From the category archives:

Jottings

I had a booking today for a voice-over assignment.  It was a narration for a podcast to accompany video footage of a recent conference.  It all seemed pretty straight-forward, and indeed, it was.  Plain prose to accompany the images.

I did a sample read of the first paragraph or so.  The producer telephoned the client – on the other side of the country – and she listened to my ‘read.’  She was generally complimentary, but wanted less ‘up and down’ in the voice on one particular sentence.  I listened back and heard what she found problematical.  It wasn’t wrong per se, just distracting, drawing attention to itself and not to the visuals accompanying it.

Well, the rules of the game say that the client is always right, and I think she made the right call.  I ‘flattened’ out the ‘ups and downs’ and gave her a different sound.  It was a salutary reminder that there are no hard and fast rules, just the right feel for a particular presentation.  It’s finding the feel that is the challenge.

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Talking It Up

by Kate FoyAugust 5, 2009
Thumbnail image for Talking It Up

I had the pleasurable opportunity tonight of speaking with a roomful of professional people keen to hear what I had to say about public presentation – talking up an idea, a project, yourself. My take on presentation is to emphasise the human presence in the communication ‘transaction’ and to leave an audience feeling positive, enthused, [...]

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Smart Cookies

by Kate FoyFebruary 26, 2009

Image by scubadive67 via Flickr

I spent a very pleasant evening last night in the company of some of Toowoomba’s business-women. The brainchild of Commonwealth Bank of Australia local business banker Catherine Ardi, this monthly gathering provides an opportunity for women across the community to get together for a personal development session with a guest or [...]

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More on personal branding

by Kate FoyDecember 15, 2008

We think this is one of the best introductions to the meaning and relevance of branding, whether corporate or personal. This is David Armano from Chicago Convergence. The video is 19 or so minutes long, so get a cuppa, sit back, and enjoy. PS It’s also a good example of a well put together slide [...]

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Not just a pretty face

by Robert KettonDecember 3, 2008

Next year, 2009 marks the centenary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for physics to Guglielmo Marconi and Ferdinand Braun for their work in radio and wireless telegraphy.  Radio played pivotal role in the arrest of the murderer Dr Crippen as he tried to flee across the Atlantic; and it played a major part [...]

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Presentation and Personal Branding

by Kate FoyDecember 1, 2008

A strong personal brand is a mix of reputation, trust, attention, and execution. …
… A personal brand gives you the ability to stand out in a sea of similar products. In essence, you’re marketing yourself as something different than the rest of the pack.
The term branding is one of the more ubiquitous in business-speak these [...]

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How to be a great eMCee

by Robert KettonNovember 20, 2008

So, you’ve been asked to MC at a friend’s wedding, or look after presentation night at your local sports club. Perhaps you’re a member of a volunteer group and have been asked to host that all important fund raising lunch or dinner. Maybe the boss has asked you to make sure the new product launch [...]

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Kevin Gets the Stiff Arm Treatment

by Robert KettonNovember 17, 2008

For the past couple of weeks the Australian media has been fixated on an incident that allegedly took place a couple of weeks ago at Kirribilli House, the official residence of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The story goes that while entertaining some guests at an evening function, Kevin received a phone call from President George [...]

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A (minor) rant on why good presentation-design works … redux

by Kate FoyNovember 13, 2008

I have written elsewhere about good graphic design i.e., what’s on the slides behind you as you deliver your presentation. Here’s a grab from that post with my comment on why a particular slideshow was judged a winner in a recent global competition.

It’s not a slideument … i.e., a document pretending to be a [...]

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Entrancing Teamwork: Obama making the words his own

by Robert KettonNovember 10, 2008

Ask the average movie goer who their favourite actor is, and you’ll get an answer. You’ll probably get an answer if you ask for their favourite director, but if you ask for their favourite screen writer, you will in all likelihood, draw a blank.
I suspect that the same is true with great speech writers. Most [...]

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