This evening I spoke to 50 Officers of Silicon Valley Toastmasters clubs about the value of the National Speakers Association (NSA). My talk covered the history of the NSA; its focus on the business aspects of being a professional speaker and why NSA conventions are such valuable sources of information.

I shared with the Toastmasters the source for recordings of past conventions and encouraged them to consider purchasing relevant material for download.

I encouraged them to subscribe to the free weekly newsletter SpeakerNet News for information on a wide variety of topics of interest to speakers.

I listed the upcoming meetings of the Northern California chapter and invited them to attend. We finished the talk by raffling three free copies of our magazine Professionally Speaking. Those who did not win a copy but would like to read this excellent magazine can order one from the print-on-demand MagCloud website for $4.50 plus postage. Such a deal!

To hear my presentation in full click on the podcast icon below. Since this is 44 minute talk you might prefer to use the Download option and save the .mp3 file to your iPod for later listening.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:16 — 10.1MB)

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Since beginning his career in the video business in 1977, Rhys Ludlow has worked in field production, lighting, engineering, editing and producing. With a talent for clear communication with strong technical skills, his work includes national TV spots, specials, documentaries and corporate video.

Rhys’ work has been seen on all major US TV networks, at the Smithsonian and he edited the Academy Award nominated documentary “Last Images of War.”

His work on corporate promotional and educational videos include clients such as Chevron, Wells Fargo, PG&E, Pacific Bell, Hewlett-Packard, Autodesk, Visa, Dewitt Jones’ best selling motivational video, “Celebrate What’s Right With the World”, Jason Jennings’ 10-part series, “Productivity” and numerous demo reels for professional speakers. Examples of his work for speakers can be seen on his website www.media4speakers.com/

Rhys is taking the National Speakers Association Pro-Track class to better understand the business issues faced by speakers.

To hear his discussion on tips for speakers who want a video of their presentations, as well as his thoughts on the investment needed to become a professional speaker, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:36 — 1.3MB)

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Every summer, the best and brightest science and engineering students from across the country and around the world spend a summer interning at Silicon Valley companies. This select bunch of students are mostly post-graduates with a handful of undergraduates. PARC, SAP Labs, Sun Labs, Microsoft Research, Google and HP Labs host a series of visits and social networking events. These events culminate in a visit to HP Labs and a reception for the students.

I helped organize the visit to HP this year and took the opportunity to ask the students where they were from, which company they were interning at and a little about their research interests. To hear what excites the next generation of Silicon Valley scientists and engineers, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:36 — 1.3MB)

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This month’s Pro-Track profile podcast features an experienced Myers-Briggs expert.

Dan Moirao is an educator of students — from kindergarten through working professionals. He has served as a classroom teacher, site and district administrator in a variety of school settings ranging from rural, to urban and suburban, representing every level of the socio-economic spectrum. His devotion to the importance of the learning and teaching process has been evident throughout his career.

Today, Dan is very much a traveling consultant. While he lives in Danville, with his wife Anita of 29 years, he finds himself traveling to Kentucky, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia and Minnesota and beyond.

Dan’s passion and work is a style model — the Myers-Briggs. While he started and continues to work with teachers on instructional strategies to increase student achievement, Dan has found his work shift organizational development. He has learned is that professional development for the “workers” isn’t the end — the organization and the systems that propel it are also important.

To hear what he told me about his work with Myers-Briggs and the value he finds in the National Speakers Association Pro-Track program, click on the podcast icon below.

You can contact Dan at TrDan@aol.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:32 — 1.3MB)

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The New York Times reports that the typical U.S. executive still wastes six weeks a year searching through paper piles and e-mail! Got better things to do with your time?

Since 1988, Eve Abbott has pioneered brain-based productivity systems for executives, managers and business owners. A Brain New Way to Work gets teams working at least 25% more productively through lively programs and practical consultations.

Eve is the author of How to Do Space Age Work with a Stone Age Brain ™. She earned her degree in Sociology and Psychology from the University of California and holds a Lifetime Adult Teaching Credential.

Eve is a popular guest on TV and Radio. Her expertise appears in The New York Times articles and she writes the ‘Business Wise’ column for the nationwide Business Journals.

When speaking, Eve combines her sense of humor with the latest in brain research to guarantee a fun and practical program for conferences ranging from Builder/Architect to Women Leaders 2008.

Eve says “My personal mission is saving every working person in America an hour a day so they have more time for life. My professional objective is converting the 12% of productivity wasted from information overload to your enterprise’s profits, where it belongs.”

S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., Lotus Construction, Nixon Peabody, LLP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency choose A Brain New Way to Work’s seminars for solutions to their employee’s challenges.

Watch Eve

As she introduces her topic in this video:

Listen to Eve

As she tells me about her work and how the NSA/NC Pro-Track class is helping her.

To hear my interview with Eve, click on the icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:28 — 1.0MB)

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I took time out this afternoon from my overflowing email inbox, endless string of to-do’s and overwhelming number of projects, to sneak into a Senior Leadership seminar at Hewlett-Packard. Since I’m neither senior (well, not in the terms the organization uses that term) nor a leader, I was flying under the radar. But it was a risk well-worth taking.

The speaker was best selling author and personal productivity guru, David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

Allen spoke for 90 minutes about the powerful methods he has created to vastly increase personal organization, efficiency and ways to achieve creative results. It was apparent that he is a masterful professional speaker in his own right, as well as an author and executive coach. Some of my favorite quotes from his talk:

• Good executives are like Teflon – nothing should stick to them. But it’s apparent in most organizations that the boss is the bottleneck.
• Stuff should not lie fallow in the upper levels of an organization until the heat is on. Then it spews through three levels of the organization creating stress and unreasonable deadlines for everyone. Managers should not let things blow up, they should take action when things first show up.
• To sit there and have the same thought twice is not productive.

I was curious if the systems Allen teaches are as applicable to entrepreneurs and individual contributors as they are to managers in large organizations. To hear what he told me about this, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:04 — 1.8MB)

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Sci-Fi legend Bruce Sterling (Heavy Weather, The Difference Engine, Distraction and other great novels) is one of the cyberpunk gang of authors who have seen through the more pollyanna views of ‘cool new technology’ to warn that innovation can potentially create disruptions in everything from the climate system to the social system.

I’ve been a fan of his since coming across Heavy Weather in the mid-1990’s. Climate change was not cool back then. We’re so much older than that now and the planet is so much warmer.

I was delighted, and honored, when I ran into him earlier today at the FiRE Conference in San Diego and he agreed to be interviewed for Professionally Speaking.

I really had no idea what he’d talk about. The last thing I expected was a discussion on the Mafiosi-like features of the European Union bureaucracy in Brussels. In fact he’s planning to set his next book in Europe. To hear him explain why he finds modern “post-national” Europe so fascinating, and why he predicts the view from across the Atlantic will soon “return to the slightly paternalistic attitude of American’s as poorly educated hay-seeds,” click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:47 — 2.2MB)

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I first met Hank at a Northern California National Speakers Association meeting in September 2007. I posted a podcast interview with him at that time, partly to demonstrate how easily podcasts can be created and posted. Since then Hank has signed up for the NSA/NC Pro-Track class and this podcast is part of the ongoing series of Pro-Track Profiles. So, for the first time ever, here’s a second Professionally Speaking podcast with the same person!

Hank’s passion for outstanding customer interactions – or Touchpoints – was born in the food and beverage industry. As a waiter and restaurant manager during collage, Hank experienced first-hand the financial benefit of consistently delivering outstanding customer experiences.

In 2002 Hank co-founded the pioneering research consultancy, Touchpoint Metrics. Hank served as its President/CEO, co-invented their Touchpoint Mapping methodology, and led Customer Experience Management (CEM) engagements with organizations large and small, including with GE, Microsoft, and AT&T.

Now known as the “Touchpoint Guru,” Hank is currently working on his first book, The Touchpoint Principle, How to Dominate Your Market Touchpoint by Customer Touchpoint.

Visit www.TouchpointGuru.com to sign up for Hank’s “Touchpointer” newsletter and for more information regarding CEM, Touchpoints, and how he can help as a speaker or consultant.

I caught up with Hank at a break in a recent Pro-Track class. To hear my interview, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:54 — 912.7KB)

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Robert Swan: Boy’s Own Hero

Robert Swan is a modern hero cut in the cloth of Shakleton, Scott and the larger-than-life characters of the Victorian Era. His story is impressive. He’s the first person to walk to both the South and North poles. Given the effects of climate change on polar ice he’s quite likely also the last person as well – the melting of the ice means it’s now not possible to undertake the journey’s he completed twenty years ago – today you’d have to swim part of the way. The land of ice he traveled in his youth is now, literally, melting under his feet as global warming takes hold.

Since traveling to the Poles, and observing the effects of climate change and man-made pollution first-hand, Swan has dedicated his life to the preservation of Antarctica by the promotion of recycling, renewable energy and sustainability to combat the effects of climate change.

This is detailed on his website www.2041.com.

Why 2041?

2041 is the year of the review of the Environmental Protocol of the Antarctic Treaty. Swan’s aim is to work towards the protection of this treaty, so there is never a need to exploit the last great continent on Earth for minerals and fossil fuel.

Following his success in removing 1,500 tons of rubbish from Antarctica and with the foresight and support of the Russian Antarctic Division, Robert Swan stood at the Bellingshausen Russian base on King George Island looking down on the beach that had been cleaned. From that moment he believed that an education station in Antarctica, where the world could see the beauty of this incredible continent, would inspire and educate people around the world about climate change and play a crucial role in promoting renewable energy, preservation and conservation for future generations.

He’s established an educational facility in Antarctica. The E-Base is a sustainable green building operated in an environmental and resource efficient manner.

Public speaking for the greater good

Swann is now traveling the world meeting with students in colleges and universities presenting the opportunity to join his campaign to help rescue these pristine wildernesses from the effects of climate change. He’s a compelling and fiery public speaker.

I caught up with him after a presentation to a small group of leadership coaches from Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto. He told me about the importance “telling it like it is”; about the urgency of his work; and how college kids are receiving his message.

To hear the interview, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:37 — 1.3MB)

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Carlos Cruz is a life and business coach, corporate, community and personal motivational speaker, and trainer. Carlos, a former member of the US Navy, founded A Path to Success, and he is an experienced small business owner and consultant.

Carlos believes there are three essential leadership qualities to look for when choosing a speaker, coach, and trainer: life experience, professional training, and an ongoing commitment to rigorous self-examination and self-development. With his continued, sincere committment to developing and integrating these leadership qualities for himself, Carlos has built a firm foundation, and he is seriously dedicated to earning and maintaining your trust.

He is a member of the National Speakers Association 2008 Pro-Track class for emerging speakers. I caught up with Carlos at a recent meeting and asked him about his business and what he is getting out of Pro-Track. To hear what he told me, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:50 — 1.3MB)

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