Rob’s blog
Ep. 75. Getting back on track
Off on a tangent in an interview or Q&A? Here’s how you get back on track — quickly, honesty and graciously.
Ep. 74 Why you need to rehearse — and how
If you want to make the most of your speech, you need to rehearse. And to make that rehearsal count, behold: The Ten Commandments of Rehearsal!
Ep. 73 No more boring speaker introductions!
Let’s kill off long, tedious speaker introductions once and for all — and start making them work better for you and your audience.
Ep. 72 Dana Rubin is Speaking While Female
Pick up a collection of speeches or quotations from history, and chances are most of those voices belong to men. But it turns out the oratory of the past was a lot more female than many of its curators would have us think. One woman in particular, Dana Rubin, is working to change our understanding of public speaking history — and the role women have played in shaping it. And she’s my guest on this episode.
Ep. 71 Get out of your lane
You’ve probably heard the expression “stay in your lane.” And sometimes that’s good advice — but right now, we’re facing global emergencies on an unprecedented scale, and we need voices speaking out for truth, democracy, science and our very survival. If you have a platform, you can be one of those voices…even if you aren’t an expert. Here’s how to do it responsibly.
Ep. 70 Find Your Red Thread with Tamsen Webster
Tamsen Webster, author of Find Your Red Thread, joins me to talk about the five steps of an effective Red Thread — your key to moving your audience to take action and create change.
Ep. 69 Seven deadly sins of online presentation (part two)
Over a year into online presentations as the norm, and some folks are still committing these seven deadly sins. Here’s how to stop… and how to find redemption.
Ep. 68 Seven deadly sins of online presentations (part one)
Over a year into online presentations as the norm, and some folks are still committing these seven deadly sins. In part one of this two-episode series, we look at sins one through four.
Ep. 67. Avoiding plagiarism: Are your words really your own?
Not all plagiarism is deliberate. It can be surprisingly easy to steal someone else’s words by accident. Here’s how to keep that from happening to you — by making sure your words, really are your words.
Ep. 66. Keep the “thought” in thought leadership
So many leadership communications mistakes come down to one thing: not having a clear goal and a roadmap to get there. This episode looks at a high-profile communications failure: an op-ed that blew up in CEO’s face, damaged the company’s reputation and forced an embarrassing public about-face. Learn what went wrong… and how you can keep your communications on track.
Ep. 65. What we’ve learned from a year of remote presentations
Public speaking has changed a lot in the past year, since conference halls and auditoriums went dark and we traded stages and amplifiers for webcams and video. But those changes can help us be better speakers, when the time comes to return to the stage
Ep. 64. I now pronounce you… correctly
Mispronouncing someone’s name from the stage is a lot more than a minor screwup. Here’s why speakers should never go to the mic without knowing how to pronounce every name they mention correctly — and why speechwriters should never let them do it.
Why, yes — I’d LOVE to speak at your event
Public speaking and speechwriting: the essential guides
Looking for advice on public speaking, speechwriting and leadership communications? Here are some of my most comprehensive posts, on topics that people ask me about most often.
