Art of Speaking Business

This week on The Public Speaker, I talk about cross-cultural communication. I explain a model of communication that was developed by an anthropologist named Edward Hall. He talked about the idea of high- and low-context communication cultures. Hall said that in high-context communication, in general, many things are left unsaid. And cultures that favor low-context communication will pay more attention to the literal meanings of words than to the context surrounding them.

While I was writing the episode I thought it would be fun to reach out to my extended network and ask for cross-cultural faux pas stories. I am so glad I asked.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed collecting them.

Here they are:

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As a Chinese-American, I like to think of myself as sensitive and aware of Asian American issues. While I have had run-ins with “Anglo-Americans” based of THEIR cultural misunderstandings, this incident reminds me not to be complacent, especially when assuming when one erroneously thinks she knows and understands her own culture.

I serve on the organizing committee for the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival, an event we created nine years ago. With Dragon Boat racing as the central event and lots of cultural, culinary and marketplace features, we have grown from attracting 15,000 people and 16 race teams the first year, to over 100,000 attendees and 55 race teams this year. The organizing committee is made up of members of different Asian ethnic groups, and our mission:

“The mission of the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival is to build bridges of awareness, knowledge and understanding between the diverse Asian Pacific American (APA) communities and the general public through cultural education, leadership development, and athletic competition.”
Discussing what new entertainment to provide, I suggested that we rent Sumo Wrestling suits, and allow participants the opportunity to try them on for a hilarious bout of Japanese style wrestling. A fellow committee member, a Japanese American quickly expressed her revulsion to the idea, stating it was offensive to hear the “wrestlers” making noises in guttural “mock Japanese.” As one who has been the recipient of “mock Chinese” taunting, I was stunned that it never even occurred to me that this was the same form of insult.

I was chagrined to realize my own insensivity and wrong assumptions that “of course” I would never participate in that type of slur. The opportunity to work with, be exposed to, and learn more about many diverse Asian communities and cultures is a benefit I value personally–not just as our mission for others.

Increased familiarity breeds understanding.

Mary Lee Chin, Colorado Dragon Boat Festival
www.cdbf.org <http://www.cdbf.org>

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Maybe 15 years ago on an MBA exchange in the Netherlands, we were competing as teams of students to present a project we’d done as teams for Dutch companies. With me presenting we had won the student -judged semi-finals. Now were up for the local-business-leader-judged finals.

It was either me or a Dutch student who would present; we chose me. Then I mingled/schmoozed with the business people before our presentation in a very “American” way, clearly trying to butter them up.

We didn’t win!

We should have had the local student present… and kept a low-profile, refraining from the obvious schmoozing.

Barak Kassar, Founder/Creative Director
Rassak Experience

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When I was 11, I participated in a foreign exchange program with another elementary school in France. Six months prior to our departure, we would correspond with our exchange family via letters (email didn’t yet exist at the time) and packages. The translations were rough, but 11 year olds don’t necessarily have the most in-depth conversations anyway. We discussed our favorite foods, animals, pastimes, books etc. In one such letter I mentioned that I had a fondness for stuffed animals.

A few weeks later I received a horrifying package from the family abroad- in the tiny yellow Par Avon box was a taxidermy duckling and a note saying something to the effect of, “Well, it’s certainly a strange hobby you have, but here is a duckling from my uncle’s farm to add to your collection.” Apparently “stuffed animals” was a literal translation.

One bewildered letter later, I was sent another box and was happy to find that this time they had sent me a soft, stuffed toy duckling.

To this day we keep in contact and laugh about the misunderstanding.

Allison Brinkman
Public Relations Manager
Eisen Management Group

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Here are two: a very simple one and a more complex scenario.

First the simple:

An American executive in London complained that he had taken his wife to a traditional English pub and an English couple had the nerve to sit at their table. “First, they sat at our table without asking, then they ignored us,” he told the office the next day. (In a crowded pub, tables are held in common but each party respect the privacy of the others.)

Some are potential deal-breakers :

One client, a large US corporation, called us in to help resolve an impasse within a joint venture with a large Japanese corporation. The US team leader described his Japanese counterpart as weak, incompetent and completely disinterested in the project. “He never says anything in meetings, he just sits there. Sometimes I think he is asleep. I do my best to drive the project, but nothing happens. His people can’t seem to understand anything my team sends them – they’re always questioning our data, nit picking everything. We’re way behind schedule!”

The Japanese team had a different view. They revered their manager: he demanded perfection, thoroughly understood their business, taught them, supported them, and fostered their careers. They described the American executive delicately: “headquarters gave him a weak team; he must always present things himself. He can’t rely on his team for any support. We don’t believe anything his people send us, how could we?”
Both sides were interpreting the other’s behavior strictly in terms of their own corporate and national cultural assumptions. Where the Japanese executive was demonstrating confidence and support for his team the Americans saw passivity and disinterest. In trying to correct that perceived problem the American executive unintentionally convinced the Japanese that the American team members were not up to the task at hand – anything that did not come from the American executive himself could not be trusted. We were able work with both sides to resolve the misunderstandings and the project was ultimately successful.

Jeffrey Walsh, Executive Vice President
KLC Associates

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A high-ranking US government official inadvertently set back negotiations with the Russians on cooperative projects in safeguarding nuclear material because of a cross-cultural faux pas. Not knowing that to Russians at a negotiation, “no” is often an opening response but not a final position, the official dropped a key US proposal when she heard the Russians reject it.

Several months later, a Russian who had been present at the talks told a visiting American that the Russian side had been very surprised that the American official had stopped talking about the US proposal. He said the Russians had simply been sounding out the US side on its proposal and trying to find out how strongly the Americans would defend it. When they hadn’t defended it at all, the Russians were baffled. This cultural misunderstanding set the talks back a good four months.

Carolyn Smith, Cross-cultural trainer and consultant
www.culturelinktraining.com

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When I was in college I had the opportunity to teach English in Czechosolvakia.

We arrive in Slovakia and met our host. They immediate got us in the car for the two hour journey to our new home. I did not have a chance to go to the restroom at the airport and about 30 minutes into the drive I really had to go. I politely asked our hosts, “Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom. Can you stop at the next possible location?” Keep in mind, we spoke proper Southern American English, not the proper British English that they had been studying for quite some time. They had heard that we Americans like to be clean.

After another 30 minutes I began to feel a piercing pain in my side. I asked again, “Please, I really have to go to the bathroom. Can we stop for a break?” Finally the politely look back and offer to stop for a rest and a coke. This was such a nice gesture. Coke was extremely expensive but they were graciously trying to accommodate their new guests. With my eyes watering and my legs crossed I pleaded, “Can you please ask them if I can use their bathroom? I will pay them money.” They looked at me very concerned and said, “You do not want to use their bathroom” as to indicate that it was not very clean or suitable in their eyes for their new American friends. I looked at my travel partner and sighed, “I don’t want to die because I cannot find a toilet. This is not how I want to go.”

Finally, the light bulb went off and suddenly my host said with glee, “Toilet?” “Yes, toilet.” With a few chuckles, my host prompted took me to the facility. I returned to the car only to discover that they thought I had been asking to take a bath for the past hour and a half. They refer to the toilet as WC or Water Closet.

This was my first few hours in the country and we laughed about this throughout our tenure!

Dallas Teague Snider, CMP / Founder, Speaker and Trainer
Make Your Best Impression

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If you interested in learning a bit more about cross-cultural communication, you might want to check out the following resources:

The Public Speaker: It’s a Small World After AllCommunicating Across Culture

CultureGrams

Kiss, Box, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries

This week on The Public Speaker I talk about a  really simple to way to create and easy to deliver and speech.  The best part of this technique is that your listens have fun are engaged because of the stories you tell.

This technique is best suited for motivational talks.  It also works great for best man, maid of honor, father of the bride, eulogies, and introductions.  (It doesn’t work for all topics, but the basic elements are worth learning anyway.)

Check it out and give it a try.  Let us know what you think!

Lisa B. Marshall’s Six Step Technique to Making a Speech http://preview.tinyurl.com/3nme83

On my most recent episode of The Public Speaker, I discuss common mispronunciations.

For sure, it is quite embarrassing to make such a public mistake –especially since I am a communication professional. While wallowing in my embarrassment, I thought, “If I heard stories of mispronunciation from other people, maybe that would help me put things in perspective”.

So I reached out to my professional network and asked them to share with me their personal stories of mispronunciation. I would like to publicly thank all that submitted stories and gave me permission to post their stories here. I really enjoyed reading them. It made me feel better. Very sincerely, thank-you!

By publishing the stories here I am trying to accomplish a few things.

1. To help others who might have a similar misunderstanding
2. To help people recognize that this likely happens to all of us at one point or another in our lives (especially if we are speaking in a non-native language).
3. To encourage you to TELL other people if you hear an error. Just be sure to tell them privately and gently. They will thank you for it.
4. To help those who submitted a story to not feel alone!

I loved these stories. I hope you enjoy them a much a I did.

If you have a story you’d like to share, post it in the comments!

Here they are, enjoy!

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I’m not sure if multilingual mispronunciation counts but I once mispronounced the Swedish word for “relax” while praying in front of a group of middle schoolers at a Bible camp.

Instead of praying that the Holy Spirit would help us “relax” so he could take control of our live, I asked Him to teach us to “fart”!!

It wasn’t until days later that I realized my mistake–only when hanging out with some friends.

I still wonder if there’s a cult in Sweden that claims the American leader said it farting was a spiritual gift! *grin*

Marc
Marc A. Pitman, CFCC | FundraisingCoach.com
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I discovered my mistake one morning, when my wife and I were out to breakfast one morning with some friends a restaurant. There were quite a few of us, and I thought I’d be the big man at the table and order up juice for everyone. So, very loudly, I said, ‘yes, we’d like to get a CARE-A-FAY’ of orange juice’.

The entire table stopped. You could hear silverware hit plates, and conversations stop mid-sentence. The waitress just looked at me, a little stunned, not sure exactly what I was asking for.

My wife leaned over and said, ‘I think he means CA-RAFE’. At that point, everyone busted up laughing, including the waitress. What made it even worse - I then argued with my wife and friends for the next 5 minutes, confused that THEY were the ones that were wrong, and I was the one that was right.

Oops!

David Toney

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Awhile back I was volunteering at a high school Solo & Ensemble competition as a judges assistant. It was a simple job- making sure the kids were in the right place at the right time and announcing the group and song when it was their time to perform.

Before lunch, the last group to perform was set to go, and I stood up and announced the ensemble, and song, composed by Schubert…which came out “sherbert.”

It wasn’t until I returned to my seat that I realized that everyone was staring at me with quite puzzled expressions. Not only had I mispronounced the composer’s name in front of the band and audience, but I mispronounced the dessert as well.

Needless to say, I will never mispronounce either of those two words again!

Allison Brinkman

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I used to work for a boss in the book manufacturing industry who insisted in pronouncing the word “program” as “pogrom”. Over the 5 years I worked for him I dropped subtle hints by re-pronouncing the word to him but it never seemed to catch on. One day we conducted a tour of our manufacturing facility to a group of older executives & this guy dropped the word “pogrom” into his presentation. Several people in the group were deeply offended & at least two of the members of the group hotly informed my boss of the correct pronunciation of the word “program” & what a “pogrom” was. The group that he was touring through our facility was a group of Poles who had survived a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.

Human Resources Manager, VA, USA

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I happen to live in Missouri, and there are many place names here that are not pronounced the normal way. For example, we have a town called Nevada, which people call Ne-vay-da. We have a town New Madrid - in Spain the accent is on the second syllable of Madrid, while here it is on the first syllable. We have a Cairo here, which is pronounced like “Karo” syrup. We have a town called Noel, but it is pronounced like “nole” (to rhyme with mole). One of the worst mispronunciations is Bonne Femme Creek, named by the French a long time ago. Today, it is called the Bone Fam Creek. There’s also a Moniteau Creek, which people call Monitor Creek. I guess my point is that locally, people may all agree on a mispronunciation.

Sylvia Forbes
Forbes Freelance

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Bismarck, ND commonplace mispronunciation = “nip it in the butt” rather than “nip it in the bud”. The correction has become one of my life’s missions.

Marnie Piehl

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I used to give presentations at conferences about Alverno’s creative faculty initiatives.
Georgine Loacker, English Professor …pulled me aside one day and said (I paraphrase, as it’s been 20 years!) : If you’re going to represent Alverno at these nationwide conferences, you’d better pronounce your words correctly. We don’t want to embarrass the college.

What? Which word? (I had made great efforts to hear the correct pronunciation being deaf in one ear and learning English as a second language–Armenian was our first).

MISCHIEVOUS (Georgine pronounced it: MIS chuh vuhs)
NO WAY, I exclaimed. It’s mis CHEE vee us!
She looked at me as she did when she knew she was right and said: Look it up.

That night, I opened the dictionary. HOW EMBARRASSING!

Amazing, a person comes into our lives, teaches us something and we remember the lesson as well as the teacher. I have been conscientious of it ever since…

Brenda Avadian
www.TheCaregiversVoice.com
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Thought “wheelbarrow” was “wheelbarrel.”

Found out in my 30s at a playgroup meeting—people thought it was my Boston accent since I had just moved to the Philly area. Slightly embarrassing when we all discovered it wasn’t an accent but a completely wrong spelling of the word.

Sandy

P.S I still usually call it a wheelbarrel.

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In Ireland we pronounce “Film” with two syllables (Fill-um).
And of course there is the perennial cross Atlantic aluminum (UK: Al-u-mini-um US: A-loom-man-im) difference.

In those examples, what sounds incorrect to US ears is the correct pronunciation on this side of the pond.

Will Knott, Ireland

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My own classical mispronunciation story is that when I came to USA atage 14 (I am deaf and I am Israeli), and started saying “Thank you” to people, they didn’t understand me. Once I was taught to pronounce it as “Than qu”, people began to understand me.

Omer Zak

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When I was about 20 (a looooooong time ago), I was a radio disc jockey at a station in Gainesville, Florida. Back then, we didn’t have a separate news person, so the on-air jock would “rip and read” the news straight off the AP wire. I pronounced the word “communique” as COMM-UNIQUE because there was no accent over the e. It was most embarrassing later when everyone in town corrected me. I did go on to have a 30-year career in broadcasting and, in fact, I’m still a TV correspondent and a radio beauty editor.

Jackie Silver, Tampa, Florida
http://agingbackwards.com/

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My (future) husband and I moved to North Carolina in the 90s. We saw a really strange-named fast food restaurant everywhere, Chick-Fil-A. We naturally pronounced that “Chick-FILL-Uh” and thought it was the dumbest name for a restaurant ever. We figured it had some kind of southern significance that we just didn’t get.

After living in NC for about two years (and after having said the name of the restaurant countless times), we were asking for directions one day and the person said “Well, you make a right over there at the Chick-Fill-AY” and it was as if two big light bulbs went off over our heads. We felt so dumb! We don’t know why nobody ever corrected us, but maybe we were just friends with too many fellow Yankees and they didn’t know either!

Amy Oztan
FilmingInBrooklyn.com

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I was working as a radio DJ at an alternative rock station. Morning shift - so I had to cover the news and entertainment reports and weather updates - live, on air.
I had been out of town for a family emergency the day Versace was shot & killed in 1997, so I hadn’t a clue what had happened or how to pronounce his name. I went on air at 5am talking about the headlines, one of which was “Gianni Versace shot and killed” - only, I pronounced it like it looks - ver-say-ce. Boy did my phone board light up - I was reprimanded all across the spectrum about who he was and how to pronounce his name.

Heather Francell (aka, Miss Heather in the Mornings, circa 1997)

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In my thirties, I was mortified when I mentioned to my husband that something looked “chick,” and he cracked up. My whole life, I had been aware that there was a word that was pronounced “sheeek,” but I had no idea it was the same as the word “chic.”

Cheri Thurston

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My husband is originally from Spain and we met in the US. Although his English skills were always a work in progress, he recently discovered a misunderstanding.

The word which caused so much confusion was BIZARRE…People would say: ¨Oh, how bizarre!¨ my husband, with his Spanish background, thought they were referring to an open market…a BAZAR. All the while, he thought people were talking about a market, which seemed strange since in America, there are so many shopping malls. But, the context was never quite right. We are now living in Spain and ironically, he says ¨Spain is a bizarre place to live!¨

Ashleigh Russell

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Given my reputation as the Gammar Guru, it is especially embarrassing but cathartic to come clean here: I mispronounced the word “awry” until about 10 years ago. The problem was that I knew the correct pronunciation and meaning verbally but didn’t associate it with reading the word in books. So I thought there were two words: the word as it is correctly pronounced as well as a different word pronounced like OAR-ree, both with the same meaning.

I feel much better now.

Jane Straus
www.Grammarbook.com

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I’ve been a reader all my life, and my vocabulary has always been through the roof. However, I grew up in a very blue-collar, low middle class household, and there were a whole of slew of words that were
never used.

Hence, I knew what a lot of words meant and even how to use them correctly in a sentence, but I’d never heard them.

Fast forward many years later, and I’ve just graduated college. I use the word “misled” in a conversation with my fiancé. Of course,I pronounced it as MY-zuhled, you know, the verb “misle” with the past tense -ed. Oh, did my fiancé laugh. He asked me, “What does misle mean?” “Well, it means, it means… to mislead.”

Dawn M. Goldberg
Chief Writing Officer
Write Well University

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I was horrified to discover only last year (at age 39) that I was saying and spelling “conspicious” (like suspicious) instead of conspicuous. Ack!

Phil Marsosudiro

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As a true blood Texasn, I was disheartened to find that “fixin” was not a true word. Everyone seems to be “fixin to do it”
Cher Lon Malik

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For years I pronounced the Aaron Copeland ballet ro DAY o. I don’t go to the ballet much (one) but the one I know I’m going to be as correct as I can.

A year ago one of the DJ’s on beethoven.com burst my bubble when he said that prononciation is an artifice and Copeland just wanted it pronounced like the event you attend in Houston, RO de O.

A good reminder to not get too snooty.

Tim Mahon

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When I was a kid, around 12 years old the social studies teacher had students read passages out of the book. Being well read for a youngster, I spoke quite clearly, with accurate pronunciation, that is, until one day I had to say Yosemite. To the amusement of my class mates, I mis-pronounced it Yo-ssss-might. Boy, did I blush.

Jesse Kanclerz

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I still have this problem (and am no longer a spring chick!) - I have problems with puma and pumice.

Even now, I cannot tell you the correct way to pronounce it. Is it poo ma and poom iss - or is it pum a (as in bum) and pum iss?

And I am the one that loves words and grammer so much!

Jan “JD” Toomer

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I just recently discovered that “meritage” (wine term) is pronounced like “heritage,” not “meri-tahj.” It’s actually an invented word that combines “merit” and “heritage.” And here I thought it was French! Doh!
Lisa Braithwaite

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Lisa, as you read this, keep in mind that I am a southern African-American gentleman with a true southern accent and African American dialect.

I’m a public relations practitioner and … I was asked to do sit-down interviews with our local NBC-, ABC-, and CBS-affiliates.

Throughout an interview, I made it a point to stress that the organization would often conduct background checks on all personnel. Well, in my attempt to make the reporter understand that our vigilance was routine or consistent, I drew attention to how I misprounounced the word “often.”

After we finished the interview, the reporter …said in a very concerned way, “You know…that word is AH-FEN - not AWF-TEN.” Then he proceeded to give me a visual with his hands to show me HOW the sound was produced!

I was 23 years old at the time and was taken aback. Southerners don’t typically correct one another — it’s RUDE!

Eddie Brown, Jr
Director of Public Relations

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Note:This was my response to Eddie…

Eddie,

Actually he may have been wrong…

Often is on the list of disputed pronunciations.

Here’s the breakdown…

often (help·info) - (1)(a) /ˈɔːfən/ (b) /ˈɑːfən/ (c) /ˈɒfən/, (2)(a) /ˈɔːftən/ (b) /ˈɑːftən/ (c) /ˈɒf-/. Some dictionaries list (2) as the preferred British pronunciation, although according to LPD a poll among British speakers revealed 73% preferred (1) and only 27% (2). Most post-1990 American dictionaries list both pronunciations, but some pre-1990 dictionaries list only (1).

(this was from the disputed pronunciations page found here)

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If you submitted one of these stories and you would like to include your website, just shoot me an email and I’ll gladly update this page.

If you didn’t submit a story, but you have a story of how you discovered a mispronunciation, please I strongly encourage you to share your story in the comments. It will help us all feel better!

Remember when the phrase “WYSIWYG” was first introduced? I do. I was working at IBM at the time working as part of the “DisplayWriter” team (this was the a dedicated wordprocessing machine). I remember hearing and learning the terms WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and “ergonomic”. That was back in 1984.

Joel Pearson and his team from Vanderbilt University share some of their recent research on how the human brain perceives images. Read to learn more find out his interesting results that suggest that what you imagine is what you get…WYIIWYG ??

Hmmm…fascinating. Take a look for yourself at this slide show Mental Images Are Like Pictures

Was does African drumming, Mexican folk dancing, roller exercise, and chanting have in common?

Each of these were classes that I took at a beautiful health spa in Mexico.

Perhaps the most surprising class was the chanting class, which included a lot of time discussing breathing. As a professional speaker I figured I pretty much knew all about “proper” technique for deep breathing (if you want to learn more about the basic deep breathing technique listen to my show The Public Speaker: Quick and Dirty Tips for Improving Your Communication), but what I didn’t know what that there are several techniques for breathing– each for different situations.

Since my trip I have been testing them out and I have found a few of the exercises to be quite helpful. I thought I’d share them here. I know it’s may seem a bit beyond the scope of this blog, however, proper breathing technique should be part of every speaker’s basic tool belt.

So here are my four favorite exercises that I learned:

1. Energizing or Stimulating Breath

• Breath in and out of your nose, with your mouth closed. At first you can do this slowly breathing in through your nostrils while making a big belling and ballooning out your abdominal muscles. When you exhale, do it also through your nose, but exhale more quickly than the inhale. It’s almost like you are snapping in your abdomen towards your spine. Gradually you can get faster and faster.
• Some people suggest a rapid inhale/exhale through the nose (without ballooning). In this case, the inhale is the same length as the exhale and it kind of sounds like you are blowing up a tire.

I don’t recommend you do this one longer than 10 or 15 seconds when you first start. After practicing you can slowing extend the length of the 5 seconds or so, but don’t go longer than a minute. Why? Because there is risk for hyperventilation, be sure you are in a safe place. (Really, I got dizzy just writing this post because I was kept testing my instructions!)

This one is great when you need an extra energy boost. You can do when you wake up, in the afternoon when you feeling a bit sleepy, or at night when you are trying to get one last thing done!

2. Relaxing Breath

• Sit or stand and take slow deep breath in. Exhale, slowly, to the count of ten.
• Which each breath concentrate on relaxing your muscles. Start at the bottom of your bottom and move up to your head giving each area of your body attention. If you feel stressful in a certain spot, spend a bit more time.

I particularly find this relaxing and will often do this just before drifting off to sleep. Sometimes, I am so relaxed that I don’t even make it all the way to my head!

3. Aerobic Exercise Breath

• You should always you proper deep breathing during aerobic exercise.
• In through the nose and out through the nose, is best. If you can’t, then in through the nose and out through the mouth. As a last resort, in through mouth, out through mouth.

The trick to proper aerobic exercise is to not have to stop to breathe! Before I learned this, I was always stopping to breathe. I now understand the importance of adjusting the intensity of the workout so that I can maintain my breath.

4. Strength Training Breath

• Never hold your breath while strength training.
• Exhale on effort.

Summary

I like to encourage you to give some of these techniques a try. Let us us know what you think in the comments. Or share with us your favorite breathing techniques.

25 Perfect Phrases for Starting a Business Conversation

Have you ever wondered how to start a business conversation?

Conversation is the art of combining questions, listening, and self-disclosure so that two strangers can build a common ground between them. Be attentive, be curious, and be sincere. To learn more about the basics of conversation making listen to my show The Public Speaker: Quick and Dirty Tips for Improving Your Communication Skills.

If you enjoyed the audio program, do me a favor and leave a comment on the “other blog” or you could leave one here. After you’ve learned the basics you can then use this list of questions to help formulate your own personal top 10.

So here are my 25 phrases you can use to start a business conversation:

General Business:

1. Tell me about your company/institution/school.
(This way you get a general idea of how your might help.)
2. Tell me about your current role?
(This helps you to understand the perspective of the person you are talking with.)
3. Do you like what you are doing?
(This gives you a measure of optimism in general.)
4. What specifically do you love/like about your work?
(This helps to understand the motivations of the person better.)
5. What are some of your biggest challenges facing you right now?
(This helps you to see how you might help address some of the top challenges.)
6. What are you passionate about? (This is my personal favorite question!)
(Notice if they give you a business response or personal response. This is just to get to know the person a little better and perhaps give you something to build common ground.)
7. What do you like to do when you aren’t working?
(This is just to get to know the person a little better and help build common ground.)

At an event:

8. I didn’t expect so many people to be here, you?
(This is simply small talk, you’ll need some back-up if this is a non-starter.)
9. The first speaker had some interesting ideas, what did you think?
10. This event has been great so far for me, how about for you?
11. I am so glad I finally got the chance to come here. This is my first time. You?
12. Which workshop/speaker have you found the most interesting/helpful?
13. This session is really crowded. What made you decide to choose this session?

Compliment Approach: (However, it is critical that you are sincere.)

14. That laptop bag looks really sturdy…you like it?
15. I read your website/blog/paper—really interesting. Can you tell me more about…
16. Heard about your new position, congratulations…what do you think will be your biggest challenges?
17. Great (watch/tie/shoes/scarf/jewelry). I bet there’s a story behind that. Where did you get?

Advice Approach:

18. Which one (food/drink/session/etc) do you suggest?
19. Do you have any advice for someone just starting out?
20. What do you think about X (fill in anything relevant)?

Popular Culture Approach:

21. What do you think about social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook?
22. What do you think about microblogging like Twitter and Plurk?
23. Are you a mac or PC fan?
24. Are you a Lost fan? What’s your theory?
25. What do you think gas and oil prices will be in six months?

Need your help!

I’d like to expand this list and would LOVE YOUR HELP! Please add in the comments your favorite conversation starters. Let us know why you like the ones you use! Thanks for reading and hopefully contributing below. It’ll just take a second, promise.

Why do we tell stories?

Every night, after tooth brushing, my pajama-clad identical twin daughters crawl into their beds and ask, “Who is reading the story tonight?” (When you imagine this, don’t forget to image hearing the words in stereo!)

Our nightly family tradition represents the larger tradition of storytelling in our society.

We tell stories to help children and adults make sense of the world. Stories are how we experience life and each other. Each of us is the sum of the stories we tell about ourselves. It’s the same thing with companies, cultures, and even nations. Each are the sum total of a series of stories.

We tell stories to entertain, we tell stories to teach, we tell stories to elicit change. Stories help us to share our cultural expectations, to teach morals and to influence behavioral norms. Storytelling is an integral part of everyday life. Books, magazines, television, movies, the internet, or newspapers- the stories we tell maintain and perpetuate our society.

Stories evolved from a need to communicate our experience with other human beings. When we make a presentation we need to talk not only about the subject at hand, but also about our personal experience with that subject. It is how we share our emotion and passion for a topic.

When we hear a story we are transported, together, outside of the present moment, to another time and place. We live the experience of the speaker through the use of our imagination. Good stories inject emotional and meaning into the content. Stories bring the teller and listener together, making a personal connection to both the speaker and the topic.

How exactly do you incorporate stories into a presentation?

I think the best way to learn is see and hear examples, so I included three of my favorites below. Most likely you will want to listen to them each at least twice. Notice how each of the styles are quite different but each in their own way successful. As you listen, specifically, notice, the items listed below each link.

Presentation One: Hector Ruiz: The power to connect the world
Listen for how he personalizes—tells about his personal relationship with his father
Listen how he weaves a theme
Listen for his sincerity, his believability

Presentation Two: George Ayittey: Cheetahs vs. Hippos for Africa’s future
Watch and listen for his passion
Watch for vocal variety
Watch for facial expressions
Watch for word repetition
Listen for the use of questions
Listen for analogies

Presentation Three: Rick Warren: Living a life of purpose
Watch for his conversational style
Notice his use of storytelling that includes conversations and questions (repeated questions)
Notice how he repeats certain ideas, certain words (look for his use of stewardship)

Do you have a favorite story teller example? Tell us about it in the comments!

Here’s a new online tool (280 Slides) that you can use (very similar to Keynote) that allows you to create presentations and embed/post them to your own site. It tries to make it seem like you are using software, when you are in fact just using your browser.

I very quickly tested it out. I didn’t find it easy to navigate or to use–but I am not a keynote user. I’ll need to give it more time. In the meantime, I did create this really quick slide show.

Here’s the test.

Yep, there’s supposed to be a movie in it…but I can’t get that function to work. Hmmm…

Maybe this is still too early to use? Also, I could figure out how to upload a presentation from my laptop. I wanted to upload something I already had.

Anyone have a better experience?

About six months ago I decided to post a question on LinkedIn to find out what the BEST presentations are. I’ve been searching high and low on the internet.

Now I am asking tweeple from Twitter to tweet-in with their thoughts.

Tell us in the comments the BEST presentations you ever saw and if you have an extra moment, tell us why!

Here’s what I have so far from my friends on LinkedIn…

David Platt suggests winners from the Slide Share contest

Shiraz Akmal suggests Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start”

Marc Cahill suggests Dick Hardt doing the Identity 2.0 thing at Oscon in 2005

Chris Wain suggests “An Inconvenient Truth” from Al Gore because of effect it’s had on the public dialog

Diego Ruiz suggests Hans Rosling: “Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen

Rolene Liebenberg suggests Al Pacino’s case in “A scent of a woman”

Recently, I went to NYC to take (yet another) public speaking training course! When the other training participants found out what I did for a living they asked me…”But why are you here? You could teach this course!”

Yes, I could have taught the course, however, as a participant I was dedicating two full days to improving my craft. I strongly believe that continued review and practice makes me an even stronger speaker. So I spent two full days developing new materials, delivering new stories, and critiquing myself via video review.

So, what did I learn?

First, that I am still not ready to share personal stories that include my late husband, John. I thought I was ready, especially since my late husband died more than 12 years ago! However, I found myself emotionally caught up in the stories, at times, having difficulty finding my voice. The training facilitator stated that he found the stories moving and appropriate–perhaps they were. However, I feel very strongly that a speaker should not only evoke emotion, but also maintains control. I’ll try again next year and in the meantime revise the stories!

What else did I learn? That I have developed a ‘bad’ habit over the past year. I didn’t realize I was doing it, but there is was, on the video, me resting my hand on my hip. When I was reviewing the video I knew I didn’t like that I was doing that, but wasn’t really sure why. I decided to research it and see what I could find. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find much, but I did find this from Tom Holland, a 27 year veteran of car sales! He says in the non-verbal communication chapter of his book, “The Perfect Sale Every Time”, that hands on this hip has the following meaning.

Hands On Hips.

(A) When a person has their hands on their hips, with their fingers facing forward and the elbows directly out to either side, the person is telling you he/she is anti-social. One hand on a hip may be used when directed at a person who is an intended target of non-social acceptance.

(B) Again, hands on hips, but when the fingers are aimed toward the rear, and the elbows are cocked to the back, this signal may mean, “I’m listening, but I’m not sure I’m believing.”

I figure if he’s been selling cars for so many years, he probably does know a thing or two about people and non-verbal communication.

However, the academic in me would prefer to see something well, more academic! I am interested to find out why this stance is displeasing and distracting. It feels really comfortable for me, but clearly it is uncomfortable for the viewing audience. I will be working on remove this distracting habit.

Oh, and one last thing I learned. I need to lose some weight! (Well, I suppose I already knew that, this was just a vivid reminder!)

-Lisa

P.S. Use the comments to share with us what you learned at your last public speaking training session or perhaps consider coming to one of my public speaking workshops.