Garr Reynolds’ comments on best practices in executive communications are insightful. He compliments 8-Ball Seth Godin on a masterful speech that’s well worth investing 20 minutes of your time to watch. He reinforces the value of close study of Edward Tufte’s work on PowerPoint and recommends the essay by Stanford professor Jean-Luc Doumont on The cognitive style of PowerPoint: slides are not all evil.(APPLIED THEORY).

Garr concludes with some sage advice:

If I were CEO of a large Silicon Valley company, I’d send my people to Tufte and Edwards, (Toastmasters, Bert Decker, etc.) and send my big presentation projects to Duarte Design. Tools matter, but better design education matters more. When the electricity goes off, who will remain the most effective communicators? As Alan Kay says, “Most ideas you can do pretty darn well with a stick in the sand.”

Great advice that I heartily second.

Somewhat predictably, I’ve decided to move on to the second blog listed on my NSA Blogroll. Bill Conerly’s Businomics Blog

Blogging since: January, 2006
Posting Frequency: 2-3 times weekly
Post Length: 200-300 words average
Aesthetic Appeal: Standard template. Data graphs mix a variety of styles. Baby blue surround.
Graphics: Bar and Line graphs that supplement the text. Click for larger image.
Categories: Books, Business Strategy, Economic News, Investments, Public Policy
Blogroll: 14 economics blogs
Target Audience: Business strategists in large and medium sized companies
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: Yes
Alexa.com traffic ranking: N/A
Sites that link to this blog: N/A
Yahoo Links: 88

Review:

Dr. Bill Conerly is a heavyweight academic and highly qualified economic advisor. He’s new to blogging this year, and he’s off to a racing start.

He runs a consulting practice, helping business leaders make more profitable decisions through a better understanding of the economy. He’s co-author of Thinking Economics, a high school textbook in multimedia format used in 24 states. His new book, Businomics, will be published in 2007 by Adams Media. His articles are required reading in graduate courses at MIT and Wharton.

This is a blog that promises the reader Better Decisions Through A Better Understanding of the Economy. Read his posts for the skinny on topics such as consumer confidence, employment trends, interest rates, housing and producer pricing. These are meat and potatoes topics for all economists. What’s different are the ‘Business Strategy Implications’ that Bill often concludes each posting with. Example:

Housing supply chain should REALLY hunker down now. Sellers of interest sensitive big-ticket items (like car dealers) should BEGIN to hunker down. The rest of the business community should start thinking about contingency plans for a recession or economic slowdown.

Bill’s blog is also a good place to look for references to books, articles and studies in the area of economics.

On the technical front Bill has had some trouble with lost archives. He might want to use a redirect to mask his generic Typepad URL. He should also incorporate Technorati tags to increase his visibility to search engines.

Reading this blog reminds me of the quote attributed to Lyndon Johnson:

Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.

Bill is no Jim Cramer and I did not see any “Buy Gold!!!” or “Sell Wal-Mart!!!” recommendations, which is a good thing. At the same time, it would be nice to see a little more juice in his posts. Rather than adopting a textbook tone, Bill could lighten things up with insights on our quotidian experience from the perspective of an economist.

Example: In addition to the overall advice on the effect of a housing price drop (above) he could follow-up with comments on markets like the San Francisco Bay Area contrasted with the rural Dakotas – what strategic differences might affect those of us who live there? How do the strategic shifts affect the young, middle aged and older homeowner? How about the business strategy for Realtors or those who service them in these two areas? And if I have a variable interest rate and a daughter going to an Ivy League in the Fall is it time to move to a rental unit?

I’d also like to read about Bill’s experiences as an economist who is also a speaker – what reception do his audiences give him? What content and delivery techniques does he employ to keep their attention and disprove President Johnson’s claim?

This is a blog for those who don’t want to get their economic strategy from the Booyah Bullhorn on Mad Money. Check it out.

I feel like the proverbial latecomer to the party, but I’ve just discovered the wonders of YouTube.

This is a social Web site that allows users to upload, view, and share video clips. The tagline is “Broadcast yourself”. It was founded in February 2005 and has experienced phenomenal growth. 65,000 sub-10 minute video clips are uploaded and 100 million clips are watched each and every day. It’s estimated the company’s bandwidth costs are $1 million a month.

So what did I find so amazing about the site?

It was not the excruciating amateur home video, the garage bands, frat parties and stupid pet tricks. But buried in those million clips is content that I relish:

So here, as a total indulgence, is three minutes of Roy Harper, who is an obscure and wonderfully poetic chap with a guitar and an attitude, celebrating One of Those In England:

and here is, literally, a trip down memory lane, an abstract wonder of out-of-focus home video of a Cheshire road I cycled every day from the age of 11 to 18 with the hoar-frost clinging to the hawthorn hedges:

Explore YouTube – you never know what you might discover!

Peter Schweizer’s recent article on the apparent hypocrisy of Al Gore championing climate change in his Inconvenient Truth movie while living in three homes and flying in private jets raises some interesting questions.

As I noted in my review of the film, Gore’s travel schedule imposes a beefy carbon footprint, but given the urgency of his message may be justified.

Schweizer ad hominem critique highlights a number of areas where he claims Gore’s personal behavior is hypocritical:

Schweizer concludes:

Maybe our very existence isn’t threatened.
.
.
The issue here is not simply Gore’s hypocrisy; it’s a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth, and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn’t he made any radical change in his life? Giving up one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

I think these are cheap shots. Asserting that someone’s argument is wrong because of something discreditable about the person rather than addressing the soundness of the argument itself is a classic logical fallacy.

Consider. Gore has an important message he is trying to deliver across the planet. He can’t do this effectively if he was to travel by bicycle to talk to audiences. Flying in a private jet is environmentally damaging, but the captains of industry do it daily. If he is to be effective he can’t have one hand tied behind his back.

Secondly, the homes he owns are not a-typical of those owned by the elite in America. If he was to sell them and move into modest housing someone else would be burning energy to heat and cool them. What’s he to do, demolish them? Better he stays and tries to run them energy-efficiently.

Finally, any of us with a diversified 401(k) have shares in mining and petroleum companies. Of course, we could sacrifice returns and stay with socially responsible funds, but these often underperform the market.

The response that is needed to global warming is not necessarily to adopt a hair-shirt lifestyle. American public opinion is not receptive to those who’ve tried this. The reputation of Ralph Nader, President Carter and “Governor Moonbeam” Brown of California were not helped by their nods to personal sacrifice and low rent accouterments.

It’s not Gore’s personal lifestyle that’s in question. Rather, it’s the potential impact of climate change on a global scale. He’s done an excellent job communicating the urgency of this in his book and movie. Tripping him up for not living up to the suggestions he made to reduce carbon emissions distracts from the scale of change that is really needed.

Sure, we all need to try and reduce our carbon footprint. And those of us lucky enough to live in advanced economies will need to adjust our material consumption downward by a significant amount. The small percentage of the world’s population that live in the United States cannot continue to consume many times our fair share of energy resources.

Personal choices made by Americans play a role in helping the planet. But serious policy changes (for instance in the CAFE standards for average gas consumption) have a much larger effect. These changes will occur due to legislation resulting from democratic debate as the scale of the crisis unfolds.

Even larger changes will result in response to global forces unleashed by the rest of the world against those who foul the planet. A terrorist campaign with roots in the climatically dispossessed is not unthinkable. The way we deal with it is worth consideration.

And the largest role of all will be played by the planet. Once the ice melts and sea levels rise there probably won’t be a home in America that only has one family living it in. Refugees from the coasts will be billeted in the all of the Gore’s fancy residences. The water lapping at the doors of the Hoover Institution will give Peter Schweizer more concern than Gore’s personal lifestyle.

There’s a secret to the speaking business. It’s not just speaking fees that count. It’s how you create multiple streams of income that allow you to earn while you’re “off the airplaneâ€?. These nice little earners come from selling product from the back of the room after your speech or, better yet, from your website which will top up your bank account 7×24 – making money while you sleep! Guess what? You’ll also inoculate your business against the coming Avian Flu pandemic.

Pro-Track members heard from two very successful speakers who have supplemented their speaking fees with substantial earnings from product sales over the years.

Rebecca Morgan: Product Development for Speakers Part I

Rebecca, a member of the NSA National Board of Directors, took the whole morning to cover all the aspects of developing products. We’re all information peddlers. The same information that is spoken into the podium microphone can be repackaged into audio and printed product.

What products, and how to develop them, you ask?

First consider:

Next consider which of these vast array of product types works for your market:

A great example is classic Eight Ball Larry Winget who sells everything from books to bobble head dolls.

Another is Dr. Tony Allessandra who lists books, audio downloads and more. Check out the 4-page Platinum Self-Assessment product he sells for $8. This will give you a flavor of the type of product beginning speakers can easily create and charge for.

But wait, there’s more. Say you don’t have content of your own yet. What to do? Consider:

Some other tricks of the trade:

Consider that most people at your event have a $20 bill or three in their back pocket. Bundle 3 reports or whatever and sell them in $20 increments.

Take payments from customers using Paypal Mobile.

Bundle air with your products: Shrink wrap tapes and books at Kinko’s and include a certificate in the Cadillac version of your products. This is good for an hour of your consulting time (Value $200?) if people call before the expiry date. Experienced speakers know less than 5% will call, yet people flock to the deal.

Consider for each product you sell, what is the next product your customer will be led to when they purchase this one? Always include product lists at the back of each document.

Look for continuity programs. How can you get clients to subscribe to a series on a monthly basis?

When quoting a speech fee include 100 books in your price and offer the conference organizer a discount on buying enough for the rest of the audience. Often this will generate sales of hundreds before you even arrive at the event

Great example of best practices:

Check out the offerings of top speaker Robert Middleton. His Action Plan Marketing website has a teleclass, partner product sales, audio CDs with transcripts, books and manuals and more. It’s great stuff that’s designed to help the self-employed and independent owners small firms become better at marketing their services – something we all need!

Enough theory! How to put this into practice?

Rebecca had us start with a list of three things we know in our subject area that people would pay good money to learn. We later expanded this to a list of 10. Since blogging is an area that I’m investing an increasing amount of time into I thought the following list might form the basis of a laminate quick-start guide. What do you think? Would you pay $5.95 for a copy of this to have at hand by your computer? Let me know in the Comments section below.

Ian’s Handy-Dandy Ten Rules for Successful Blogging:

1. Write your blog regularly – at least once a week.
2. Find a sincere voice to write in.
3. Exercise your grammar and diction and spell check and proofread before publishing each post.
4. Welcome comments in your blog – open the conversation.
5. Be sure to include a photograph and your name in the blog – people like to know who is talking to them.
6. Include an ‘About Me’ link.
7. Use Google News ‘bots’ to capture topic ideas.
8. Link often to other blogs, websites and trackbacks to boost your “Google Juice�
9. Use iStockphoto for beautiful graphic images.
10. Remember to get a life and unhook yourself from the keyboard to experience life!
11. Bonus: Get started!

If you need more help

Consider working with one of the experts in the field. Paulette Ensign is The Booklet Queen and her services range from consulting to help you create a Tips Booklet to promoting your finished product on her popular web site. She’s written booklets that have sold over a million copies.

Michael Lee: Product Development for Speakers Part II

If you thought my “top 10� list above is too trivial, consider. Michael is one of the few professional speakers in the nation who makes more than $100,000 a year from product sales. And he started with a top 10 list for Realtors detailing ways they can justify their commission.

He’s expanded this list over the years to 122 tips that took him six months to collate, with variations for justifying commission to home sellers, home buyers, FISBOs and others. These sold for $9.95 each. He added real estate forms and upped the price to $19.95. A bundle of four sold at a discount $70. When he added a CD and workbook he had a manual for $99.95.

I won’t cover the details he shared on his costs to produce this material, but it’s pennies on the dollar.

It all started with a simple list.

And of course, clients are not gladly shelling out their money for the paper, but the countless hours of expertise Michael has invested to produce the material. Indeed, he offers an unconditional guarantee with all products and rarely has to offer a refund.

Michael delivered an expanded version of the NSA/NC presentation I attended back in May at his Danville home.

He stressed the need to raise the perceived value of the products you sell.

Some tips:

In conclusion: Don’ think of all the reasons you CAN NOT create products you can sell, think of all the reasons you CAN and JUST DO IT!

Resources:

Here’s the very first of my planned series of blog reviews. I thought I’d start with the first blog on the Blogroll.

Bert Decker: Create Your Communications Experience

Blogging since: July 10, 2005
Posting Frequency: 4-6 times monthly
Post Length: Varies, 200 – 3,500 words
Aesthetic Appeal: Corporate consultant feel, hip picture of Bert looking tanned and healthy.
Graphics: Wide selection that really add to the blog. Thumbnail images of speakers. Other graphics.
Categories: Avoid PowerPoint Abuse, Be Creative, Books, Branding, Effective Presentation Skills, Insights in Behavior, Musings, Newsworthy, Powerful Content, Speakers
Blogroll: 12 speaking/communications blogs
Target Audience: Communications professionals and savvy executives
Comments allowed: Yes
Trackbacks: Yes
Alexa.com traffic ranking: 3,145,168
Sites that link to this blog: 46
Yahoo Links: 383

Review:

Bert is a player. He heads Decker Communications which offers executives programs on The Decker Method Communicate to Influence Program and one-on-one coaching for senior executives. He lunches with Guy Kawasaki. He’s a published author with a half-dozen books to his name. Titles such as Speaking With Bold Assurance and You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard. Bert is clearly an established leader in his field.

I found dipping into this blog very rewarding. It’s firmly focused in his area of expertise. He writes thoughtfully about everything from the use of humor in speeches to non-verbal communication and current affairs. Bert wears his expertise lightly and we benefit tremendously from his insights. He’ll cover American Idol in one post and Handel’s “Messiahâ€? in the next.

I found one of his most valuable posts (I forwarded it to everyone in the Communications Department of the Fortune 500 company I work for) is his insightful listing of The Five Biggest Mistakes CEO’s Make in Speaking. This offers up not just a list of problems but also a series of innovative solutions:

Let your hands work for you. In personally coaching tens of thousands, I’ve seen maybe one out of 500 who over use their hands and gestures. The problem is we all tend to have a nervous gesture that we are comfortable with, like the fig leaf, but shows our nervousness. Don’t let your comfort be your guide, help the audience be comfortable with you be showing confidence and certainty in your gestures.

I was fascinated to read his various comments on President Bush. He’s both praised and criticised the commander in chief. He avoided the usual cheapshots about the “dumb Texan” and malapropisms made by the President. Instead we are given gimlet-eyed assessments like:

In tonight’s speech he looked like an actor on a stage. The problem is, he’s not a very good actor. And even if he was, that’s not a very good approach to leadership.

My technical wish list for this blog is a Search function so I could quickly mine more of this content.

As a final note I’d love it if Bert shared more personal stories of everyday life as an executive coach. His clients are the top CEO’s in the land. Without breaching confidentiality, it would be great to hear real-life stories from his travels in the C-Suite. Something along the lines of “I was coaching a top executive in the North-East last week when I who told me his biggest fear is…”. A good story makes for an engaging blog post.

We could all learn from Bert.

I’ve recently created a listing of all the blogs I can find created by members of the National Speakers Association on my second Blogroll (see right hand column, scroll down if necessary).

I thought it might liven things up with my NSA colleagues by offering my unsolicited, opinionated reviews of their blogs.

I obviously won’t be able to read each and every post on an active blog. But I promise to look at each post from the current month as well as at least a good dozen from the archives.

I plan to offer both a factual inventory (posting frequency; length of posts; number of images and links used; popularity) as well as a totally subjective report on what I liked about the blog. Hopefully, other professional speakers will find these brief summaries amusing, even instructive. Heck, they might even find a reason to click through and read the source blog then let me know via Comments if they agree or disagree with my assessment.

After careful thought, I’ve hit on a standardized rating scheme (OK, OK, I stole it from the San Francisco Chronicle movie reviews):

Ratings Key:
Excellent	Good	Adequate	Poor	Don’t Bother

I’ll quantify each blog on a number of criteria:

Blogging since: Date of the first post in the archives.
Posting Frequency: how often do they show up?
Post Length: Average word count.
Aesthetic Appeal: Does the visual design of the blog establish its purpose and intent?
Graphics: Description of any pix, charts or other graphics displayed.
Categories: As listed on the blog.
Blogroll: A count of those listed on the blog.
Target Audience: Who is the blogger talking to?
Comments allowed: Are they interested in a conversation?
Trackbacks: Are they interested in a sophisticated conversation?
Alexa.com traffic ranking: One measure of popularity or activity around this blog.
Sites that link to this blog: A second measure, as shown on Alexa.
Yahoo Links: A third measure – as shown by a yahoo search on ‘link:blog url’.

While running these reviews might not necessarily be the best way to ‘Win Friends and Influence People’ I won’t censor any comments the blog owner cares to leave in reply. I’m very aware that blogs work best as two-way conversation.

My aim isn’t to throw brickbats at other bloggers in the National Speakers Association, there are precious few to begin with. Rather, I hope that these summaries simply tell more people about the NSA blogs that are out there. It might also stimulate debate about what makes a blog and blogging interesting and valuable for speakers, audience members and readers in general.

If you are a National Speakers Association member with a blog and I’ve not listed you in my Blogroll please send me the URL and I’ll be sure to include it.

Just finished a great book: Rome, Inc: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinational Corporation by Stanley Bing.

Fortune columnist Bing condenses the 1,200-year history of Rome into a slim, wildly entertaining satire written for modern executives. The book renders the history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire in corporate-speak. Starting out in 753 BC as a “Mom and Pop operation” through the era of the Bureaucratic Republic; the company peaks from 18 BC to 180 AD as a Caesar-centric organization.

For anyone who works, like Bing, in a large corporation, there’s an eerie familiarity in deeds of ancient Roman tribunes (middle managers) patrician senators (the executive committee or board members) and megalomaniac consuls (CEO’s).

Rome is the corporate center (always being lavishly remodeled in marble); outposts in Africa or Gaul are field offices; conquests are unfriendly acquisitions.

The core attribute of the truly great Romans — Caius Marius, Julius Caesar, Marc Anthony, Augustus — was an egomaniac sense of destiny, an utter belief in themselves.

Bing makes it absolutely apparent that there are corporate titans around today not all that different from those who ruled two thousand years ago. Denis Kozlowski’s famous birthday party with an ice statue spraying vodka from its penis; the tragedy of Kenneth Lay; Al Dunlap; Dick Grasso’s grasping excess — all the outsized compensation packages and overweening pride before a fall that was there in 20 BC is still around in 2000 AD:

In a sane society, such people are dealt with rationally, as sick individuals whose egos need amelioration, either upward or downward in size. In a crazy culture, these pathological titans are promoted, invested with power and respect. Eventually, they destroy themselves, both individually and as a group, giving way to new forms of executives.

Bing’s analysis of the forces that drove the ancient Romans is distant mirror in which to see our own careers. Working for large companies might demand we tolerate bread and circuses, but it’s better than life as a Visigoth or Hun.

If you’d like a quick read this summer, check out Rome, Inc.

It’s a characteristic of CEO’s who are also founders of companies to speak more frankly than appointed heirs. Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems and CEO for over 20 years, was an iconoclast who spoke fearlessly of things as he saw them.

Last Saturday’s interview with Infosys founder and CEO Nandan Nilekani in the Financial Times (subscription required) is an example of CEO who is a company founder speaking candidly on a global scale.

Nilekani is famous for inspiring Thomas Friedman to write The World is Flat.

His views on the changing world economic landscape and the outsourcing of jobs from the west to India and China are uncompromisingly rooted in history:

Two hundred years back, India and China were 50 per cent of global GDP, but both, for different reasons, opted out of the race. In China, they turned inwards and in India we had the empire. The next century is an opportunity to redeem some of that: the flat world has created a unique confluence of circumstances which will have a huge impact on all our lives.

He challenges the inherent right of Westerners to a high standard of living:

I don’t think that a high standard of living is an entitlement. I don’t think the world can live with everyone driving an SUV. Somethings got to give. It’s just become more competitive. If Indians and Chinese can work 80- 100 hours a week and they are part of a global, fungible labor market, it’s going to have an impact on living standards in the west.”

While acknowledging infrastructure problems in Bangalore (a dysfunctional city) and the narrow base of Indian IT, Nilekani believes “the tide has turned” with the west.

It’s encouraging to hear such plain spoken CEO.

Which American or European executives would dare to disagree?

And what would they say that wouldn’t disturb the fragile relationship with their own employees (skittish about losing jobs to Banagalore and South China) and their overseas partners who man the call centers and manufacture most of what they sell? Hardly “You’re right. We’re busy driving down standards of living among our employees and doing our bit to hasten the decline of the West.”

Great to see that someone with Bert Decker’s experience posting on the new NSA Bloggers group that is forming. There’s a couple of dozen kindred spirits currently signed on to the Yahoo Group nsa_bloggers@yahoogroups.com.

If you’d like to participate in the conversation you can join here. You don’t have to be a formal NSA Member.

Bert’s post lists some of my favorite blogs, including Garr Reynolds, Seth Godin and Sam Decker. I read them all via RSS subscription on Bloglines. I had no idea Sam is the Son of Bert. Sam-I-Am has 133 subscribers in Bloglines, Dad has..a few less. Both have way more subscribers than I do — but who’s counting (OK, OK, I am – admit it!).

Bert’s post is right on: the best blogs add value and speak with a unique voice and interesting perspectives from within a given silo of expertise out to the world wide web.

Personalized, specialized and experienced blogs giving great “You” messages to a responsive web universe. That’s what I think all this will funnel down to in the coming months and years.

Many of the subject matter experts in the National Speakers Association speak with Voices of Value. Imagine the synergy if everyone took the messages delivered from the podium or front of the seminar room and shared their knowledge on blogs that linked, cross-referenced and tracked-back one to another. That would be powerful.