From the blast from the past department, here is a re-post of something I wrote exactly 5 years ago about the presentation styles of three great speakers. Still as true as ever.

Great post over on Presentation Zen that includes links to comparison video clips of biz author/gurus Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki* and Tom Peters.

Good writing is important. But good platform skills are equally important. And they’re hard to hone. These guys

Loving my first visit to Sydney. The views of the harbor and the Opera House (also here, here and here) are continually stunning. I’m here with a group of really smart folks, including Jim Benson, Venessa Miemis, Mike Nelson, Jeremiah Owyang, Nigel Cameron, John Hagel, Ray Wang, John Smart, Andrew McAfee, Richard Binhammer, Jon Katzenbach, Sanjay Purohit, Mark Zawacki and many others, to speak at the AMPlify Festival, an innovation

Presentation junkies think of Ignite as a mini-TED. That ratchets up the pressure considerably. Like 15-minute TED and TEDx talks, five-minute Ignite talks are regularly given in dozens of cities around the world. Every Ignite talk follows the same format: five minutes, 20 slides, with slides advancing automatically every 15 seconds. And the same approach to subject matter: "Enlighten us, but make it quick." That may sound easy to

Get ready for some snark. When I watched Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s live streamed announcement of Facebook Messages this week I was struck by a couple of things: his presumptuousness, the insular feeling of the event and his lack of speaking ability. First, his presumptuousness: "Talking with high schoolers makes me feel really old," he told the audience in a San Francisco hotel. Tell me about it. Blogging about 26-year-olds

I took an acting class recently at Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company with the intent of learning some new tricks to improve my public speaking. Was it a success? Yes, but not for the reasons I anticipated. The class was an interesting mix of typical Washington business folk (federal agency types, nonprofit advocates, at least one lawyer). And I loved our teacher, Vanessa Buono (2nd from the right in white blouse). The class

I've finally got a video up that shows me strutting the stage to give a keynote on corporate blogging. This was shot at Webcom in Montreal. A shout-out to the nice bald head (it belongs to Mitch Joel) that appears in the right-hand corner in the first few seconds. Thanks to the talented Adam Strasberg for the video editing.