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So far Anastasia Pryanikova has created 130 blog entries.

Make them tweet as you speak: 5 tips to make your presentation more shareable

shareWhenever I attend a conference or other events with speakers, I always look for the nuggets of wisdom I can share with my social networks right then and there.  I get original content and an opportunity to connect with other participants who may use the same hashtag for the event, as well as bring awareness to the event itself. It makes my job much easier when speakers have those catchy phrases, quotes, and headlines nicely peppered throughout their presentations.

If you are a presenter, you can benefit from having a range of shareable and tweetable phrases at your disposal. You get more exposure on social networks because others are more likely to share your words. You can use them in your marketing and promotional materials to stand out from the crowd. They can help people remember the gist of your message years after they heard you speak. Those expressions also build your brand if they speak to your values, core messages and perceptions. How do you develop such brain candy?  Here are 5 tips to create shareable content:

1. Keep it concise and precise. Ambiguity tickles the mind, precision sharpens it. Aim to express the main ideas of your presentation in a memorable way in 140 characters or less.

2. Sample, but don’t steal. Be always on the lookout for headlines in newspapers and magazines that you like. Notice what catches your attention and stirs your emotions. Pay attention to the wording and structure of the headline. The more you notice, the better you become at writing your own headlines. The goal is not to copy them but learn from them.  For example, I saw “Five things we can’t stop smiling about…” in The Oprah Magazine.  That’s a construction that can be re-used in many contexts: “Ten things I can’t stop thinking about…” or “Three movies I can’t stop raving about…” You get the idea. Here is another example:  “Good news for bad habits.” This headline plays with the contrast of “good” and “bad” in common expressions.  You can create your own contrastive pairs: “light humor for dark days” or “a sweet treat for a sour disposition.”

3. Write to remember. Jot down your creative ideas whenever and wherever they pop up in your mind. It is difficult to come up with a catchy phrase on the spot.  It usually takes time and several versions to perfect it. That’s why it is important to keep notes. Look for things that rhyme and word combinations that have a nice ring and flow to them. I have a Google document – Say Something – where I record my work in progress, and whenever I have a few spare minutes, I go there to tinker with words.

4. Sort and recycle. As you accumulate more catchy sayings, you can organize them according to their topics and combine them into an article or a blog post. My blog post “Six Tips for Peaceful Holidays” began with a series of tweets with the hashtag #peacefulholidays.  Later, I expanded on each tweet to write the blog post.  Craig Valentine, World Champion of Public Speaking for Toastmasters  International, who trained me to become a certified World Class Speaking Coach, compiled his “27 Phrases To Master the Stage” to inspire other speakers. I remember much of his speaking advice through these phrases. There are WordPress Twitter plugins, such as Click To Tweet,  that will allow your readers to share your phrases on Twitter with one click.  If you find compelling photos or images to accompany your phrases, you can turn them into slides or inspirational content to post on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.

5.  Make them laugh, make them cry. Appeal to emotions. Emotional content grabs attention and is more likely to be shared and better remembered.  As one study revealed, “videos eliciting positive emotion, including joy and humour, are most likely to be forwarded; videos eliciting feelings of alertness and attentiveness are the next most likely to be forwarded.  Videos that evoke negative emotions, such as anger or disgust, are still more likely to be forwarded than dull, non-emotional videos.  Another study, done by the Journal of Marketing Research and the American Marketing Association, identified the top 9 emotional triggers that drive social sharing: emotionality, positivity, awe, anger, anxiety, sadness, practical utility, interest and surprise.

By | 2013-10-18T20:14:36+00:00 October 18th, 2013|Communication, Public Speaking|0 Comments
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Look it up: the value of unsearchable questions

learn how to seeWhenever my 7-year-old daughter has a question that I cannot answer immediately, her typical response is “Look it up.”  Even with her purposefully limited exposure to the Internet, she knows that there is an answer somewhere there hiding behind the keyboards and screens.  What she does not realize is that I cannot easily look up the meaning of made-up words, the habitat of imaginary animals or what the weather is going to be on her birthday, which is in December and still months away.

In the world where many answers are available at our fingertips, there is wisdom and learning for all of us in pondering things that are not easy to look up. As speakers, teachers, trainers, and facilitators, it is perhaps our mission to challenge the audience with inquiries that cannot be solved by a piece of technology.  As neuroscientist Stuart Firestein suggests in his TED talk “The Pursuit of Ignorance,” “high-quality ignorance” – the appreciation of what we don’t know – is a fuel of discovery.  While we can and should incorporate searchable facts, statistics, theories, and conclusions into our presentations, the growth potential often lies in unique, emerging connections initiated by the leaps into the unknown that the audience is willing to take.  Here are three strategies to help your audience “to make better ignorance” – to tinker with ideas for deeper insights.

Offer questions for reflection. A question is a mirror for the mind. A search for an answer can reveal new associations and pathways that may not surface otherwise. Questions help to make your message relevant to your audience. They challenge the audience to think about how your main points relate to their lives and personal experiences. As Immanuel Kant  observed, “Every answer given on principle of experience begets a fresh question.” What can you ask your audience to highlight the relevance of your message?  In which contexts are they most likely to apply your ideas?  Make your questions open-ended to invite a broader inquiry: who, what, where, how, when, why.  Give enough space and silence for the insights to percolate to the surface. Invite your audience members to share their responses and listen actively for new connections to explore. Make reflection an essential part of the learning experience you create for your audience.

Explore life’s what ifs through scenarios.  Scenarios are mini-stories co-created with your audience. They provide hooks for your audience members to hang their own assumptions, beliefs, fears, and hopes. Scenarios offer a unique way to determine how a set of factors or a specific context can influence outcomes.  You can change things up, explore alternatives, brainstorm solutions without being threatened by negative consequences.  Scenarios help to overcome the “groupthink” and invite contrarian opinions.  In real life, we don’t always have the luxury of testing things out.  Scenarios offer an opportunity to take risks while still playing it safe.

Gamify your message. Our brains like playfulness. The desire to play may be wired in our mammalian brain as many animals exhibit playful behavior and learn the intricacies of social interactions through play. Play can relax the brain and make us more open to experiment, prepare for the unexpected and produce a more diverse repertory of behavior. In a role-play, we can assume various roles, put ourselves through different kinds of experiences, learn to better understand other perspectives and explore our own identities. Invite your audience to play, be silly, poke fun at themselves and laugh. Reward your audience members for their contributions. Random rewards boost motivation and learning as they trigger the release of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. Playfulness is a way to create the state of “flow” and full engagement with people and ideas. As Plato once said, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”

By | 2013-10-01T14:31:32+00:00 October 1st, 2013|Communication, Creativity, Public Speaking|0 Comments
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Online communication: 12 questions to ask before you hit that ”Send” button

everything was saidCommunication feels like air, water and food to us.  We communicate naturally and with abundance. The Internet turned communication into a buffet of ideas that we can all gorge on at any given moment, for better or for worse. How do we avoid empty information calories and excessive vicarious emotions that stimulate the brain but provide no meaningful outlet for the cultivated opinions and responses?  How do we encourage communication that makes a difference and gets results?

Perhaps, taking responsibility for what we consume and share online and reflect on its usefulness and meaning can be a step in the right direction. A healthy diet for your mind is as important as a healthy diet for your body.  In the words of Lama Surya Das, “If we want to simplify and deepen our lives, we must simplify and deepen our minds. When we become more centered, clear, spacious, caring, and open, there is suddenly much more room in our frenetic lives for both others and ourselves.”

Here are 12 coaching questions to explore if you want to become more aware of your online communication style and make it more effective and productive:

  1. What is the intent behind your communication: to inform, entertain, support, motivate, inspire, reflect, understand, connect, persuade, distract, misrepresent, annoy, aggravate, vent, deflect, etc.? The intent is rarely stated but often assumed when we communicate online.  You may never know what motivates other people to say certain things, but you should be clear about your own intent.
  2. How do you want to be perceived when you communicate online?
  3. What issues are appropriate for an email, a private message or a post and what topics are better handled via a face-to-face conversation or a phone call?  If an important issue is likely to become explosive online, at what point do you pick up the phone?
  4. How can your words be interpreted differently from what you intended?
  5. How can you interpret what you read or hear differently?
  6. How can you ascribe a neutral or positive intent even when you receive a seemingly negative message?
  7. What needs to be clarified?
  8. If you are having an online argument with someone and that person walks into the room, what would you say face to face?
  9. What would you write if you were angry? What would be the benefits, costs and consequences of sending an angry message?
  10. What would you write if you were calm and composed? What would be the benefits, costs and consequences of sending a balanced message?
  11. How can you make your communication factual, positive, direct, precise and concise?
  12. What do you want to communicate about HOW the issues are communicated? What suggestions do you have to improve communication and avoid misunderstandings?
By | 2013-09-13T15:26:06+00:00 September 13th, 2013|Communication, Conflict Management|0 Comments
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Navigate, tease and loop: Three ways to create anticipation when you speak

anticipationWhenever I have a few minutes in the middle of the day to enjoy a cup of coffee, I pull out my stove-top espresso maker.  There is something about the slow process of filling the pot with water and freshly-ground coffee beans, setting it on a low burner and listening to the steam bubbles gurgle away. As the steam pressure pushes the water through the ground coffee into the collecting chamber, the enticing coffee aroma fills up the kitchen. The result is a strong brew, and its power is only enhanced by a few minutes of anticipation.

The brain is all about anticipation and prediction. Rituals make food and drinks taste better by increasing people’s interest and involvement. People get a boost of happiness when they plan their vacations. According to a study, anticipation increased happiness for eight weeks.  Shawn Achor writes in “The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work”:  “One study found that people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent.”

Not all anticipation is pleasant, however.  Negative anticipation appears to play a big role in memory formation and emotional regulation. For example, the mere anticipation of a fearful situation can increase activity in two memory-forming regions of the brain, the amygdala and hippocampus, – even before the event has occurred. The increased brain activity during anticipation of negative events can make the event more memorable unless people are able to detach from their negative anticipatory emotions.  Studies show that resilient brains appear to anticipate negative events by activating their emotional-control centers to control stress and calm down before the event begins.

You can use the power of anticipation as a reward to captivate brains.  Be also mindful of the use of negative images as they can trigger negative anticipatory emotions.  Here are three ways to add anticipation to your speech or presentation and increase your audience’s engagement.

1. Set the GPS to navigate through your talk.  You want to let your audience know where you are leading them and what route you want them to take. What process, recipe, or model do you use to get your audience the results they need? What acronym or theme could you come up with to give your system a captivating and memorable name? Each step in your process will be a hallmark on you journey. Your audience should have a clear sense of where they are and what to anticipate as they navigate to the next point.

2. Tease your audience.  Make an exciting promise so that your audience members are compelled to pay attention and can’t wait to hear more. Make them guess by asking an intriguing question and withholding the answer till later. Highlight the benefit of sticking around to hear your solution to their problems.  Signal that they will be surprised with what they are about to hear:  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you right now…” or “Just imagine what would happen if…I will tell you what really happened…” Teasers are like juicy bites that make your audience crave more of what you have to offer.

3. Nest a story within a story. The brain always wants to complete a pattern. Once the story is over, it is filed away, and the attention is shifted to the next thing.  To sustain your audience’s attention for a longer time and create anticipation, begin a story and then take a detour through another story.  Close the second story first and then complete the initial story. You will create nested loops to keep your audience craving for a resolution. Think about mystery novels that gradually unfold the unknown. The only caveat is that you don’t want to make it too confusing and impossible to follow. Don’t overwhelm the working memory with facts, engage emotions instead.  Loop but don’t ramble!

By | 2013-08-19T15:40:52+00:00 August 19th, 2013|Brain, Communication, Public Speaking|1 Comment
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How to find the right public speaking venue to magnify your message

venueLast week, I went to see a play at the Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York City.  “The Past is Still Ahead” by Sophia Romma is about Russia’s famous poet Marina Tsvetaeva, who “revisits the tumultuously tragic and sexy events of her life – just before succumbing to ‘suicide’ at the hands of the Soviet Secret Police in 1941 while exiled in Siberia.” It was a dynamic performance that captured the creative power, vivacity and emotional turmoil of the poet as she recalled her visions of life, people, romance with some of the most prominent poets of her time, as well as the social and political devastation of Russia after the revolution.

As I was reflecting on the play, I couldn’t help but notice the influence of the space in which the play was performed.  It was a small theater with just four raised rows of seats with about forty seats in total. The stage was on the same level as the floor and the first row. The walls, the ceiling and the floors were black. The decorations were set to be the house of Marina Tsvetaeva in Elabuga. A large desk where she spent much time writing occupied a prominent spot. The intimate nature of the space with its stark features drew in the audience as if they were in that house too, magnifying the impact of the words and acting.

It made me think about the effect of public speaking venues on the message. Speakers and trainers may not always have a choice since organizers often choose the venue for them. Many events take place in large auditoriums, conference rooms, or seminar rooms of hotels. However, when you create your own event, it may be useful to approach the question of space more carefully and creatively. If you plan an upcoming seminar or workshop and wonder where you should have it, here are some possible criteria to use when choosing a public speaking venue:

  • Size
  • Location
  • Cost
  • Accessibility
  • Proximity to public transportation
  • Acoustics
  • The level of noise outside
  • Internet and wiring for the AV equipment you may need
  • Seating arrangements
  • Possibility of catering and serving food and drinks
  • Temperature control
  • Lighting
  • Overall ambiance and comfort (colors, textures, smells, etc.)
  • Logistics and support.

I have been hosting a book club meetup in a local Barnes & Noble for almost four years now.  While it may not be an ideal spot because it is open and can get noisy, it is also centrally located in a large mall with ample parking space. Because we are visible to other shoppers, people have stopped by to learn more about the club and some of them joined us. Newcomers find the formality of the space welcoming since we don’t look like a closed group. We have a circular arrangement of chairs that promotes good interactions. People don’t feel obligated to buy coffee or food, but they can if they want to because we are right next to a café. It doesn’t cost me anything to host the book club there, and the book store puts us on their printed and online calendar of events.  In addition, we all love books, so it seems a natural place to visit.

The right public speaking venue is likely to be a product of careful research and beneficial collaboration, and it can make it easier for you to market to and attract your ideal audience. Here are some questions to consider when selecting a proper venue:

  • What atmosphere do you want to create for your audience?
  • What type of space is best aligned with your brand and your message?
  • How do you want your audience to feel before, during and after your presentation?
  • How do you want to feel in the space?
  • What can you bring to the venue to make it “your own”?
  • What will your audience members see, touch, and hear when they come in?
  • What will they be doing during your presentation, besides listening: working in groups, writing notes, drawing, watching a video, etc.?
  • What seating arrangement will support your objectives and your audience’s needs best?
  • How do you want your audience to move in the room from the time they arrive till the end when they may want to talk to you or among themselves or place an order?

Keeping your criteria and your needs in mind, here are some venue options to consider:

  • Hotels (conference rooms, seminar rooms, ballrooms, etc.)
  • Libraries
  • Churches
  • Government buildings that may have space available for public use
  • Coworking spaces
  • Restaurants or coffee shops that may have private rooms for meetings
  • Gyms
  • Yoga studios (may be a perfect spot for health & wellness workshops)
  • Stores with a theme that supports your topic (for example, book signing/reading in a book store or a wellness workshop in a health store)
  • Wellness centers
  • Dance studios
  • Art galleries and art studios
  • Theaters

What kind of venue would magnify your message? What are your favorite off-the-beaten-path spaces?

By | 2013-08-02T15:21:15+00:00 August 1st, 2013|Communication, Perception, Public Speaking|0 Comments
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