative electronic birthday cards, mainly from my American friends .

I also have still some faithful friends (2) who write by hand and post by traditional mail a hand picked birthday card.

Mainly, I'm lucky to have my big family around to give me birthday hugs, and that's the most precious.

This year, however, was different...

Look at what I received,thanks to my wonderful friend @elizeweiland, from all other the world!

Boulder, Colorado, London, Mubai India, Brussels, Montreal, Hadrian's wall UK, Warsaw, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Fort Collins, Colorado, Ascott UK, Mexico

 

This is a personalized & worldwide video birthday card

Are these international friends geeks , professional actors, or both?                                                        Well, most of them aren't, except maybe @TanveerNaseer..., from StarTreck Production. But look at what they've created, altogether, with "genuine fondness" (@TimDouglasHR 's quote!)

Apart from the fact that it moved me to tears of joy, and will remain one my best birthday surprises,it also shows us the impact of new technologies in our daily life and the necessity of adopting with simplicity and confidence this new online media.My tittle, "Millennium Birthday Card" refers to Gen Y, also called "Millenniums", who grew up with social media and the web 2.0. (More about Generations in Five Generations Of Speakers, Which One is Yours? )

Here are a few tips for you!

Recording a video may be easier than you think.                                                                                

 " Maybe your laptop comes with a camera. If you have a Mac, click on your QuickTime Player, select File, and then New Movie Recording.  Click on the red button at the bottom of the screen, and viola, you’re recording!  Easy, peasy! You can record and trash as many attempts as you need. (I must have tried a couple of dozen times until I got my recording down to :14 seconds.)

If you have a PC, here’s one link that might help you get started. You can search & find others, as well:

http://dvr.about.com/od/tvcapturemethods/ht/ht1.htm

You can use a fancy home video camera and upload it to your laptop and then to our site. Even small digital cameras often have video features that allow you to do the same." 

by Janice Jensen, Executive Producer , creator of TweetaVision.

Follow her on Twitter, she's creating the Next Generation of Television!

My warmest thanks and hugs to , (in order of appearance...) :

Elizabeth Weiland Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Tim Douglas Ascott UK.

Amy Bryant Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

Skip Zilla Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Gurrpriet Siingh-Joy Mumbai, INDIA.

Dorothy Dalton Brussels, BELGIUM.

Tanveer Naseer Montreal, CANADA.

Monica Diaz Mexico City, MEXICO.

Colin Lewis Warsow, POLAND.

Sharon Eden London, UK.

Kendall Thiessen Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Andrew Crane Adrian's Wall, Northern UK.

Lolly Daskall New York City, USA.

Peg Rowe Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Ava Diamond Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.

Each of them is exceptionally talented, with a genuine gift that can change your whole life. Visit their websites, blogs, twitter streams, believe me, they're precious and you'd better watch them in the coming years, they're going to "Play Big"!

Olé to You! Don't Be Afraid, Just Do Your Talk!

Why a whole post on Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray,Love ?

1. I started a series on Powerful Women Speakers
2. In this TED Video, Elizabeth Gibert is totally "naked"
3. She illustrates the magical power of metaphors and stories

The secret impulse, which triggered this post, is that it's one of my favourite TED Videos, along with Jill Bolte Taylor's Stroke of insight and a dozen of others I will share here in this blog.

What can you learn from this presentation, that you could use in Your Next Presentation?

• You can perform on a stage with nothing else but your presence,yourself, no technology.
• You can rely on stories and myths to give flesh to your talk.
• You can be perfectly structured with elegance and flow.

• Another Naked Presentation

If you look at this video, you will notice that Elzabeth Gilbert embodies simplicity.

She is all dressed in black, with a very simple and casual black turtle neck (is it the new Steve Jobs Fashion?), black pants,ballerines, no jewels, very little make up.No laptop, no remote control, no visual aids, no notes,not even any back screen image. Black stage. Empty

Yet, she's shining

We follow her expressive face, her hands like butterflies, we watch her "dance" on stage and hear her inspired voice and delicious humour charm us along her talk, very simply.

No PowerPoint, no beam of light except the light that shines through her eyes, and her Passion.

And she's not a one woman show professional actress! She's a writer!

I know corporate settings don't always allow us to make such simple presentations and that when it comes to presenting charts, graphs and results, slides are necessary.

However, speaking in public doesn't only refer to formal presentations settings.

Every time you're asked to speak during a meeting, or in any professional conversation, you're having an opportunity to make an impact, be heard, be understood, make a change.

This TED presentation show us that you can achieve that very simply.

• Again, the Power of Stories and Metaphors.

Elizabeth Gilbert takes us back to Greeks and Romans.

She's looking across time, other societies," to see if they might have had better ideas about how to help creative people manage the inherent emotional risk of creation".

• When she talks about demons and geniuses, she does it by giving examples (Socrate) and also evocative images (hilarious when she compares the greek Genius divine entity to Dobby the House Elf)( In Harry Potter Publishing  JK Rowlands)

• How does she make us understand that during the Renaissance, we did a "huge error"? She uses a fantastic metaphor"It's like asking somebody to swallow the sun"

• The presence of god in the artists projects ? "It's like rubbing fairy juices on their projects"

• I'm going to leave you listen to her two stories of the American poet Ruth Stone and the musician Tom Waits. Commenting on them would only give you a pale idea of the wonderfully evocative power of her words. Her language is multisensorial and it just gives me "goosebumps" (and not "goosepumps", like I thought it spelled...)

She speaks about her meeting with Ruth Stone two extraordinary minutes (from 10 to 12 min in her talk). Really worth watching!It's actually like watching the scene with her playing all the roles. She's miming with her whole body  the beautiful phrase:

"Ruth Stone would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body"                                                                                                        (This reminds me of Robert Frost definition of poetry, a way of "taking life by the throat")

Her interview with Tom Waits is also a peak moment of her speech, which brings unexpected laughter.Watch it, it's between 13 and 15 minutes in the talk.

Now, is she just very gifted and just improvising?

• How to structure your talk with elegance?

Let me guide you through the underlying structure of this talk, which seems to be flowing spontaneously like a river from her. Again, this hides careful preparation. ( When Elizabeth says her creative process is one of "a mule", I suspect she may have prepared this talk, with "mulishness", in order to be caught by the "glimpse of god")

Observe how she very elegantly, and with humour, keeps her audience on track:

"Stay with me, because it does circle again back!"

She gives us some clues about where she's going to take us, how she will do it, and how she will take us back... Beautiful, very clever!

So her plan looks more like a circle:

Starting her circle with:

 Her personal story, how having written this huge success "Eat ,Pray and Love", could have driven her to anxiety or depression.

1. Brief history of demons and genius in ancient Greece and Rome
2. The huge error of rational humanism and Renaissance
3. Story of the Poet Ruth Stone
4. Story of the Musician Tom Waits

Circles back to: 

The impact of these stories on her writing and how accepting this "glimpse of god" could save TODAY creative people from madness.

My tip: The more aligned you are with your words, the better they will flow...

Again:

• You can perform on a stage with nothing else but your presence,yourself, no technology.
• You can rely on stories and myths to give flesh to your talk.
• You can be perfectly structured with elegance and flow.

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray,Love, the mega Best Seller which is soon to be a movie starring Julia Roberts.

So, Olé to you , show up for your next presentation, and do your job!

If the glimpse of god visits you, Ole!

If not? Ole to you anyway, just for having the courage to show up and talk.

The Future of Story Telling

 "Don't worry sweetheart, I 'll bring my iPhone!"

Just imagine yourself, with your kid or grandchild, reading his (her) favorite bedtime story,with a classic children book

 and ...your iPhone!

Watch this incredible (very short 1:53 min) video where a classical children book is being read WITH the kid, thanks to an iPhone touch screen inserted in the book (I love the moment when the little red fishes are attracted like magnets by the finger)

"I was completely blown away by this video the first time through. Such a simple, low-tech, solution produces such an amazingly rich, engaging experience that’s just bursting with possibility for further creativity.

While it’s just a concept at this point, you can see how it can make a new kind of storytelling available to the masses in a way that wouldn’t have seemed possible not that long ago."

Alex Rainert. His twitter bio:" I love design. I'm partial to the intersection of mobility & social behavior. Years ago I co-founded dodgeball. I currently run the Design group at Schematic NY".

So, what does it have to do with Presentation Skills and Public Speaking?

I see the future of Presentations including Storytelling, interactivity and creativity.

I'm not sure yet how it will be implemented, but there is room for innovation, and this could just be fantastic!

Imagine if we could design workshop books and masterclass like that?

Our audience would be able to follow what we say and show and at the same time experience with their touch the discovery of new concepts..., at their own rythm.

Therefore, we need to develop storytelling skills, as well as creative narrative design and skills.

I'd love to collaborate with designers and learning experts to create innovative learning tools...

Mixing the most ancient oral tradition with the most sophisticated technology.

Anyone interested?

How a Woman Can Move Mountains with Words

How To Create an Impact using the 4 "P"s?

Watch how Cat Lainé  from The Business Innovation Factory, is taking us into her story with Purpose,Presence,Passion and of course,Preparation.

 Awesome.

How does she do this?

With the four "P"s:

• Purpose
  
• Presence
• Passion
• Preparation

What is her purpose?

"As Deputy Director of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG), Lainé has worked to bring renewable electricity and solar hot water to families and agricultural workers in Guatemalan villages, and dry composting latrines to women in the Cap-Haitien marketplace in Haiti. Simple infrastructure projects like these have a dramatic effect on quality of life."

This lady is on a Mission. This alone has the power to move mountains.

How "Present" is she?

In her introduction,she uses a metaphor, tells us the story from the Greek mythology Tantalus.

She calls upon our ancient memories, the myths we may have learned at school.

She's excited about it and even laughs just at the thought of it, before telling us her story. We can only listen, in awe and impatient to know more.

Look at her: she is relaxed, she moves on the stage, makes eye contact, smiles, let her emotions show on her face. She also uses her voice accordingly to the effect she wants to produce. Her intention is clear: she really wants us to get involved and act on it by participation,taking action.

100 % Present and "A-Live", here and now.

She creates a sense of intimacy and closeness with us. She invites us in her space.

What about Passion?

Here is what she says about passion:

"Your dedication to the cause is what gets you through those moments," she says. "What you can't learn is passion. If you have that, it will get you so much farther than a degree."

Let it show, share your inner fire with your audience, and people will listen to you!

Preparation

This natural and casual talk is not improvised.

"With AIDG, Lainé attempts to stretch the goals of a traditional NGO by throwing savvy "business acumen" into the mix. She brings her own scientific background to the table when the group spearheads a new project, but she also knows the value of a good old-fashioned sales pitch."

And she must have prepared for this video, just like Steve Jobs does relentlessly before the release of Apple latest toy.

The result is :

Simplicity and natural.

The essence of an excellent presentation

What about you?

Will you use the 4 "P"s for your next presentation?

The Naked Speaker

How To Present Naked?

By naked, I mean without the whole set of classy and sleeky powerpoint slides, latest projector, remote control, laser pointer, giant screen with latest videos and dolby stereo....This post was triggered by reading the brilliant article written by Martin Shovel, "What Power Point can't show you" in Creativity Works Blog. 

What happens when technology fails?

Commenting on Twitter last week about Peter Senge 's performance, without Power Point, here are the reactions I got from Angie Chaplin, Leadership Speaker and Trainer

Recently, I had to facilitate a TeamBuilding seminar for International MBAs. I had designed a very “Zen like” short and sleek, design & Chic ppt with pictures purchased in iStock photos, few words, big fonts, very “Steve Job” styled…(without the black turtleneck, though)

I was very proud and eager to “make my show", I had rehearsed and prepared carefully.

I had not anticipated I would spill my coffee on my laptop, the day before, ruining my unsaved ppt.(The laptop, a brand new MacBook, is still alive with a mouse and keyboard transplant). Oh, lala! Désastre! Malédiction! (28 days later, it resurrected. I'm a Re born Mac Believer, now)
When I showed up the next morning, after a night trying to bring back my bonniemac to life,apart from my high stage of internal panic and lack of sleep,I had in fact all the presentation ready in my mind and was completely available for the participants.

I felt myself "naked".

Like in naked truth. Simply, naturally,..naked.

I told them many stories, I listened to them and asked them plenty of questions, I was more flexible and available than if I had sticked to my initial plan, which was ,more secretly, to make a Marion show.
Of course, I had integrated the components of the presentation and was in fact making it “Live”.
It was the best presentation ever. I felt free, natural, spontaneous, close to my audience and gave them more space too.

Why do I think Peter Senge is a naked Speaker?

Watch this very short (2.40 min) video "Closing Circle" 

He's speaking with simplicity , he's open and aware of others.  Very natural. He's standing in the middle of a circle and telling us a story.

This is called "presence".
Conclusions?

If you really have to use Power Point
Preparing with visual aids, ppt slides and even better mixing with mindmaps , can be a fantastic way to get sharp and ready . Ready to do without, too...

1.  It enables you to anticipate and structure your presentation, to think about the illustrations you might want to use.Then you use homeopatic dose.
2. You hand pick the best quality slides, the “wow” effect illustrations. That’s all.
3. You rehearse and rehearse, and eliminate. You “prune”
4.  It’s a great discipline and framework, from which one has to free oneself and move out of the ppt box.
5. It’s a means and should be used with only one question in mind: What added value is it bringing to my audience?

A wonderful way to do this is to embrace the Magical Story Frog Prince.

You tell stories, you ask for stories from your participants, you make an imaginary fire and warm yourself around!

As Terrence Gargiulo says “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a Story is worth a thousand pictures.”

Visit his site Making Stories, and his blog.

You want to make an impact? Tell stories!

Here you see Steve Job's Speech at Stanford, back in 2005.

He very simply starts with: "Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories."

One perfect example of presenting without Power Point. Although he's reading from a lectern,in a robe, the impact of his speech is tremendous because he makes it personal and includes the audience, us, into his life's story.

A great inspiration for "Naked Presentation", with an Orator in Toga...

He's naturally using the Rule of Three.

He's applying his own rule: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

You can find Steve Job's transcript here. 

"You've got to find what you like in life"