Tag: public speaking

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Networking, Publishing, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , ,
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Despite many commitments around the holidays, several client projects, and all the time-consuming organizing work I’ve been putting in since the election, I’ve been constantly, actively promoting, promoting, promoting both my personal brand and my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (published in April).

Learn more about the powerful new book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World
Learn more about the powerful new book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

I will keep promoting it for a long time, but right now as its life as a “new” book (current-year copyright) is ending, I’ve been pushing especially hard. This is some of what I’ve been up to:

  • Wrote and distributed a press release November 9 (as soon as I knew the election results) on how social entrepreneurs can still thrive under a Trump presidency
  • Wrote a letter to his campaign making the business case for keeping the Paris climate accord (no answer from his people, but I modified it slightly and got it published on GreenBiz.com)
  • Arranged to submit a guest blog and started writing it
  • Got myself cited/quoted in at least five other published articles in November and December, including Entrepreneur, Realtor.com, and Huffington Post—most of these because I actively go after journalists looking for story sources; I pitched 32 journalists in December and 20 (a more typical number) in November
  • Secured two new reviews and one minor award (the first for this book—making it the 7th of my 10 books to win at least one award and/or be republished in a foreign country)
  • Scheduled interviews on a telesummit and four more podcasts in the next few weeks
  • Continued fleshing out my role as co-host of a new weekly radio/podcast show, which I expect to get rolling in the spring
  • Applied for several speaking gigs and am on the shortlist for at least two
  • Expanded my personal network with several get-acquainted calls
  • Finished the 3rd (and likely final) draft of a corporate sponsorship proposal I’ve been working on all fall, and began looking for a researcher to generate the email addresses I need to distribute it to about 200 companies mentioned favorably in Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World

 

And how have you been building your career this holiday season?

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, General Commentary, language Tagged with , , , , ,

The other night, I went to Candidate Night for the upcoming town election. And what struck me most of all was how uncomfortable with public speaking most of the candidates and the debate moderator seemed to be. This was not a huge stadium filled with thousands of people; it was a high school cafeteria with maybe 150 or 200 town residents, and most of the candidates personally knew a good chunk of the audience.

And yet…nine out of nine speakers hid behind the podium…I think everyone except the moderator read their remarks…and all but one candidate seemed quite ill at ease. Their speeches mostly emphasized the wrong things, and the debate left little impression of what most of these people actually stood for. One candidate for Town Meeting Moderator–which mostly involves chairing a meeting twice a year that brings out as many as 1100 local voters–actually said he’d never addressed such a large group and wasn’t used to public speaking. If he’s so nervous with 150 people, how is he going to handle a large Town Meeting?

Communication, both oral and written, needs to be effective. A speaker or writer needs to get across point of view, plan of action, intent, and both emotional  and rational appeals. Most of this group flunked the test.

When my parents were students in the 1940s, effective speaking and writing were part of the school curriculum. I think they should be still. And I think a few other things should be part of the curriculum:

  • Critical thinking skills
  • Media literacy: the ability to evaluate news and advertisements for their content, their biases, and their spoken or unspoken agenda (my grandfather used to read all seven New York daily papers in order to extrapolate the truth; my son once had a media literacy class that involved looking at the same stories through the eyes of Fox on the right, Democracy Now on the left, and a mainstream newspaper; why don’t more schools require this?)
  • Learning at least one foreign language to the point where you can have at least a simple conversation
  • A health education program that includes Alexander Technique, yoga, and vision therapy, as well as the usual calisthenics and sports
  • Basic literacy in arts and culture

I think our democracy would be better for it.

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