Matt Eventoff

Every active attorney licensed in New Jersey must complete 24 hours of Continuing Legal Education courses every two years. The Supreme Court of New Jersey’s Board of Continuing Legal Education approves and accredits courses, and has approved “Legal Crises: Preparing & Dealing with the Unexpected” (NJ CLE Credit 2.00) for 2 CLE credits.

I will be teaching the class along with Kevin O’Toole, Managing Partner of leading legal crisis management law firm O’Toole Fernandez Weiner Van Lieu, Tom Scrivo, Partner, McElroy, Deutsch and insurance expert Anthony Slimowicz, Of-Counsel to the O’Toole law firm.  The course will address issues ranging from research/investigations; crisis communication, dealing with the media and public presentation; risk mitigation and risk management. 

The course will be approximately 1.5+ hours and will satisfy 2 CLE credits, and the next available course date will be December 20, 2011.  Please contact me for more information, scheduling, etc.

Having worked with technical  professionals (engineering communication) ranging from top IT executives to Ivy League scientists to internationally ranked engineers,  I fancy myself a cocktail party technologist – I understand enough about a wide spectrum of technical disciplines to discuss them for a minute or two, but can barely hook  up Wi-Fi in my own house.

The reality is that there are a lot of people like me in every organization, and engineers rarely work in a vacuum – there are other divisions and departments to interface with, and key business decisions are often based around communication – can  an engineer make his or her client, often a finance professional, understand why a change is necessary?

There are a few tips every engineer can utilize to make communication with divisions, departments, clients and myriad others much easier. 

1. Pronouns – I have been to hundreds of technical presentations in the past, and when hearing men present I often hear the same generic gender-specific pronoun usage – He, him, his, himself, etc. – and as you can see, more often than not it has been specific to males.  Alienating any segment of your audience is never a good idea.

2. Acronyms – My rule on this is simple, unless you are CERTAIN everyone watching you present, reading your email or receiving your document knows exactly what an acronym stands for – don’t use it!  Spell it out instead.  I cannot state this emphatically enough – I have witnessed countless instances when folks in one division of a particular discipline, whether  IT or molecular biology, do not know what an acronym used in another division in that same discipline stands for.  Assume your audience does not know and spell it out – the last thing you want is to be five minutes into your presentation and the audience trying to figure out what the first acronym stood for. (By the way, if you look closely, the first letter of these tips is an acronym as well, but the acronym is not stated!)

3. Information – Key message right away.  Especially when talking to an audience that is not made up of engineers, make sure to lay the groundwork for what we are going to be listening to, so that we can follow and understand.  If you are waiting to the middle or end to unleash your message, chances are the audience may not be there with you as following complex technical information is not easy for everyone.

4. Relate – People often understand concepts and ideas related to their own experiences.  If explaining an engineering concept, relate it to something the audience already understands.  Analogies, metaphors, contrasts all work, as do personal stories.  I often ask professionals to explain a concept to me as if they were addressing an eighth grade class – I find this exercise works well to help a professional prepare a presentation to an audience not well versed in engineering concepts - this often generates stories and analogies that would otherwise have remained undiscovered.

This is the second in an ongoing series.  If you teach engineering and have an interest in a lecture on this topic, please contact me here.

Whether taking a company public, introducing a new product to market, delivering a new lecture or simply leading a team meeting, the conclusion is crucial to the success of any presentation.  It is the final impression to you will leave your audience with.  Last week we went over three ways to effectively end a speech. So what are other effective ways to close a speech or presentation?  Here are three more  of my favorites:

1. Vision - Illustrate a vision of what your call to action will result in.  Dr. Martin Luther King illustrated this with the final words of his epic “I Have a Dream” speech:

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

2. (Very) Short Story/Anecdote - Based on the principle of show, don’t tell:  Use a very brief story or anecdote to drive a message.  I had a Major League Baseball player as a client, and he very effectively told the following (abridged) story to end a presentation about teamwork: 

So Coach entered the locker-room after a pretty tough game where a number of us had standout performances and the result was….a big loss.  One of our players went four for four – Coach called him by his last name, Smith, asked him to come up front, and then asked him to stand with the back of his uniform facing the rest of the players.  .  Then he asked a kid who had just been called up from the minors, Jones, to do the same thing.  He then said “Smith, Jones I want you to turn around.”  When they did, he pointed to the front of the uniform and reminded us all – “You play for the name on the front of the jersey (the team) not the name on the back (your own).”

3. Contrast – One of my favorites, and is even more effective when tied directly in to the call to action.  “We can have____, or we can have ______.  The choice is ours, and is based entirely on the decision we each individually make today.  _____.  Or _____. ( I know I’m choosing _____.)”

If you missed Part I., please find it here.

These are just a few examples – there are a number of effective endings (challenges,  and techniques to set up those endings that I will go over in future posts.  If you are working on a presentation and need help with an ending, contact me here.

The moment of truth has arrived.  You had them entranced at the open.  The audience was clearly focused, nodding as you delivered your message; eyes locked as you wove through a carefully crafted medley of stories, anecdotes and analogies, all supporting your message. There is no question that the majority of your audience probably agrees with what you are saying.   Empowered, the time has come to conclude, at which point you exclaim:

“In conclusion, I appreciate your time to hear about ________. Thank you.”

…and then nothing happens.  Everyone quietly claps, or just nods, and leaves the auditorium or conference room.

What can you do to prevent this from occurring?   Here are three effective techniques for closing a speech or presentation:

Whether taking a company public, introducing a new product to market, delivering a new lecture or simply leading a team meeting, the conclusion is crucial to the success of any address  It is the final impression to you will leave your audience with.  So what are other effective ways to close?  Here are three of my favorites:

1. Direct Call to Action – I am a believer that a speech or presentation without a clear call to some type of action is a speech or presentation that probably is not worth giving. 

While not appropriate for every address, there is no clearer call to action than a direct call to action.  ex.  ”In order to guarantee that we save ______ tomorrow, we need to _____ today!”  “If every person in this room leaves and immediately _____, I can guarantee that will result in ______ next year?

2. Quote - Short, appropriate, powerful quotes are effective as openers, and short, appropriate, powerful quotes are effective for closing.  With a plethora of resources available to get quotes in an instant,  it is now possible to come up with a quality opening, or ending anywhere.

3.  Call-to-Question – Ending with a rhetorical question that captures the message and leaves the audience thinking, especially one that ties a call to action directly in is often very effective.  ex.  What choice will you make when you leave here today?  Will you ____, or will you go about your normal routine?

Stay tuned next week for Closing a Speech or Presentation, Pt. II.  For ideas on how to effectively open a speech or presentation, please click here and here.

Having worked with technical  professionals (tech communication) ranging from top IT executives to Ivy League scientists to internationally ranked engineers,  I fancy myself a cocktail party technologist – I understand enough about a wide spectrum of technical disciplines to discuss them for a minute or two, but can barely hook  up Wi-Fi in my own house.

The reality is that there are a lot of people like me in every organization, and technical professionals rarely work in a vacuum – there are other divisions and departments to interface with, and key business decisions are often based around communication – can an IT executive adequately make a funding request to “the business”;  can a professor approaching tenure make his or her case to a foundation; can an engineer make his or her client, often a finance professional, understand why a change is necessary? Tech communication is critical!

There are a few tips every technical professional can utilize to make communication with divisions, departments, clients, grantors, and myriad others much easier. 

1. Pronouns – I have been to hundreds of technical presentations in the past, and when hearing men present I often hear the same generic gender-specific pronoun usage – He, him, his, himself, etc. – and as you can see, more often than not it has been specific to males.  Alienating any segment of your audience is never a good idea.

2. Acronyms – My rule on this is simple, unless you are CERTAIN everyone watching you present, reading your email or receiving your document knows exactly what an acronym stands for – don’t use it!  Spell it out instead.  I cannot state this emphatically enough – I have witnessed countless instances when folks in one division of a particular discipline, whether  IT or molecular biology, do not know what an acronym used in another division in that same discipline stands for.  Assume your audience does not know and spell it out – the last thing you want is to be five minutes into your presentation and the audience trying to figure out what the first acronym stood for. (By the way, if you look closely, the first letter of these tips is an acronym as well, but the acronym is not stated!)

3. Information – Key message right away.  Especially when talking to a non-technical audience, make sure to lay the groundwork for what we are going to be listening to, so that we can follow and understand.  If you are waiting to the middle or end to unleash your message, chances are the audience may not be there with you as following complex technical information is not easy for everyone.

4. Relate – People often understand concepts and ideas related to their own experiences.  If explaining a scientific or technical concept, relate it to something the audience already understands.  Analogies, metaphors, contrasts all work, as do personal stories.  I often ask professionals to explain a concept to me as if they were addressing an eighth grade class – I find this exercise works well to help a professional prepare a presentation to a non-tech crowd – this often generates stories and analogies that would otherwise have remained undiscovered.

This is the second in an ongoing series for technical professionals on tech communication.  If you teach a science or technical discipline and have an interest in a lecture on this topic, please contact me here.