SpeakHQ Blog

The importance of what you say

By Berkun | December 16, 2009

My latest essay for Forbes.com is now up – it’s called the importance of what you say. Many are surprised to learn that for centuries many of the great writers in history, from Emerson to Mark Twain to Peter Drucker, made much of their incomes not from their ideas alone, but from the interest people…

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The toughest room I had this month

By Berkun | December 14, 2009

After a month of promoting Confessions as hard as I can, and doing more than 30 talks or media appearances in the last talks in 4 weeks, I finally have some down time.

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Why you need a public speaking book

By Berkun | December 8, 2009

While on tour in SF this week I ran into some folks who read my earlier books. They were surprised I’d write a book about a topic as boring as public speaking.

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Q&A from webcast on public speaking

By Berkun | December 2, 2009

We had about 500 people in the webcast today about the new book, Confessions of a Public Speaker – as promised here are all of the questions asked in the chat room during the talk, with answers and some snarky commentary. Slides from the talk here (3MB PDF). Actual webcast here (youtube). Here are all…

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CNN covers Confessions

By Berkun | December 1, 2009

Nice article in CNN & Fortune about the new book. Beat stage fright at work

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Wall Street Journal reviews Confessions

By Berkun | November 24, 2009

Really great, high profile review here – check it out Mr. Berkun’s book is packed with tips on how to reduce anxiety and how to speak in public with greater effectiveness. They range from common sense – arrive early, make sure you have back-up copies of your speech, practice – to more advanced tips on…

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Confessions keynote from Web 2.0 expo

By Berkun | November 24, 2009

Here’s the keynote from last week – I’m talking about storytelling, twitter, and making connections. The comments up on youtube are quite harsh – apparently IE sucks (hey, I still say IE 5.0 was pretty darn good), and I’m dumb as hell. (If embedded video doesn’t work, here’s the youtube link)

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The challenge of visible twitter at conferences

By Berkun | November 24, 2009

Last week I gave a keynote at Web 2.0 expo NYC, and as you can see in the photo below, one of the interesting things this year was the twitter feed for the conference was placed on stage behind the keynote speakers.  Any tweet with #w2e was put up live, on stage, a few seconds…

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Confessions #1 on amazon.com

By Berkun | October 28, 2009

Thanks to your help in getting the word out, Confessions is currently #2 #1 on amazon.com for books on public speaking – Yay! If you haven’t checked out the sample chapters or teaser video, you’ll find them all on the amazon.com page.

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Why do people make bad slides?

By Berkun | September 30, 2009

For years experts in psychology, design and even technology have decried Powerpoint and its many evils.  Every few months another blog post, or presenter, explains in detailed outrage why the a presentation they saw was a a horror show of bulleted lists, overwrought diagrams and ancient templates (including this recent story NSA/Prism story). So why…

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