About 8 years ago, while visiting my parents in New Jersey for the weekend, I got bored enough to peruse my mother’s Prevention magazine. Actress Amy Brenneman of ABC’s “Private Practice” was being interviewed on her beauty secrets. Boring. As a speaker coach, what did interest me were her comments on Botox. She boldly admitted […] continue reading
In 2010, researchers at The Catholic University in Washington D.C. conducted a study about the attention span of lecture attendees. They found that most people stopped paying attention to a speaker only 30 seconds into the speech. That means a lecturer has half a minute to grab the audience’s attention—and try to hold it. When […] continue reading
Engaging with your audience can be difficult. When you’re on stage, there’s nothing worse than knowing you worked tirelessly to build a beautiful presentation, but your audience isn’t fully appreciating it. Luckily, there are ways to pull audience members back in if you feel that you’re losing them. Check out this infographic for tips on […] continue reading
Recently we received a tweet from a follower of @Duarte requesting advice to help a stuttering presenter. “The presenter is competent with the material,” the message said, “but gets nervous and begins to stutter on stage.” As a speech-language pathologist, I immediately began thinking of stuttering from a clinical perspective. I had flashbacks of a […] continue reading
