The Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA/NC) hosted our annual Open House this evening. Over 35 people turned up on the night when much of the rest of the nation was tuning in to the Palin/Biden debate.

The audience heard from a bevvy of professional speakers about what it takes to make a living in this profession.

Among the visitors, I met Nicole Bachelor, who was born in the UK, but now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works for one of the big technology companies in Silicon Valley and has many years experience as a telecommuter.

Nicole has parlayed her expertise into a website and e-book which reveals essential advice and tools for negotiating a telecommuting arrangement in your existing or new job. Then helps make sure you telecommute successfully and keep your career at peak performance. She provides tips, tricks, and techniques for making telecommuting as simple, and easy as going into the office, without all the extra hassle.

Having enjoyed the benefits of telecommuting as an environmentally responsible, low-stress, productivity-enhancing option I was curious to ask Nicole some of the secrets she shares in her book.

To hear what she had to say, click on the podcast icon below.

 

 Interview: Nicole Bachelor - Telecommuting [3:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A vast majority of employees in high-tech companies are Subject Matter Experts. In the training world they are known as ‘SMEs” (rhymes with please). They are engineering and technical staff with a deep, hard-won, specialist knowledge of one aspect of technology. Without SMEs there would be no high-tech. They are, for many companies, “the noble sinews of our power” (as Shakespeare’s Henry V termed the soldiers he marshaled at Agincourt). They are Archilochus’s quintessential Hedgehog’s who know one big thing better than anyone else.

The challenge for the communications professional is to:

a) Get them to summarize their vast body of knowledge into a sound-bite or elevator pitch which can be included with the data from a dozen other Hedgehog’s into a few remarks by the CEO.

b) Encourage them to talk to each other and share their specialist views of the world with colleagues in different disciplines. Only connect. Develop synergies between them.

One approach to these tasks is discussed in a useful article by Liz Ryan in the September 16 Business Week. She counsels that the communications professional with the ear of the CEO can synthesize the input of multiple SMEs and, by encouraging communication between them, “create an informal in-house council of thought leaders”.

In career terms the person who functions as the nexus must be sure to give full credit to everyone who contributes.

Light relief from the inane world of corporate PowerPoint in this delightful European satire on graphics gone wild:

The video is inspired by Jessica Hagy’s wonderful Indexed blog.

Media trainer and speaker, TJ Walker, warns against cramming too many points into a speech. “The bigger a corporation or organization you are in, the harder the pull will be on you to add more and more points to your presentation. There won’t be anyone advocating for you to have fewer message points. Everyone will be making a forceful and compelling case to add more messages. There is only one little flaw with this strategy—it doesn’t work on audience members.”

Walker advocates no more than 5 points in a speech, which means the writer has to learn how to decline the request from the marketing director for 15 points, the sales director asking for 10 points and legal wanting some other clauses or conditionals added. Adding points to a speech is the easy option. No tough decisions to make. Pleases everyone in manamgement, but puts the audience to sleep.

TJ outlines the way a professional should approach this:

“Instead of setting yourself up for failure, you need to list all of your message points in a numbered fashion and then go though them all and put them in priority. Isolate your top five ideas. Those are the ideas you should speak about. All of the other ideas you can give in a handout, email people in a slide format, give them a t-shirt with the bullet points on it—whatever! Just don’t talk about more than five in your actual spoke presentation.”

Sound advice. Read the full article.

Lauren Mayer is a humorist and songwriter who started piano lessons at 3 and started writing song parodies and funny songs shortly thereafter. (She needed to do something - she was a liberal Jewish kid in Orange County!) A die-hard high school debater, she graduated from Yale intending to go into politics via law school, but after taking a year off to explore theater writing in New York, she found her calling in cabaret and comedy music. She eventually moved to San Francisco to meet straight men, got involved in the once-thriving cabaret scene here (where her biggest challenge was convincing audiences she was a real woman, not a minimalist drag queen), and began writing special material for other singers, then private parties and corporate events.

Lauren worked for over 15 years with a partner, writing, producing and performing corporate theater for clients including Hewlett Packard, Wells Fargo, the California Funeral Directors and a convention of gynecologists, among others. When 9-11 wiped out most of their travel incentive business and her partner left the industry, Lauren worked as a vocal/performance coach and songwriter, releasing a comedy album, until her album led to a couple of gigs as a solo humorist, and voila, another speaker was born.

Pro-Track Profile

Lauren signed up for the the Northern California National Speakers Association (NSA) Pro-Track training this year to learn about the marketing and business end of promoting herself as a humorist - last time she did any marketing was before the internet, so it’s definitely a new world.

When Lauren isn’t at Pro-Track or entertainin audiences, she is a frazzled, sleep-deprived mom of 3 boys, ages 12, 15 and 42 (okay, one is her husband), and she recently released her second comedy album, “Return Of Psycho Super Mom.”

You can reach Lauren (and hear her songs and read her comedy blog) at www.laurenmayer.com.

To hear her tips on how to be funny on the platform, and what not to say to a bald CEO, click on the podcast icon below.

 

 Interview: Lauren Mayer [6:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On Thursday evening I taught a class in podcasting at the San Francisco SBA office. I took the opportunity to ask the class members why they were interested in podcasting.

Click on the podcast icon below to hear what they had to say.

 

 Why I'm interested in podcasting [1:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

On Thursday I taught a class on podcasting at the San Francisco SBA and Nicole volunteered to be interviewed.

She stood out in the class as the first one to raise her hand when I asked for a candidate who would like to be on a podcast. It’s not surprising when you read about her consulting business.

Nicole writes that her consulting business is all about:

Verdandi Consulting aims to be a unique, prominent provider of motivational and inspirational professional and personal achievement services to people worldwide. Its mission is “to be” in the business of helping people be their best, whether they are in corporate, small business, household, educational, retirement or other arenas.

Hear what she had to say about why podcasting is of interest to her by clicking on the podcast icon below.

 

 Interview: Nicole Devlin [2:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Wednesday evening I attended Edith Yeung’s SFentrepreneur networking session in San Francisco. I ran into Christina Poremski from the Technology Dojo.

A traditional dojo is a school for training in various arts of self-defense (such as Aikido or Karate). Christina and her partner created a Technology Dojo to train successful entrepreneurs and professionals in various arts of defense against wasted time and energy. Their philosophy is based on the ancient principles of simplicity, flexibility and maximization of strength.

The Dojo is a learning community where successful entrepreneurs and small business owners come to learn new skills and to master their tools. We host beginning and advanced classes, labs for hands-on practice, and a Mastermind group. Entrepreneurs and small business owners of all ability or skill levels can learn new ways to improve their businesses in an interactive and supportive environment.

To hear what Christina told me about this unique resource click on the podcast icon below.

 

 Interview: Technology Dojo [2:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Board of the Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA/NC) is pleased to announce the release of our 3-minute Vision Statement movie:

This is our vision
we are dynamic speakers
a community
of professionals
we care for each other
and network with our friends
we have integrity
and high standards
we serve both accomplished
and emerging speakers
we educate others
about our profession
we make a difference
we use our expertise
our voices
and our stories
to make the World
a better place
we change lives
we teach
we inspire
we energize
we are open
we share our knowledge
and experience freely
there is enough
for all of us
we make the pie
bigger
together we are better
we believe in
cooperation above competition
we get paid
for doing what we love
we honor the privilege
of the platform
we are experts
who tell it like it is
we challenge our audiences
we move them
we stir them up
they change
they take action
they accomplish
great things
we make others
successful
we change the world
by speaking
that is our vision

My blog has featured dozens of podcasts, from informal 3-5 minute interviews to recordings of full-length presentations. I’ve podcast from the convention floor, the corner store and the podium.

I’m amazed that more professional speakers, trainers, workshop leaders and people with a message don’t podcast. It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s happening now.

And it’s time I shared with people just what is involved in creating a podcast.

So I’ve scheduled three podcasting workshops between September and February.

Podcasting 101 for Small Business Owners

Thursday September 18 from 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
SBA Entrepreneur Center, 455 Market St., San Francisco.

As part of the Gizmology series being offered by the Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association and the San Francisco Small Business Association I’ll be teaching a FREE evening workshop in podcasting.

We’ll start the evening with a discussion about the advantages of podcasting. Do you want your voice heard around the world? To have people tune in and hear you without any extra travel? Podcasting does this. Simply by putting an audio recording on a Web site and then letting people subscribe to a “feed,” you’ll have a powerful way to build a worldwide listening audience. The highlight of the class with be a hands-on demonstration. I’ll record some of the discussion and show everyone, step-by-step, how to make this into a podcast which we’ll access from iTunes. It should be a lot of fun.

Although the event is offered for free, you do need to register.

BizTechDay - Technology Day for Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

Saturday, October 25, 2008 from 08:00 AM - 06:00 PM
Hilton Hotel, 333 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco.

This all-day workshop includes the same class I will teach on September 18, and more. BiztechDay is a packed with educational seminars, workshops and panel discussions by top technology and business experts (like me!) all focused on how to grow your business using the power of the Internet & Web 2.0 technologies. Check out more details.

Registration before Sept 15 is $149 / After Sept 15 is $249 - so what are you waiting for?

Click here to register.

The 2009 Ragan Speechwriters Conference

Thursday, February 11, 2009 from 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
The Mayflower Hotel, Washington DC

Yes, in the very hotel that ex-NY Governor Elliott Spitzer chose for the tryst which ended his career and just a few blocks from the White House where President Richard Nixon recorded every conversation in the Oval Office (although I’m not sure he planned to use them as podcasts!) I’ll be giving a workshop titled Get more mileage for your work: Repurposing a speech for new media as part of the annual Speechwriters Conference.

This stellar event features keynotes by legendary JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen and Robert Schlesinger, author of the excellent history of Presidental speechwriters White House Ghosts.

The conference runs Feb 11-13 and my talk is part of the Advanced Speechwriting track.