SpeakHQ Blog

Ignite: How speakers prepare

By Berkun | May 3, 2010

I’m a huge fan of helping people speak – I’m the speaker coach for Ignite Seattle, and did an Ignite talk called How and Why to Speak at Ignite hoping to get more people up on stage.   Many events now use this short video, an ignite talk about doing good ignite talks, to help get…

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Should the web be allowed in class?

By Berkun | April 16, 2010

There’s a fantastic discussion on metafilter about whether college students should be able to use the web during class time. The original question by quodlibet was this: How do I keep my students off the internet during lecture? Today, in the class I TA – I had about 5 students on facebook, another 2 texting,…

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Philosophy: Everything you need, in 5 minutes

By Berkun | April 14, 2010

I’d always wanted to do a talk about my curious path through the world of philosophy. I’ve studied philosophy my whole life, trying very hard to undo the bad lessons I was taught while getting a degree in the Philosophy Department in college. Thanks to Ignite Seattle I got my chance. So here’s Everything You…

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Should you pay for an outside speaker?

By Berkun | April 5, 2010

A potential client asked me – we’re not sure it makes sense to pay a speaker to come to us. What’s your argument? And so, I sat down and wrote this. Clearly I’m biased, since I make a good part of my living being hired to speak. However, back when I was a manager it…

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How to convince anyone of anything

By Berkun | March 10, 2010

[This topic was requested with a slightly different title:  How to make a convincing argument.] The word argument itself makes people think of lawyers or divorce proceedings, which are poor connotations if you’re hoping to charm someone into agreeing with you. It’s worth shifting to the more positive word: convince. The goal is to persuade, to…

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Obama, Palin and teleprompters

By Berkun | February 9, 2010

I saw on CNN today more about Sarah Palin’s use of handwritten notes on the palm of her hand. This story is stupid and pointless. It’s just as dumb as the people who criticize Obama for using teleprompters, while using telepromters themselves, which includes nearly every newscaster on every TV network (ironically, Sarah Palin criticized…

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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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