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Kate Moss is a cocaine-hoovering trollop on a catwalk

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One of the fun things I do regularly is Rostrum – a public speaking club. The other night we had a balloon debate and at the last minute I was drafted in.

A balloon debate is where there are three people in a leaking hot air balloon who are arguing over a single parachute. The audience has to decide who gets the parachute based on a three-minute speech, and a 1-minute rebuttal, from each of the people in the balloon.

In this case I was Angelina Jolie, as the scheduled speaker was unable to make the meeting.

Anyway, I was Angelina Jolie, and I was competing with Kate Moss and David Beckham for the parachute. In the course of discussion I may have described Kate Moss as a cocaine-hoovering trollop on a catwalk, and said that David Beckham was washed up with a dicky knee.

Both of which I am sure is true.

In the middle of the speech, two guests came into our meeting, just as I was describing how, as Angelina Jolie I was ‘up for it – you know what I mean boys’. Complete with a lusty wink, patched jeans, and a fat-lipped smile. To this day I’m not entirely sure that our guests knew exactly what was going on :).

It was a lot of fun, and Angelina Jolie won the debate. Yay me!

Public speaking for beginners

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I saw a post in an online forum recently asking how to speak in public, and since I’m a critic with Rostrum (a public speaking organisation that is not actually toastmasters), I thought I’d provide a few pointers.  It’s actually a lot than you initially think, but you will need to practice, practice, practice.  Which is why I joined a speaking club.

Anyway, for a nervous or beginning speaker, these are the points I thought about that would have helped me immensely when I first started out.

  • Firstly, don’t over-prepare.  Structure and knowing what you’re going to say is key, but you’ll freeze if you rote-learn something. 
  • Don’t have too much content or facts and figures – people don’t remember it anyway.  Tops, out of an hour-long speech the audience will remember 5 points within an hour, and 3 within a day.
  • You do still need to prepare.
  • When you plan your speech, answer this question:
    • The purpose of this speech is to persuade/inform/entertain/motivate (pick one) the audience to [fill in the blank].
    • Whatever you say in your speech has to contribute to this purpose.
  • What you do exactly depends on if it’s a long speech at a rostrum or a short speech in front of a small group. If it is a long speech then you’d have the whole thing written out and do a bit of a reading of your words (but still add more than just the words – people can read otherwise)
  • That said, the points below stand for a long speech as much as a short speech, except perhaps for the palm cards:
    • Have a good opening that you learn (1 minute).
    • Throw in a self-deprecating joke next to lighten the mood – if appropriate. At least have a vague idea (e.g. ‘I got dressed up special today but someone puked on this tie’ – maybe you have better material) but don’t learn it.
    • Tell them the things you’re going to tell them. (‘I’m going to talk about these 3 things’).
    • Tell them the things (content – write down three points to remember for each one, learn those, but not a whole thing. Have these to hand on palm cards if needed, or in a powerpoint if possible (but – have mercy)).
    • Tell them what you told them (summarise).
    • Conclusion – tie back to the start and what their next steps need to be (what you want it to be). Learn this.
  • Some pointers to remember:
    • Remember that the audience is not actually your enemy, they love you and want to hear what you have to say.
    • Avoid fillers (ums etc) or cliches (‘you know’). If you can’t think of what to say, just pause and look thoughtful. No sound is not bad. If necessary, you have no more than 2 palm cards or short notes to remind you of what to say next.
    • Look the audience in the eye, don’t talk to the ceiling/wall/window/convenient pot plant.
    • If someone asks a tricky question, say ‘that’s very interesting and I have my own theories on that, but perhaps someone else here would like to comment first?’. Or, ‘That’s very interesting, why do you ask that?’.
    • Be honest though – if you are asked a question and don’t know the answer, note it and get back to the person later.
    • Sit down and shut up when you’ve said what you needed to say.
    • Commit the stuff you need to to memory (the stuff noted above to ‘learn’). 
    • Go pee before the speech if it’s going to be a long one.

These pointers won’t make you into Sarah Palin overnight, but will give you the confidence to give a good speech that is effective.  Not a great speech, not a speech that moves Rome to take on Hannibal, but you’ll do fine.

And practice, practice, practice – have a go and take every opportunity you can to speak in public.  You’ll do well sometimes, flub a few, but rarely do as badly as you thought you would. 

Ah McCain, you’ve done it again!

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This was written as a six minute speech for my Rostrum Club meeting this evening.

Good evening Mr Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen.

“Don’t leave home without it”. “Not happy Jan!”. “Ah McCain, you’ve done it again!”.

American Express. Sensis. McCain’s foods.

Have you ever stop to wonder how these phrases enter the vernacular? They’re advertising slogans, and we know that they’re there to make us buy more of their stuff, but when we hear a catchy phrase we know that we will repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it.

What makes a good slogan, something that enters the lexicon and becomes part of everyday speech? Tonight I am going to explore factors in making your marketing slogan stick. It’s not just luck, although that can be a part of it.

There are three important factors. Firstly, the slogan has to be brief. Secondly, it has to be presented in a way that allows the audience to identify with the situation and the people in it, and be sufficiently flexible that it can be applied in our daily lives. And finally, the slogan has to be so artfully crafted that it catches the eye and the mind, and is ultimately memorable. Let’s consider three slogans in these terms.

“Don’t leave home without it”. American Express’s slogan has been around since 1975, when Karl Malden, the stereotypically solid and reliable cop, warned us not to leave home without American Express Travellers Cheques. It’s brief. It’s short – five simple words. A big tick there. Can we identify with the situation? Well, yes we can – we all leave home regularly, and the aim is to present an American Express card as something indispensable as the front-door key. And it’s flexible – the slogan doesn’t mention the product, you are simply implored not to leave without ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is. You can apply it to your everyday life without much modification. Finally, is it memorable? Yes – the phrase is memorable and simple, but it also has been presented in many different guises over many years by American Express. A long campaign of use as an advertising slogan, long presented in front of us, brings this catchcry into the mainstream.

“Not happy, Jan!”. This slogan for Sensis was featured in advertising campaigns for three years from 2000 to 2003. This catchcry was everywhere at one stage; it’s still around but perhaps not as much as it once was. Now, three words, that’s brief! Since everyone has cause not to be happy at some stage, we can certainly identify with the catchcry. And it is memorable, mostly because it is simple, and the manner in which the line was first delivered just felt so real – we could feel the despair of the small business owner who opened her copy of Yellow Pages only to discover that her ad was not there. After a series of anger management exercises, she yells loudly down the street, “Not happy, Jan!”. I think we’ve all been there, don’t you?

And “Ah McCain, you’ve done it again!”. McCain Foods has been around since 1956, and that line is delivered with a satisfied voice and images of nutritionally questionable but delicious, hot food. It’s short – still only six words. It is adaptable to any situation, although it does mention the brand name. And it is memorable – the slogan has been force-fed to us over the years, and it rhymes with the brand name. This, like all the examples tonight, has entered the vernacular.

Now, tonight we’ve explored three factors as to why an advertising slogan enters the vernacular. Doubtless there are many others – ‘That’ll be the phone, Reg.’ ‘Ooh, it does get in’, and ‘Drink it, Freddy, drink it!’ come to mind. In these cases it is not just luck that is involved – a brief slogan, applicable to flexible and recognizable situations, and a catchy slogan are all factors.

Luck will play a part, of course – apparently ‘Not happy, Jan’ was thought up on the day of the production shoot. But these three factors have an important part to play in the success of a marketing slogan, and whether your brand enters the vernacular, or disappears into history. “Ah McCain, they’ve done it again!”

ABC and iView

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OK well it’s probably no surprise to anyone but I’m a Dr Who fan.  In my defence, I’m a card-carrying geek so it’s kind of an occupational hazard.

Unfortunately last week my geek cred was shattered by the revelation that my PVR didn’t properly record the show on Sunday night.  Argh – and this is one of those shows where you really need to see all stories to understand the story arc that’s going on.  It’s not CSI where the same show is replayed each week.  On Dr Who – the writers have to be able to write!

Anyway – I had the pleasure of trying out the ABC’s iView.  They store the show as a downloadable broadcast for up to 11 days later than the original broadcast, so I was able to watch it through the notebook.  Better yet, I hooked the notebook up to the TV through the svideo cable, turned off the screensaver and cranked up the power options and it was – almost – as good as the real thing.  If I had hooked the sound cables up I could probably have had it go through my surround sound.  But, as it was I think I noted one item of pixelation, and no download pause while watching a 50-minute show. 

That in my books is both impressive and fantastic.  It’s still a beta service, but it worked out of the box for me and saved me some geek cred anyway.

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Evernote is good, but it’s not everything…

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Well, my setup for my mobile life is slowly coming together.  Firstly, I have a Blackberry for when I am out and about – full integration into Exchange server hosted by WebCentral.  It’s an expensive approach by the time Telstra and Webcentral have their cut, but it works well and is my primary mobile device.  Then I have two laptops – a Dell Vostro 1500 (the luggable for power-computing) and an HP Mini-Note 2300 for mobile computing (it’s small, light, and light-powered but does what’s necessary – mostly).  I have an HP Media drive that I use to synch files between the luggable and the HP – I’m currently using SyncToy from evil Microsoft to synchronise the files, although I did try SyncBack as well.  SyncToy is generally easier to use but its reputation is not as solid as SyncBack’s – my trouble with SyncBack is its complete lack of feedback as to what it’s actually synced and what it hasn’t.  I use GMail for my personal email, and it runs on my mobile based upon the Google Apps hosted solution. 

I also use Office Document Imaging to convert all my filenotes to PDF, so that they become part of my backup routine.  Ironically, the only thing I don’t keep electronically like this is my accounting records, as one day I may actually hand them over to an accountant.  And much to my annoyance I continue to use Office 2007 after a run-in with Open Office – it completely lost a major spreadsheet on me by overwriting a filename and annoying me somewhat – also Open Office files (native) don’t seem to be indexed by Copernic, my desktop searching engine.  I use ThinkingRock to manage my tasks and projects and todo lists (I did revert to Outlook tasks, which was good for mobility, but bad for trying to manage projects and generally implement GTD).  The new version of ThinkingRock 2 is much more polished so I am coming back to the TR fold (I was silly for going away, even if I did get mobility out of Outlook tasks). 

Finally, I use Evernote for little snippets of information that I collect and need to refer to, or that I stumble across while I’m researching stuff for papers I’m presenting and so on.  What is fantastic about Evernote is it’s ability to bring a lot of material together in one place, treat it the same, tag it, and bring it back, and do it from multiple vectors (PC, Mac, Internet, mobile phone) and keep it all in synch, for a reasonable price.  If used well, it can be very good.  A major difference from version 2 is the lack of version control.  I also originally came across Evernote while searching for a personal wiki approach, and EverNote doesn’t really support that type of functionality, it keeps it simple stupid.  I now use WikidPad to do that sort of thing.

Overall, Evernote is a great repository for keeping research together, and keeping things in synch between multiple devices (as you can see above, a fair chunk of my setup is devoted to synching stuff between machines.So it’s a great tool for doing what says it does.  Unfortunately it means I no have Yet Another Place with information stored – files (which I index with Copernic), some websites and now Evernote.  I wonder if my stuff in Evernote will convert over in a few years time – hopefully it’s successful and continues to operate, otherwise I will have a lot of information contained in Evernote that can’t be migrated to anything else.

I suppose in some ways it’s not unlike Lotus Notes, ironically, in its original syncing format, although it’s not collaborative I guess.  It is personally focussed.  Still it’s worth my $A47 for a premium subscription, and I’ll think about where it goes from here.  It’s a good tool to add to my suite of stuff I use, but it’s probably not going to be my nirvana for file and information management any time soon. 

Maybe one day I’ll get there.