Comedian Amy Schumer seems to be everywhere. Her “Trainwreck” movie with Judd Apatow follows the end of her third Comedy Central series season, which just picked up an Emmy. Amy is on talk shows from Ellen to Jimmy Kimmel. The Portico Blog is no exception to what is becoming the Year of Schumer. While the connection between…
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As much as visuals can clarify and reinforce messages, if we pick the wrong ones we can distract or otherwise undermine our intent. For this reason I (strongly) recommend avoiding ClipArt, especially the cartoon variety. Second to ClipArt in visual ineffectiveness is the category of stock images of office workers. . .who are clearly not office…
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Many of us create our own slides without ever having taken a graphic design course. The results are sometimes tragic. For those of us who have the benefit of working with a graphic designer, we’re not always making the most of this relationship. I recall conversations I had over the years and cringe at the…
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Presentations and meetings can cause cause anxiety. We worry about how our audience, whether strangers or colleagues, might perceive our intelligence and abilities. These fears are not baseless; how we communicate tells our audience whether we’re credible (or not). Even if we have compelling messages and well-designed slides, we won’t be persuasive if our voice, pacing and body…
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Great presentations start with great messages. How we say something is as important as what it is we’re saying if we want our audience to pay attention, care and take action. Here are 17 tips on writing persuasive content from Henneke Duistermaat via Slide Share . A few of my favorites: # 9: Ask questions because it’s…
DetailsToday we’re sharing advice from TED’s Aaron Weyenberg, who creates such amazing slide decks that people ask for his autograph. Though all of the presentation tips are great, his first and last tips are especially useful: Think about your slides last when developing a presentation. Until you clarify your message and structure the narrative, it is not…
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I love fonts. Most have their own history. (A great read on this is Just My Type by Simon Garfield). Throughout my career, they’ve given me an unjustifiable reason to procrastinate on a writing assignment. “What would it look like if I went with Bookman Old Style instead of Garamond?” Until about ten years ago I could…
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This spring I had an opportunity to give a guest lecture for a Public Relations class taught my by former boss and mentor, Frank Walton, Ph.D. The class is part of the Masters in Integrated Branding and Communications at the City College of New York. I was impressed by the students’ questions and the scenarios…
DetailsDepending on your music preferences, “It Takes 2” might recall songs by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock or Marvin Gaye. I reference these catchy songs in the hopes that you’ll remember this concept when organizing your next major conference. When it comes to the materials you present in an auditorium setting, it takes 2…
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It’s Monday morning, which means millions of staff meetings are coming to order across Corporate America. The majority of presentations we make take place in internal meetings. When I work with clients on meetings, one of the biggest frustrations I hear about is the lack of clarity around decisions. Despite an agreed upon course of…
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