sparks

If there is a ‘secret’, it is this. All those speakers who impress us with their eloquence know it. Most of what makes a speech great is not in the telling; it’s in the preparation. Steve Jobs [...]

Question & Answer Contrast Lists of Three Repetition We use these techniques constantly, naturally, unconsciously in everyday conversation. When we step up to do a presentation something [...]

Curiosity, surprise and fear. We don’t pay attention to boring things. We pay attention to things that create an emotional response. This is because the brain releases the attention hormone [...]

Aristotle accepted that people are not wholly rational, that they are often driven by their emotions. Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia has managed to show just how strong these [...]

Hegel believed that simply stating an argument was enough to bring counter-arguments immediately to mind. If a presenter ignores these arguments, what do we do? Most likely we ask ourselves why. [...]

Because In a wonderfully elegant experiment involving queuing to use a photocopier, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer showed the persuasive power of giving reasons. Requests to push in and use [...]

The easiest, most powerful way to get the audience’s attention is to look at them. Eye contact is fundamental. Even very young babies are hard-wired to pay more attention to people looking [...]

Films get straight to the action. The audience is immediately engaged in the story. Films don’t begin with a long list of thank-yous and background details. The beginning is the single most [...]

As Bill Clinton’s advisors told him, “If you say three things, you say nothing”. One of the easiest mistakes to make in giving a presentation is to include too many things. Easy because preparing [...]

People are 22 times more likely to remember a story than a set of unconnected facts. Jerome Bruner There is a reason that the Bible is filled with stories. We process stories effortlessly and can [...]