Reinventing Yourself - Are YOU Better Than What’s on YouTube?

Have you had to fight for attention from an audience texting messages or surfing the internet? Don't feel alone. As President Obama met with House Republicans in the Capitol yesterday, Rep. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, got out his Blackberry and started to Twitter. "President Obama is speaking to us right now on the Democratic stimulus bill, " he wrote. "Good salesman, bad product. He's reaching out, he's genuine about it, but it's like trying to sell a Ford Pinto." Is it the fault of a "bad," inattentive audience or are you still doing presentations the same way you did 3 years ago? Or even last month?  Successful entertainers and speakers look closely at themselves and update the way they are communicating. Madonna has done it.  Al Gore has done it. Don Chambers, CEO of Cisco, has done it.  Are you getting the results you want on a consistent basis or do you need to reinvent yourself? In this electronic age, speakers are definitely in the spotlight. You can refuse opportunities or welcome and take advantage of the new technologies. Multiple platforms have emerged that all require different delivery skills. Business people have to gain exposure in these new media forms or they miss huge segments of potential customers and may lose the ones they have to a more savvy player. Have you thought about creating a pod cast to reach a larger audience? It's hard to catch up with the latest way to communicate and even harder still to excel on UTube, Blogtalk radio, or Netmeeting. Years ago, you could take your time learning how to communicate via videoconferencing. Today, if you and your company aren't conducting meetings via Telepresence, you can be viewed as out-of-touch. In Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen rightly complains, "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place."  You may be competing for a job, a contract, a promotion, or trying to gain more visibility for yourself, your products or services. Many clients tell me they lose their anxiety and nervous mannerisms a few minutes into a presentation or interview. A speaker doesn't have that luxury today. Audiences have nano-second attention spans. Get to the punch line!  It's imperative to swiftly grab and connect emotionally with audiences immediately. Those stumbling few seconds or a misspoken phrase can be your downfall. Worse yet, they can be looped again and again and close to impossible to delete on Google. Have you noticed changes in your listeners? A new phenomenon is the audience seeing themselves on an equal basis with even renowned speakers. No longer do they sit in respectful silence. They can be combative and challenge speakers with startling questions - as evidenced by the past presidential race.  Be prepared!  Social networking has made audiences comfortable in analyzing the minutest fact or quote. They can check facts on a G1 phone or rush to critique the speaker afterwards in blogs that go out to millions worldwide. It's important to be rock solid in your very core. I've often told clients this is the time to be like the winner in the childhood game of "King on the Mountain!" No one should be able to topple you. Our new President Obama has this quality.  Trust in your uniqueness. Resist comparing yourself to others and be an original. The closer you get to your identity, the more powerful you will be. If you're the least bit fragmented, you expose yourself to the groundlings. Let's hope we don't return to Shakespeare's theatre where the pit jeered the actors if they weren't up to their expectations and threw rotten vegetables. If you look comfortable and at ease, the audience will mirror your body language.  They will respond to a valuable message, imaginative insights, vision or rare talent.  An opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera recently received an unusual standing ovation in the middle of the opera. Thousands of Americans wrote enormous checks to presidential candidates because they felt emotionally connected to the speaker and his or her message. If you're uncomfortable moving into these the new mediums, you can learn a lot from actors who have always been exposed to critics. One of my clients said he froze when he saw a superior in a video meeting and everything went downhill. "Think like a theater actor," I told him. "They're ecstatic when they spot an important reviewer in the crowd. This is visibility. This is a chance to be reviewed. This could be a dramatic advancement in their career and their bank account! They walk out on the stage prepared and excited to be the best they can possibly be." It just takes a change in perception. Here's some other ways for you to "kick-up" your communications: <ol> <li>Set up interaction from the get-go. Involve the audience in the first 90 seconds or you may never capture them for the rest of your presentation. </li> <li>Begin and end your presentations without distracting slides. You are your best visual!</li> <li>Analyze your audience and start from where they are, not from where you are. </li> <li>Address the specificity or DNA in your audience - or don't bother to speak.</li> <li>Make a video to go up on one of the networking sites or make an audio pod cast.</li> <li>Ask for feedback from your audience, even if you're the expert. </li> <li>Continue the conversation on blogs, if this method helps you reach your goals.  </li> <li>Develop a tough skin as you will get critiqued. The feedback isn't always pretty.</li> <li>Be a storyteller. Tell brief stories that are relevant and make a memorable point. </li> <li>Be conversational, relevant, fresh, imaginative and appropriately humorous.</li> </ol> Even in volatile economic times, there are always individuals and companies that thrive and prosper. Your communication skills can be your most valuable asset.  Reinvent yourself so your compelling message gets heard and shared around the world. 2009-01-28T21:18:58Z

2009-01-30T22:50:49Z

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reinventing-yourself-are-you-better-than-whats-on-youtube

2009-01-30T22:50:45Z

Do you find it distracting when audience members are texting messages or surfing the internet instead of listening to you? Learn some practical presentation skills to get and keep attention in our New Media world.