If the room is packed with Nobel laureates, but the decision-maker is not, peg your remarks to the leader. (Editor's note: I've updated this post, one of the most popular ever on the blog, because this question just keeps coming up. Here, your balanced formula for presentations.) MORE

The round pegs in the square holes. Steve Jobs - American Businessman, Inventor and Co-Founder of Apple Inc. Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. MORE

  Forbes pegs him at #13 on its list of the world’s 50 most essential management gurus. Ram Charan once was the best-kept secret in the business world.   Only the CEOs of companies like GE, Verizon, Novartis, Dupont, Honeywell, KLM, and Bank of America had heard of him. MORE

Despite the deluge of resources and information, and your ability to do more and progress further, a round peg may not always fit a square nut – meaning that not every skill, suggestion and strategy can serve to fulfill/match one’s needs, abilities and potential all the time. MORE

BP head Tony Hayward is reported  to be on his way out.    After the last of the jeers has died down and he resumes private life, I predict he will become one of the King Lear types.      He will spend his remaining years perceiving himself as more sinned against than sinning.    That stance would make for a great satiric monologue drama, either on Broadway or "SNL." " Tags: Current Affairs MORE

I was recently invited by Dick Bruso of the Writers and Publishers Professional Expert Group (PEG) of NSA to deliver a one-hour teleseminar on Magcloud. Back in August 2008 I wrote a long review of the Magcloud print-on-demand publishing solution from HP Labs. Since then I’ve helped produce a number of editions of Professionally Speaking for our local National Speakers Association (NSA) chapter as well as a magazine for my wife’s College Admissions Counseling business. MORE

We verbalise it with phrases such as “a square peg in a round hole” when we want to denote a situation that doesn’t work. Match your character to the customer. Audiences like to believe that presenters see, hear, and feel the world as they do. MORE

If your product is a square peg and your client is a round hole, no matter how hard you push or insist, there will not be a good fit. Your client will look elsewhere until they find the round peg. If there's one thing that will make you a better speaker. MORE

So if friends and family have knocked them down a peg, it's not like their performance is going to suffer as it might if they were being asked to put on a show themselves. At the Emmys last night, there was a similar thread running through several of the winners' speeches. MORE

Stories that you have force - the square peg in the round hole - simply because it moves you, so you HAVE to share it. It sounded SO profound in my HEAD! It looked SO funny on PAPER! But.But.it FLOPPED! Yeah, that'll happen. Head to mouth disconnect. In fact, it happens a lot. MORE

I also need to spend some time thinking about my sense of humor and if I’m trying to put a square peg in a round hole, and trying to do something that’s unnatural. Here are a few sitcom pilot scripts traps I’ve experienced myself, and some potential ways to escape. This is not an exhaustive list of traps by any means. And I am writing from the perspective of a first-time sitcom pilot script writer. MORE

If your product is a square peg and your client is a round hole, no matter how hard you push or insist, there will not be a good fit. Your client will look elsewhere until they find the round peg. If there's one thing that will make you a better speaker. MORE

The irony is that those who check out are not usually the ones you would peg as "suicidal." "Swiss police say 3-star chef Benoit Violier, whose restaurant near Lausanne recently topped list of the world's best, has been found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. MORE

The round pegs in the square holes. Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American Businessman, Inventor, Public Speaker and Co-Founder of Apple Inc. Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. MORE

I think we also try to bring good speakers "down a peg" by mocking them for being clear and simple. MORE

Instead, she pokes fun and prompts smiles throughout, not to make light of her nation or its challenges, but to take the mighty down a peg or two. MORE

I've had a few speaking invitations pegged to a specific topic, then found out it had changed after I accepted--without hearing directly from the organizers. MORE

He had a hook…and a peg leg and eye patch. Here’s another Observational Humor monologue and an analysis of what makes the humor work. THE SET-UP (What happened and what was said during the meeting before the monologue was delivered.). The club had five guests that evening. The President announced that we would be serving cake at the end of the meeting. A speaker talked about wine. He suggested that we might have wine with the cake. MORE

But speaking entirely without contractions sounds unnatural and will certainly peg you as reading straight from a script, in addition to becoming a distraction for the audience. MORE

Party Information: [link] Join the Cigar PEG: [link]. Uncategorized Cigar PEG 2011 Pirates of the Podium MORE

I've had a few speaking invitations pegged to a specific topic, then found out it had changed after I accepted--without hearing directly from the organizers. MORE

  I pegged him as one and blogged/blog obsessively about it here as well as my other two sites here and here.  About 10 weeks ago my 2003 Ford Escort was stolen.    The agita and more to the point the walking, chasing after the bus, and carrying items like kitty litter and Diet Pepsi have left me 15 pounds lighter.    At my post-60 age category, that's an amazing feat.    Of course, I look and feel better.  MORE

With the recent end of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, now-Senator Elizabeth Warren took the time to share on Facebook her first appearance on the show six years ago. At the time of the 2009 interview, she was chairing a congressional oversight panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). MORE

Given that being a good listener is presumably essential if you’re going to be any good at helping people with their problems, I’ve often wondered if psycho-therapy and counselling are occupations that, for some mysterious reason, attract square pegs into round holes. I recently posted a note about Derek Draper breaking a basic rule of turn-taking in conversation (‘one speaker at a time’), illustrated by a video of him and Paul Staines being interviewed by Andrew Neill. MORE

But speaking entirely without contractions sounds unnatural and will certainly peg you as reading straight from a script, in addition to becoming a distraction for the audience. MORE

So if friends and family have knocked them down a peg, it's not like their performance is going to suffer as it might if they were being asked to put on a show themselves. At the Emmys last night, there was a similar thread running through several of the winners' speeches. MORE

  Guber tells the story of presenting former President Reagan and former President Mikhail Gorbachev with Tiffany-designed jackknives and reminding them of playing mumblety-peg as boys.  Peter Guber has written a masterful additional to the storytelling library shelf with his book, Tell To Win. MORE