beckysue 
Like everyone else, I was mortified when I saw the now-infamous video of Michael Bay melting down onstage the other day. I consume a lot of public speaking blogs and the reaction from professionals has been a good deal less voracious than from the public in general. There was a lot of empathy expressed (the phrase … Read more
I’ve never been a big fan of all the motivational quotes that get passed around Facebook and Twitter, but this time of year brings a bumper crop of them as people work on their New Year’s resolutions. (Actually, I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions, either. My philosophy has always been, if you want to … Read more
Now that Facebook has finally confirmed what everyone’s long suspected—that they’re throttling posts from business pages—I’ve decided to suspend my business page. Here’s why. What Is Throttling? First, if you hadn’t heard, throttling means that posts from business pages are getting through to fewer and fewer people’s walls. My own statistics have dropped dramatically. While … Read more
Looking for the perfect holiday gift for yourself? How about a free copy of my new book, 11 Deadly Presentation Sins? For Subscribers Only This week I’ll be giving a sneak preview of the book for subscribers to my email list. If you join by tomorrow, you’ll get all the exciting details, including: A first … Read more
Like millions of Americans last week, I took to social media to heap scorn upon The Sound of Music Live. We are now in that next predictable phase of pop culture ephemera: the backlash to the backlash, wherein the production’s defenders scold its attackers. So it’s incumbent on me to tell these people THEY ARE … Read more
President Kennedy’s iconic “we choose to go to the moon” speech, which I watched the other day near the anniversary of his death, offers important storytelling tips for anyone trying to explain complex ideas to a general audience. Watch the video (or read the speech here), and see how Kennedy uses analogy to put abstract concepts—big … Read more
The client from Hell, the boss from Hell—there are many permutations of this phenomenon. But sometimes the holiday season brings out the worst in us. End of the Year Rush In the marketing and PR world, this is the time of year when clients find unused money in their budgets and scramble to get new … Read more
On Monday I led a 90-minute storytelling workshop in New York for a CEO and his direct reports. They were trying to work out how to rally and unite their employees, but I came away with something, too: what I’m modestly calling A Grand Unified Theory of Storytelling. The event’s organizers had an artist there … Read more
Public speaking can be nerve-wracking enough, but presenting as a group adds a whole new level of anxiety to the process. And when the presentation is a new business pitch, that really raises the stakes. Organizing a group presentation can be like herding cats, only with less focus and discipline. But it doesn’t have to be … Read more
Last week I was in Cleveland visiting family and I finally got to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (+Museum). I really did enjoy it and I appreciated what they did, but I came away feeling they could do a much, much better job telling the story of “the world’s most powerful art … Read more