On primary words and being real I came across the phrase ‘primary words’ recently. They are words that say what they mean and say it immediately. We need to be using them. For example, I could say that you are perhaps having some auditory difficulty in perceiving my attempts to achieve communication with you Of […]
Author Archive | Catherine Sandland
When to speak up and stand out
Meet Jan. Jan is spectacularly successful in avoiding presentations. She’s done it all her working life. As she rose through the ranks, she delegated presentations to her juniors in the name of ‘development’. She chose the one to ones, the intimate meetings over standing up and speaking to the group. She is the Wizard of […]
By Catherine Sandland on March 5, 2021 in Boring presentations, Engaging audiences, mistakes Speakers make, Preparation
Let me tell you a story: Mark delivered a #Presentation He was well prepared. Had spent hours making sure his information was accurate. Making sure he had enough content to answer any questions the audience could throw at him. Designed slides that were detailed and right and comprehensive. Had run out of time to speak it […]
Editing – is it cheating or less authentic?
By Catherine Sandland on February 5, 2021 in clarity, mistakes Speakers make, photography, Preparation
Had an interesting conversation with my 12 yo on Sunday when we were walking the dogs. We both like taking photos on my camera and I happened to mention that for a long time, I thought editing my photos was cheating. That adding filters was misrepresenting what was actually there. My son who edits carefully […]
I made some banana and blueberry muffins the other day. I forgot the blueberries! They were in the recipe. I’d got them out ready and they were on the worktop. But I’ve made these a thousand times before and just didn’t bother to check the recipe or even consciously think ( my mind was on […]
Eye Contact
By Catherine Sandland on November 5, 2020 in Engaging audiences, mistakes Speakers make, powerful speaking
Remember to look at the camera folks when you communicate on remote platforms this week. Sounds obvious. Harder to do in practice and needs to be intentional. One of my clients sticks a post-it on the laptop just to remind him. Whatever trick works for you. Eye contact is your connection, your control and your […]
How do people listen in remote meetings?
We had an interesting conversation today about how to indicate that you’re listening in a remote meeting and how, as speaker or Chair, you can get the clues that people are listening, processing and agreeing/disagreeing. It highlighted again the challenge remote meetings bring. Face to face, if you are ‘present’ in the meeting, you pick […]
Prepare with the end in mind
Do you mentally run through how your presentation is going to be before you stand up to deliver? I was thinking about this at Mum’s as she and I are getting things in place for her long-awaited, postponed-from-April, hip operation at the weekend. We’ve started with the time she needs to be at the hospital […]
How do you structure a presentation?
What a kerfuffle. Mum’s having her bathroom replaced and yesterday the skip arrived for all the waste materials. Well, it was like a game of Tetris In order for the skip to get in the drive, mum’s car had to be moved out. In order for mum’s car to move out, I had to move […]
Where to start?
Where do you start? You’ve got all sorts of information whizzing around in your head. Lots of things you could say. Lots of things you should say. But how do you even start to put in some sort of order? How do you get it outside of your head – maybe on paper, maybe in […]
