(President’s Day is Feb. 17 but I’m posting this early, in their honor!)
I asked a number of people recently how long they thought the Gettysburg Address actually was. Most said 10-15 minutes or they didn’t know.? Amazingly to me, the Gettysburg Address lasted just over two minutes and was only 300 words, the lengthof most blogs today.  Maybe you had to memorize and recite it in a class years ago, as I did?
President Abraham Lincoln delivered these most famous of all his remarks during the American Civil War, on Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He is as well known for this speech as he is for helping to abolish slavery.
 
The speaker before President Lincoln on that historic day gave a two-hour address and no one remembers his name. Mr. Lincoln’s place on the agenda was considered an afterthought and look what happened!  Lincoln scholars have revealed that his speaking abilities did not develop overnight and they did not seem to come to him easily. What did he do right?
 
He knew how to capture and keep attention.
Here is what was written about another time President Lincoln spoke:
“Mr. Lincoln spoke nearly two hours and we believe he would have held his audience had he spoken all night.”  –Dover (New Hampshire) Inquirer, March 8, 1860
In fairness, there were no movies, no Super Bowl, no TV, no Internet, no digital devices to otherwise distract audiences in the 19th Century. Speakers were a popular form of entertainment. Nonetheless, I don’t believe human nature has changed that much. We are easily bored and good speakers are those people who have mastered how to select and deliver their words in a way that makes us want to listen.
Please like Speakout on Facebook.
 
Best Regards,
 

Anne B. Freedman
(305) 273-6641
(305) 733-4054 – Cell
anne@speakoutinc.com
www.speakoutinc.com
 
 www.facebook.com/speakoutinc
 @AnneMiami or twitter.com/AnneMiami
  in  www.linkedin.com/in/annebfreedman/

Last week, I presented “But You Said You Would …,”  a session on how to work more successfully with board members and employees, for the Winter Leadership Boot Camp of the National Association of Women Business Owners in New York City. It seems that problems dealing with extreme divas, the highly talkative, the reluctant to change and the ultra-detail-minded are universal and unrelenting.
 
No matter how big or small the organization, to reach their goals with less stress and more positive outcomes, leaders need to learn how to converse with people whose style of communicating is different than their own.  It’s no easy feat but these skills can be acquired with practice and patience!
 
Despite my new boots and multiple layers of clothes, New York was freezing! Nonetheless, the warmth of people I met and celebrating the 40th Anniversary of NAWBO at an especially lovely Bank of America reception definitely made the trip memorable.
 
On the home front, you would have been proud, too, of 16-year-old “Mint,” the Rotary Exchange Student from Thailand, who totally mesmerized a social entrepreneurship class at Florida International University Monday. She talked about two of the biggest social problems in her country, the Rohingya, a transient group of 100,000 Muslims unrecognized as citizens throughout Southeast Asia, and the ever increasing horror of child labor.
 
“For example, they make the children sell flowers at traffic lights for 11 hours or more every day. The bad thing is that the Thai people have come to regard children who sell flowers or who are working hard in other places as totally normal,” Mint said. “But I believe it is not supposed to be like this at all.  The reason that I came to talk to you today is my hope that what I am doing as a speaker for them….the Rohingya and children workers will inspire you to help them.”
 
Whoever you choose to help, I wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day!
 
Best Regards,
 

Anne B. Freedman
(305) 273-6641
(305) 733-4054 – Cell
anne@speakoutinc.com
www.speakoutinc.com
 
 www.facebook.com/speakoutinc
 @AnneMiami or twitter.com/AnneMiami
  in  www.linkedin.com/in/annebfreedman/

Following up President’s Day 2015. Hope you had a great one yesterday!

Although he was regarded as gangly and awkward physically, President Abraham Lincoln knew how to connect to audiences. Here are two more practices he embraced that could help you, too.

(1) He chose words that anybody could understand.
Mr. Lincoln was known to show respect for people of all stations in life. This attitude was reflected in how he selected the words and phrases he used in his speeches. You didn’t find thousand dollar words or ones only the super-educated would understand.

When you select the words for your message, bear in mind who’s listening and the kind of impact you’re trying to make.

(2) He did not hide how he felt about the topics he presented.
While Mr. Lincoln could have been an intimidating figure, given his height and often serious, sad face, when he spoke on the key issues of his day, he did not hide his emotions or passions.  Instead, he successfully used these feelings to help bring alive the carefully crafted logic and facts he presented.

When Lincoln was a young man doing odd jobs in New Salem, Illinois, he was often asked to write letters for his less literate friends. The future president “learned to see other people’s thoughts and feelings and ideas by writing their friendly, confidential letters,” according to a friend from that era, Mentor Graham.

I recommend that you envision a real person or a small group of people you know when you craft a speech or presentation instead of an audience of strangers. Keep it as personal, value-rich and as down-to-earth as you can. And don’t forget to give yourself time to practice until you’re “natural” looking and sounding, as Lincoln did! Let me know how your presentation goes.
 
Best Regards,
 

Anne B. Freedman
(305) 273-6641
(305) 733-4054 – Cell
anne@speakoutinc.com
www.speakoutinc.com
 
 www.facebook.com/speakoutinc
 @AnneMiami or twitter.com/AnneMiami
  in  www.linkedin.com/in/annebfreedman/

 As a freshman at the University of Florida (Go Gators!), I experienced the final days of curfew for women students on campus in the spring of 1968. Before its demise, there were strange practices like “panty raids” in the dorms. Where we actually threw underwear out the windows to the anxious throbs of handsome young men below!  It all seems so quaint now, doesn’t it?

I was surprised and thrilled during the Oscars when Patricia Arquette, winner of Best Supporting Actress for her role in Boyhood, delivered an unabashedly pro-women statement as part of her acceptance speech. “We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights,” she said. “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

In not quite the same spirit, I am proud to announce that Speakout, Inc., has joined the ranks of certified women business enterprises, affiliating with the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, (WBENC).  After satisfying a huge list of requirements, our new designation means that certain companies with goals of doing business with women-owned and minority-owned enterprises will now consider hiring us.

Once certified, you have to fill out forms online to become a possible vendor with each individual company, and then, the usual effort to find a real and personal connection begins. I’ll keep you posted and welcome any introductions you may have.

While I am truly excited about the opportunity to establish a working relationship with these highly successful companies and their top executives, part of me wonders why this kind of certification is still necessary for women in 2015. We’ve come a long way in many respects, for which I remain grateful and also proud, but in others?
 
Best Regards,
 

Anne B. Freedman
(305) 273-6641
(305) 733-4054 – Cell
anne@speakoutinc.com
www.speakoutinc.com
 
 www.facebook.com/speakoutinc
 @AnneMiami or twitter.com/AnneMiami
  in  www.linkedin.com/in/annebfreedman/

What’s the difference between getting yawns and really nailing it?

I am especially proud of a long-time client who has chosen to go where others in her field have never gone, as the newly departed and beloved Mr. Spock might have said.

She could have taken the familiar route, delivering a lecture-type presentation of facts and trends.

Instead, she made her remarks personal and relevant, thought-provoking and enjoyable.

To introduce the idea of Cloud technology, she asked for a show of hands about how many had experienced a computer crash – at home or in the office. To replace a recital of the role apps are playing in our lives, she challenged her audience to admit how many hours they spend on mobile devices, and what exactly they were doing on them.

She wrapped up with an animated discussion of technology trends and how her firm has been tracking them on their clients’ behalf.

No matter what your topic is, I firmly believe nothing ever has to be boring. While some material is admittedly more interesting than others, from my experience, a presentation is boring because the person delivering it wasn’t willing to invest the time and energy to discover how to make it relevant and fascinating.

How can you ramp up the enjoyment factor in your next message? Share a real-life experience you had, or perhaps someone close to you or a client may have had. Use that episode to create a bridge between your facts or trends and your audience. Here’s a mini-outline:
Personal story.
Fact 1. Trend 1.
Different personal story.
Fact 2. Trend 2.
 
For years I struggled against my journalistic training which opposed the idea of putting myself into the story, as opposed to being neutral or just reporting the data at hand.
 
If you are not a journalist, neutrality has no place in your speaking – unless you really do want to be boring. It’s your choice.

Best Regards,
 

Anne B. Freedman
(305) 273-6641
(305) 733-4054 – Cell
anne@speakoutinc.com
www.speakoutinc.com
 
 www.facebook.com/speakoutinc
 @AnneMiami or twitter.com/AnneMiami
  in  www.linkedin.com/in/annebfreedman/