There are two communication “killer apps” that I witness plague startups with frightening frequency.   These danger zones are lethal to a startup, especially one seeking funding.     If you are pursuing venture capital funding, read this prior to presenting. You will be glad that you did.   Killer App # 1 – No Central

Breaking news….If If you are a startup pursuing funding, you have more in common with a politician or athlete caught behaving badly then you might think.  A politician caught misbehaving, an athlete photographed doing something he or she shouldn’t be doing, or a celebrity who finds that one heated moment has turned into tabloid fodder for weeks on end all have one thing in common – how they communicate

In Pt. I of this series I went over a number of tips and tactics to deal with the fear of public speaking.  One of the tactics was breathing, which sounds so simple, and is often anything but the night before, or the hour before, you are to give a speech or presentation. Today will focus 0n a few of my favorite breathing techniques to use prior to presenting or giving a speech:

Man, I wish it was that easy.  I speak publicly often, and I still get nervous prior to every speech or presentation. Every single one. That being said, I’m in pretty good company — it has been noted that Sir Winston Churchill and President Lincoln also got quite anxious prior to speaking publicly.

Breaking news….Social Social media is in fact….Social! Social! Social Media outlets are not diaries, confidants or private/confidential conversations. The reality is that now, more than ever, social media conversations are public , or at the very least semi-public.

TED has earned a lot of attention over the years for many reasons, including the nature and quality of its short-form conference presentations. All presenters lucky enough to be asked to speak at TED are given 18-minute slots maximum (some are for even less time such as 3- and 6-minute slots). Some who present at TED are not used to speaking on a large stage, or are at least not used to speaking on their topic with strict time restraints.

Exposing ourselves to traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas — notions that may seem quite foreign to most of us — is a good exercise in lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in 1967. "Lateral Lateral Thinking is for changing concepts and perception," says de Bono. Beginning to think about design by exploring the tenets of the Zen aesthetic may not be an example of Lateral Thinking

Most people do not really think about design and designers, let alone think of themselves as designers. But what, if anything, can regular people — teachers, students, business people of all types — learn from designers and from thinking like a designer? And what of more specialized professions?

Presenting while people are tweeting is challenging – but also adds a new dimension to the presentation experience for your audience. Gradually tools are being developed to make it easier for you as the presenter to manage the backchannel. I

People often ask if technical or science-related presentations can be as compelling as presentations covering other less technical topics. Now, not every presentation has earth-shattering, Nobel-Prize winning significance, but I assume if you are talking about your research or current issues in your field, etc. that your words have a benefit for someone else.