It’s part of the showcase from my latest comedy class with Blind Tiger Comedy. You can buy your tickets here; they tend to sell pretty quickly, so be sure to book soon if you’d like to come.

Hope to see you a week from next Wednesday!

FAQ:

What’s the address? China Cloud Studio, 524 Main Street in Vancouver’s Chinatown.

How many comics are there? There are six of us, plus our host (and mentor!) Toddy. We’ll each be up for about 10 minutes.

Is the venue accessible? I’m sorry to say it’s whatever the opposite of accessible is. The studio is at the top of two narrow staircases, and there is no elevator. (Wear your fitness tracker — you’ll want credit for the climb.)

Is the venue licensed? Yes! There’s a cash bar at the back.

Is there parking? There’s usually street parking quite close, either on Main St. Itself or one of the side streets. And the area is well served by transit.

Can I bring a friend or two or eight? HELL YES. Please do!

Would you recommend taking comedy classes at Blind Tiger? With my whole heart, yes. I’ve done classes now in stand up, sketch and improv, and every. single. one. has been terrific. It’s a very supportive environment with experienced instructors who are working in comedy and give you good, honest feedback. See the list of classes here.

The post Catch me on stage at China Cloud Studio on Sept. 24! appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Not because I disagreed with them and wanted them off the stage. The exact opposite, actually: I wanted to keep them from leaving, at least for a few more seconds.

Those moments come at the end of a speech that’s gone over well. The speaker wraps up and says “Thank you.” And just as the audience begins applauding, the speaker grabs their notes, turns and walks away.

That’s when I have to restrain myself from running onstage, grabbing them and propelling them back to the front of the stage to accept the damn applause.

Why are some speakers so eager to flee?

In some cases, it’s because they’re nervous about speaking, and they want to get off-stage the moment they can.

Other speakers aren’t 100% convinced they have the right to take up the audience’s time. Consciously or otherwise, they believe their presence on stage is being tolerated, not welcomed. They, too, want to get out of Dodge.

And even for speakers who are confident both in their abilities and in the audience’s appetite for what they have to say, being applauded can feel awkward. (Ask anyone who has trouble accepting a compliment!)

That urge to flee the stage is part of something larger: the way we’re taught not to call attention to ourselves. A lot of us have been told all our lives that it’s wrong to seek the spotlight.

So it can feel at least as wrong to stay there for any longer than absolutely necessary. And our society sends that message more forcefully to some groups of people — like racialized and Indigenous people, women and people with disabilities — than others.

Oh, won’t you stay-ay-ay, just a little bit longer?

I’m begging you: stay up there for at least a few more seconds. And if you can’t bring yourself to do it for your own sake, do it for the audience’s.

Applause is a communal act, and those first few moments after the end of a speech or a performance are critical to how it unfolds. That’s our window as audience members to give each other some social validation.

You’ve probably seen that in action as an audience member yourself. Yes, some performances get immediate thunderous applause as people leap to their feet cheering the moment the curtain comes down.

But more often, applause builds as we all come to an unspoken consensus that yeah, that was really great. Give your audience that chance.

And for that matter, consider it a fair trade. They’ve just spent the last 15, 20 or 30 minutes getting communicated at by you. Give them a chance to communicate back to you.

So when do you leave?

Over time, you’ll develop an instinct for sensing when the applause is reaching a plateau. For now, though, take four or five seconds after you wrap (“Thank you” is speechese for “The speech is now over.”)

That’s enough time to get a sense of the audience’s initial reaction. And even if that reaction is tepid, you at least have time to nod and smile an acknowledgement, then leave.

But if it’s enthusiastic, linger a little. And if it seems to be building, let yourself show you’re moved by their response. You can wave, say “Thank you” again and generally express your appreciation for theirs.

You are now free to move about the cabin

Now you can leave… if you want. (If your gut tells you there’s an ovation coming, and especially if you see people getting to their feet applauding, then stick around.)

And when you leave, do it confidently. If you have papers, gather them and then stride off-stage. Feel free to give the audience a wave and smile if the vibe is right.

By the way: find out in advance how they’d like you to leave. Sometimes it’s a straightforward handoff: You leave, the emcee or host heads up to the stage to take the mic, and the two of you greet each other and shake hands or bump elbows in passing.

Sometimes the host will be with you on the stage as you’re speaking, in which case you can let them drive the timing. (As someone who’s had his share of challenges interpreting social cues, I really appreciate this latter approach.) They may well want to say a few words of thanks to you in front of the audience and present you with a token of their appreciation. (Hope you like pen sets!) Thank them, wave to the audience and stride off, head held high.

The first several times you make yourself stay onstage for those extra few seconds may feel awkward, even a little scary. I urge you to push through that. Because once you do, I hope you’ll see it as the chance to have one last moment of connection with your audience, and an especially rewarding one.

This is their moment to tell you that yes, you reached them, and yes, you made a difference. And that’s what this is all about.

Thank you. …Thanks so much. Really, thank you. Aw, this means so much. Than—… thank you. Oh, my gosh, this is overwhelming. Thank you so very, very much. And good night.

Photo by Andrew Teoh on Unsplash

The post Leaving so soon? appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

It takes real sustained effort to overcome the curse of knowledge — the tendency to assume the people we’re talking to know the same things we do. It isn’t just the work of overcoming that assumption; it’s the labour of swapping out specialized jargon for plain language, explaining technical concepts or providing crucial background information.

(And don’t think of it as dumbing your content down: you’re just building the onramps your audience needs to get up to speed.)

Even then, the work isn’t done. We don’t just have a bias toward assuming people *know* as much as we know about a topic; we have a bias toward believing they *care* as much about it, too.

So add to our job the work of helping people to understand why this topic that’s so important to us should matter to them as well: connecting it to their own lives and values.

Unless it’s feldspar, of course. EVERYONE cares about feldspar.

The post Your audience doesn’t know what you know. You know? appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Anything can trip you up: It could be your race, your sexual orientation, your gender presentation, or your political or social views. It could be your field of study, your circle of friends or just meeting the wrong border agent on the wrong day.

For whatever reason, you get turned back.

That's at best. At worst, you disappear into an increasingly lawless, secretive system of detention.

This isn't extrapolation. This isn't me reading between the lines of Project 2025. This is the actual experience of visitors to the United States today.

As someone who enjoys conferences and who works with a lot of speakers, I've been thinking and talking about this a lot... but not quickly enough to keep up with events. When I began drafting this a few days ago, what I was hearing came from non-American speakers and attendees who were reconsidering attending events in the U.S.

Now, there's formal guidance from at least one professional association to avoid non-essential travel to the States.

Like it or not, this affects your event.

The implications are wide-ranging, with the most pressing being the threat to the physical safety and liberty of event-goers. And while you might think this isn't a concern for the average sales convention compared to, say, a sociology conference, I'd suggest that's self-deluding.

The pace of authoritarianism can be breathtaking: What's apolitical this week may be beyond the pale by next Tuesday. And even if your event is "apolitical," at least some of the people involved are almost certainly not.

The danger to them doesn't end with a successful U.S. border crossing. An increasingly bold, aggressive campaign by ICE is seeing people grabbed from the street with little or no recourse — especially given the administration's contempt for court orders.

Expect the quality of content and participation at these events to drop steeply. Attendees and speakers will come from an increasingly narrow group of people: those who believe (correctly or otherwise) they aren't the kind of people who are at risk. And even they will second-guess what they say and do, for fear of coming across the regime's radar.

The obvious solution would seem to be to host events outside the U.S. But that, too, puts people in danger: American residents, for whom border crossings are also getting riskier. For many, that's always been the case, but the peril is now exponentially greater.

Start acting now to protect your event's community.

Safety has always been part of an event organizer's responsibilities, including fire safety and emergency preparedness, first aid, food safety, codes of conduct and more. This is no exception.

For now, conscientious organizers will want to begin consulting with speakers and attendees about how to best accommodate their safety concerns. Part of the solution will almost certainly be robust hybrid events, offering as rich and complete an online experience as possible.

But the answer also has to include taking a stand against this appalling abuse of power. There's a solid business case that event conveners can make against it in their lobbying. But even more important than that is the fact that so many people are being threatened and terrorized; their freedoms violated; their lives turned upside down.

I've lost count of the number of events I've been to where the hosts talk about their conference, summit or convention as a community. Well, a community stands up — and speaks up — for its members. And it doesn't put them at unconscionable risk.

This is about safety. But it's also about solidarity.

(Photo by Red Dot on Unsplash)

The post When does making people cross the U.S. border become an unconscionable risk? appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Our faith was more than a little shaken by Tuesday's New York Times piece by Peter Baker quoting a former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Steve Israel, saying "I strongly agree with Donald Trump."

Annexing Canada, he said, "means more Democrats in Congress and Electoral College votes, not to mention providing universal health care and combating climate change."

Bear in mind, Israel isn't some Tulsi Gabbard-esque fringe member of his party. He was an eight-term member of the House of Representatives, serving as assistant whip and chairing the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Defense and Military.

And here he is treating a direct threat against an independent nation, America's closest ally and its largest trading partner as though it's either a fun electoral math exercise or — worse — something to be favourably considered.

The online reaction from the Americans I know and follow has been reassuringly outraged. But reading this article shakes me to my core, as do passages in the article like "the notion of Canada as a state, however farcical and unlikely, has intrigued the political class and been the source of parlor games in Washington."

Your president is openly talking about naked aggression against your best friend on the planet, and you're "intrigued"?

Now, maybe Israel and company couched what they said in vocal condemnations of the very idea of violating an ally's sovereignty. But you don't get to be a Steve Israel without knowing that context gets stripped from quotes all the time. He's media-savvy enough to know what he was saying.

To be generous, maybe some of the folks quoted in this article (and others posting gleeful Electoral College scenarios on Bluesky and LinkedIn) think they're helping by making Canada look less electorally attractive to Republicans. But the very fact that they're entertaining the idea at all — that they're mulling over the practical upside of the unthinkably wrong — normalizes it. They're making it respectable. And it's a very short walk from the realm of "what if" to the cold, hard world of "how to."

And to those who like the thought of absorbing Canada because the electoral math might yield more progressive outcomes: that's a solid no from us. Our country isn't some emergency epi-pen for broken electoral systems. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, corporate manipulation and the Electoral College are all serious issues, but they're your issues. You can have our support and our sympathy... just not our sovereignty.

Canadians have been attuned to American politics for as long as there's been a Canada. We have to be. We've been alarmed by Trump's rise for your sake even more than for ours; we care what happens to you.

But today we're watching and listening more closely than ever before, with grave, immediate concern for our own future. Some of us are terrified; almost all of us are furious.

And America, we're noticing what you're saying.

I am doing my best, as are many of us, to convince friends and neighbours that the great majority of Americans aren't with Trump on this. Even as we await the imposition of tariffs that will deal a brutal blow to our economy, I'm telling them that most of you are as horrified as we are by what he's proposing, and as determined as we are to make sure it never happens.

But that can be a hard sell when even some Democrats are talking about carving us up for congressional advantage.

If you're an American appalled by Donald Trump's designs on Canada, this would be a very good day for Canadians to hear from you. And if you're Steve Israel, this would be an excellent day to stop giving interviews for a while.

The post We’re not here to be your electoral fantasy, America appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

This episode, we look at how you get back on track — quickly, honesty and graciously.

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Zane Lee on Unsplash

Listen here.

The post Ep. 75. Getting back on track appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

If you want to make the most of your speech, you need to rehearse. And to make that rehearsal count, behold: The Ten Commandments of Rehearsal.

Links:

• The elusive Episode 17, where I make my case for rehearsing

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is "Twitter Will Kill Us All." Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo:  Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash

The post Ep. 74 Why you need to rehearse — and how appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Before a speaker steps up to the microphone, there’s usually somebody who introduces them. And that introduction could be helping to set the stage and prime the audience.

But too many speaker introductions are just tedious recitals of a speaker’s biography. And they’re so loooonnnng. Instead of revving an audience up, they put them to sleep. Let’s kill those introductions off once and for all. This episode, we look at what an introduction can do for you and your audience, by promising some combination of six elements: authority, affinity, attraction, value, intrigue and entertainment. We’ll talk about how to make your speaker intro effective, engaging and — most important — short!

Music:

• All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

The post Ep. 73 No more boring speaker introductions! appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Pick up a collection of speeches or quotations from history, and chances are most of those voices belong to men.

That’s changing. More women are claiming their time at the microphone. And it turns out the oratory of the past was a lot more female than many of its curators would have us think.

One woman in particular, Dana Rubin, is working to change our understanding of public speaking history — and the role women have played in shaping it. And she’s my guest on this episode.

Links:

• The Speaking While Female Speech Bank — a tremendously useful resource for speakers, speechwriters and anyone interested in women’s oratory
• The Kickstarter project for the Speaking While Female book: get in early!
• Dana Rubin’s firm, Speech Studio
• Dana’s LinkedIn group, The Leadership Communications Roundtable — now over 5,000 members strong!

Music:

• All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

The post Ep. 72 Dana Rubin is Speaking While Female appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

You’ve probably heard the expression “stay in your lane.” And sometimes that’s good advice — but right now, we’re facing global emergencies on an unprecedented scale, and we need voices speaking out for truth, democracy, science and our very survival. If you have a platform, you can be one of those voices…even if you aren’t an expert. Here’s how to do it responsibly.

Links:

• That Kris Straub cartoon about Internet “research”

Music:

• All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

The post Ep. 71 Get out of your lane appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

There probably isn’t a speechwriter or speaker alive today who hasn’t heard the advice “Tell a story.” But you want them to do more than listen. You want to tell the kind of story your audience will turn into their story. Crafting that story is the heart Tamsen Webster’s terrific new book, Find Your Red Thread. Tamsen joins me this episode to talk about the five steps of an effective Red Thread — which just so happen to be a great way to outline your next speech or op-ed. And we talk about how great stories can move audiences and create change.

Links:

• Follow Tamsen on Twitter and Facebook
• Learn more about Find Your Red Thread
• Sign up for Tamsen’s newsletter

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

The post Ep. 70 Find Your Red Thread with Tamsen Webster appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Well over a year into remote presentations as the norm, people are getting pretty good at it… but some mistakes are still cropping up again and again.

Last time, we looked at four of the seven deadly sins of online presentations. This time we tour the final three… and then we’ll look at how to flip those sins into shining, saintly virtues.

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Cullan Smith on Unsplash

The post Ep. 69 Seven deadly sins of online presentation (part two) appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Well over a year into online presentations as the norm, people are getting pretty good at it… but some mistakes are still cropping up again and again.

In this two-episode series, we’ll meet the seven deadly sins of remote presenting — from not looking at the camera, to not knowing your platform. And then we’ll look at how to flip those sins into shining, saintly virtues.

Links:

• My wife Alexandra Samuel has co-written a terrific new book on making the most of remote work, called Remote, Inc. Highly recommended for making the most of the new workplace!
• Tamsen Webster‘s new book Find Your Red Thread is an absolute must-read for crafting messages that move audiences. And stay tuned, because she’s joining me for an upcoming episode!

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Cullan Smith on Unsplash

The post Ep. 68 Seven deadly sins of online presentations (part one) appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Listen here

Sure, you and I would never take someone else’s writing and pretend it was our own. But not all plagiarism is deliberate. It can be surprisingly easy to steal someone else’s words by accident.

Plagiarism scandals have caught up leaders ranging from presidential candidates to university officials. They’ve derailed campaigns and ended careers. Here’s how to keep that from happening to you — by making sure your words, really are your words.

Links:

Care to jog your memory? Here’s the background on Joe Biden‘s and Melania Trump‘s plagiarism issues.

And in case you missed last episode’s notes:

• My wife Alexandra Samuel has co-written a terrific new book on making the most of remote work, called Remote, Inc. Highly recommended for making the most of the new workplace!
• I’m thrilled to be reading Tamsen Webster‘s new book Finding Your Red Thread. Highly recommended for making the most of your message!

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Hand modelling, photography and keyboard in desperate need of cleaning are all me.

The post Ep. 67. Avoiding plagiarism: Are your words really your own? appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Listen here

So many leadership communications mistakes come down to one thing: not having a clear goal and a roadmap to get there. That’s especially true when it comes to areas where leaders aren’t as familiar with the subject matter.

This episode looks at a high-profile communications failure: an op-ed that blew up in CEO’s face, damaged the company’s reputation and forced an embarrassing public about-face. We’ll look at what went wrong… and how you can keep your communications on track.

The important thing: Don’t let stories like this discourage you from speaking up! You can make a positive contribution to the conversation… but it starts with doing the work.

Links:

• Washingtonian CEO Cathy Merrill’s op-ed in the Washington Post
• Just one of the news articles on the backlash against her op-ed
• My wife Alexandra Samuel has co-written a terrific new book on making the most of remote work, called Remote, Inc. Highly recommended for making the most of the new workplace!
• I’m thrilled to be reading Tamsen Webster‘s new book Finding Your Red Thread. Highly recommended for making the most of your message!

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Fakurian Design on Unsplash

The post Ep. 66. Keep the “thought” in thought leadership appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Listen here

Public speaking has changed a lot in the past year, since conference halls and auditoriums went dark and we traded stages and amplifiers for webcams and video. But those changes can help us be better speakers, when the time comes to return to the stage.

Links: My wife Alexandra Samuel has co-written a terrific new book on making the most of remote work, called Remote, Inc. There’s a chapter on presentations in there that I got to advise on, and it covers some of what I talk about here. (Think she’d be up for an interview in an upcoming episode?)

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

The post Ep. 65. What we’ve learned from a year of remote presentations appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Listen here

Mispronouncing someone’s name from the stage is a lot more than a minor screwup. Here’s why speakers should never go to the mic without knowing how to pronounce every name they mention correctly — and why speechwriters should never let them do it.

Links: This episode of KUOW’s RadioActive podcast delves into mispronunciation and race. And here’s one of my favourite comments on the subject, from actor Uzo Aduba, quoting her mother: “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo and Dostoyevsky, they can learn to say Uzoamaka.”

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Jon Tyson on Unsplash

The post Ep. 64. I now pronounce you… correctly appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

I always keep my eyes peeled for things that make online speeches and presentations work well, and this convention was a chance to see them in action from behind the scenes. This issue shares the most important lessons that I took from it all, both for event convenors and for speakers.

But the most important thing I (re-)learned was this: Put the people before the technology. Every nifty-cool feature of every platform is just a means to an end: connecting human beings. option, or what our website’s fancy animated background looked like. (Trick question. We didn’t have one.) But they’ll remember the voices they heard, the people they connected with, the policies they helped to pass — and the feeling of satisfaction at the work they did together.

Here’s what I learned about…

• planning and strategy
• technology
• content

Planning and strategy

Make every decision through the lens of your audience and the experience you want them to have.

We tried to put ourselves in delegates’ shoes (or comfy work-from-home slippers). What will serve them? What’s going to keep them engaged? What environment are they likely to be in: a purpose-built work-from-home space, or the dining room table? And at a macro level, what did they want from each stage of convention: entertainment? information? connection? inspiration and motivation? and in what proportions?

Lesson for speakers: With an online event, it’s more important than ever to get to know your audience and understand what they’re looking for from you. Otherwise it’s easy to lose them to multitasking or just stepping away from the screen.

Keep it simple, simple, simple.

When it comes to online events, a lot of us (and a lot of your audience) are still getting our sea legs. Make things simple and straightforward, from your on-screen layout and design choices to the activities you invite participants to join.

Lesson for speakers: Simplicity works for you too. Keep your background uncluttered, so you’re not competing with it for attention. If you have slides, keep them very simple. Just a few words on the screen. Charts that make a single clear point. Simple, striking visuals. Strip away everything that can distract from you and your message.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

Few things have reminded me more of the old saying that “you don’t know what you don’t know” than preparing for this convention. We anticipated a whole raft of potential issues coming up; rehearsal showed us how many more could arise. A full technical run-through is a must, and consider having more than one.

Lesson for speakers: Offline, rehearsal is a must — and it’s even more important for online presentations. Practice your presentation — and if you’re delivering it live, practice it using the event platform, whether that’s Zoom or some other service. Know where the buttons are for taking questions, running polls, bringing your slides up or hiding them. When your side of things runs smoothly, your audience stays engaged… and the event organizers love you for it.

Have a plan B, for when (not if) things go sideways.

Think in terms of contingencies and scenarios. What if you lose power just as you’re getting under way? (It happened to us!) What if a speaker drops out at the last minute? What if the slides don’t play, the clip is corrupted, a participant tries to take over the chat..? Know how you’ll handle each of these contingencies, and you won’t be scrambling if they arise.

Lesson for speakers: You have some scenarios to think about, too. What if your Internet connection fails? Will you be able to use your phone and mobile data as a fallback? How about if your computer crashes — is your presentation loaded and ready to go on a backup computer? Or if your kids start arguing loudly outside your door while your partner is indisposed? Think about some likely scenarios, and either figure out how you’ll handle them… or take steps to make sure they don’t come up.

Ask for help early and often.

We talked to other unions that had held online conventions, consulted with our own networks and generally relied on the kindness of friends. And we checked in constantly with our tech partners to confirm the decisions we were making would make the best use of their platform.

Lesson for speakers: Don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel… or the Zoom presentation. Talk to other folks who’ve already done them. What worked? What do they wish they’d done differently? Talk to the event organizers about any aspect of the event or the presentation platform you’re unsure of. And if you’re shaky on the audio or video side of things, consider hiring an AV pro to help walk you through.

Be ready to change direction when opportunities arise.

Virtual events have a built-in flexibility to them; instead of reprinting schedules or hauling tables and chairs between rooms, you can respond to opportunities for more meaningful engagement with a few quick edits. Just balance that flexibility with a healthy respect for your participants’ expectations — and your organization’s process for amending agendas.

Lesson for speakers: Let organizers know if something they’re considering changing will affect your presentation, but roll with changes as well as you can — and if you end up building off those changes to do something unexpected and delightful in your presentation, so much the better!

Technology

Think in terms of many screen sizes.

Audiences may be joining you on many different kinds of screen, from big 4K desktop monitors to laptops and tablets to mobile phones. As you’re choosing your event platform, and then planning content for the event, aim to give people an experience that will be tasty on the bigger screens but still work well on, say, an older smartphone. Try not to require them to have multiple windows open and tiled at the same time; let them focus.

Lesson for speakers: Think of what’s going to happen to that detailed graph if it’s shrunk down to fit an inset over a video of you speaking, and if all of that is going to be on the screen of someone’s phone or a relatively small tablet. (Or if they’re using a laptop, but they have to keep another window open and they’ve reduced yours to a quarter of their screen.) Double down on visual simplicity.

Throw out the manual.

Well, maybe not throw it out. But don’t feel wedded to it. The platform we used, Chime Live, included a fun little feature that let participants snap and share selfies. Delegates quickly started using the selfie feature to visually express their support for candidates in the Federation’s elections. And then on the last day of convention, we repurposed it for an electrifying visual show of solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Lesson for speakers: Look at the technology with fresh eyes. Are there unexpected ways to use the platform’s features — or video presentation generally — to engage your audience? (Just be sure to check in with event organizers that what you have in mind won’t run afoul of their plans.)

Build a rock-solid backchannel.

Say a video file’s corrupted and the tech team needs the host to vamp for five minutes. Or attendees are complaining that the audio’s out of sync. Event organizers, tech staff, organizational staff, hosts and speakers all need to be able to communicate quickly if the unexpected happens (or if the expected fails to happen).

That’s when you need a backchannel: a way to communicate behind the scenes without disrupting the event for participants. At face-to-face events, that’s often walkie-talkies; for virtual events, your backchannel can be as simple as a group text chat, a Slack channel or a conference call. But you want it to be live, very reliable and constantly monitored.

Lesson for speakers: You need that backchannel too, and you need a way of monitoring it. It’ll be how the organizers let you know that, say, your video connection is breaking up, or they’ve had a scheduling issue come up and you need to wrap early. It can also be how they alert you to comments and questions popping up from attendees. Figure out what will work for you and the organizers. Your backchannel should probably be to just one person, so you aren’t distracted by a flurry of messages while you’re presenting.

Do whatever it takes to have great sound.

Video gets all the attention when it comes to virtual events, but it’s amazing how much easier it is to tolerate less-than-cinematic visuals than it is to endure distorted, low-quality audio. Check in with your presenters, and make sure all of them are going to use a good external mic — and not just whatever’s built into their computer, tablet or phone. And for speakers who may not be all that tech-savvy, consider shipping them a decent USB microphone, either on loan or as a gift.

Lesson for speakers: Enough futzing with your backdrop — it’s time to get serious about how you sound. Invest in a USB microphone, or a plug-in clip-on mic (this gem from Røde really gets the job done, and there’s an adapter if you aren’t using it in a smartphone’s combo jack).

Train and guide your audience.

Some of your attendees may have been to more than a handful of virtual events, but chances are the vast majority are still new to this. And even if they’ve done their share of Zoom calls, your virtual event platform is probably going to be terra incognita. The BCFED convention always features an introductory session for first-time delegates, but this time we encouraged everyone to attend and walked them through how to work with the online platform. And since nobody remembers everything you throw at them in an orientation session, we built in reminders and prompts throughout the event.

Lesson for speakers: You’re part of the solution here too. If you’re using the platform for participant engagement, remind them how to use it — especially the first time around. If you’re asking them to do something a little elaborate, build in some time for walking them through the process. And be sure to train yourself. Every platform has its own little quirks, and there’s very little standardization.

Embrace the screwups… and move on.

They’re going to happen. Sound might be out of sync with video; a third-party service outage may mean some features on your platform aren’t working; a phone-in connection may be distorted and incomprehensible. Your participants expect you to fix them — but they’re also going to cut you a lot of slack, because glitches are just part of online communication. (And anyone who’s had trouble getting their laptop to talk to a conference projector, or had their mic cut out on them mid-talk, can tell you it isn’t just online events that are prone to misfires!)

So be gracious, acknowledge the issue with good humour and let people know you’re working on it. Then move things along, adapting as necessary. If you have to suspend things for a few minutes, having a video clip ready for just such an eventuality can be a life-saver.

Lesson for speakers: Your graciousness and sense of humour will serve you well; how you respond affects how the audience responds. If you start showing frustration (or, worse, making digs at the organizers or tech staff), you’ll turn the glitch into the main event instead of a sideshow — and make yourself a lot less sympathetic. Instead, acknowledge the issue, trust the organizers to fix it however they can, and focus on delivering your presentation as well as possible: You’ll be a hero all around.

Content

Organizers and speakers alike need to think carefully about content, and how to adjust their approach from offline presentations. What worked well in the past for face-to-face audiences may not connect once you’re on the the other side of a camera and a screen. And the online world offers its own unique opportunities. (The lessons here for speakers and organizers are similar enough that I haven’t broken them out in this section.)

Take every opportunity for interaction.

The appetite our audience had for interactivity caught me completely by surprise: Every single activity we offered, our audience jumped in with both feet. Even our joke poll at the beginning to get people used to how to vote — it was over whether to ban pineapple on pizza — prompted a lively tongue-in-cheek debate that spilled over onto Twitter. That may partly be because people are used to being able to post, like and comment online; they’re primed for engagement. So make the most of that by giving them every opportunity for interaction.

Keep it short.

As we thought through our agenda, 40-minute keynote slots shrank to 20 minutes, then 10. It was partly to give delegates the most report- and resolution-debating time possible, but it was also a recognition that 40 minutes is a long time on video. (It’s too long for most in-person speeches, too, but that’s a topic for another time.) It’s not that it can’t be done, but if you want a long presentation, make sure it’s chunked out with change-ups and surprises every five to 10 minutes. (I talk about how and why to do that in this episode of the Leadership Communications Podcast.)

Consider ditching the slides.

I approach PowerPoint with a little skepticism at the best of times. Offline, slides can compete with you for your audience’s attention. Online, their attention is already divided: between what’s going on around them at home and what’s happening on the screen; between the event website and everything else they can do on their devices; between your presentation and the other features of the event platform. Why slice up whatever share you still have of their attention even further?

It’s not that slides don’t add anything. But you have to weigh whatever value they bring to your presentation against their cost in distraction (and visual clutter).

Use video for more than just speakers.

A showcase of videos made by our affiliate unions aired during breaks (both planned and, ahem, otherwise), and went over beautifully — they were a welcome change of pace. And a closing video with a performance of Solidarity Forever was a lovely coda to the whole event. Consider how you can use video clips to switch up the energy of your event. And speakers, consider incorporating video clips within your presentation as one of your changeups.

Make your audience co-creators of the conversation.

One kind of interaction is creating content. Selfies, short video clips, text comments, memes: There’s something very powerful about inviting your audience to contribute content, and then sharing it in real time.

The post Put the audience first. Keep it simple. And other lessons from helping to run my first online convention. appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

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Presenting online? Don’t make the mistake of thinking longer is better. When you’re speaking via video, you want to keep things short. Here’s how to embrace short, even when you’re scheduled to run long.

Links: We spoke to Dr. Nick Morgan back in episode 58. His latest book is Can You Hear Me? How to Connect With People In a Virtual World.

And since I recorded this episode, a new book is on the scene: Standout Virtual Events by David Meerman Scott and Michelle Manafy. It’s really, really worth reading, whether you’re a speaker, an event planner or just someone trying to wrap your mind around how things are changing in the way we come together to share knowledge, ideas and experience.

Photo: Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

The post Ep. 63. Less is more, and short is beautiful appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

There’s a lot more to you on video than just your head and shoulders! Here’s what you (and your audience) are missing by not letting the rest of your body get in on the act.

Resource: Hanna Thomas Uose‘s post The Trauma of Zoom

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Image: Robert Thiemann on Unsplash

The post Ep. 62. Zoom out! You’re more than just another face appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

You might have thought up-close video would be more intimate than speaking from the stage — and that would mean dialing back your intensity. But one big thing we’re learning from remote presentations is this: You need to bring more energy to your speaking style when your audience is at home in front of their screens. Find out why… and how.

Music: All music is by Lee Rosevere. The theme music is “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Image: Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

The post 61. Go big AND go home: Why you need to amp up your online energy for work-at-home audiences appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

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This time, we look at how the technology visionaries at Mozilla are making the pivot from face-to-face leadership communications to virtual channels. We’re joined by Justin O’Kelly, Mozilla’s senior executive communications manager.

Links: Mozilla, makers of Firefox, Monitor, Send and more.

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere. Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Image: from Mozilla

The post Ep. 60. The pivot: Mozilla adapts to communicating in the lockdown appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

If sharing really is caring, then the content you share needs to be content you really care about — and content your audience will care about too.

This episode we look at content curation… and why just shovelling links onto Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn without care or context isn’t just bad for your reputation: Right now, it’s dangerous to your audience.

Links:

• I mentioned those mysterious letters “RSS”, which really can make your life easier! If you’re baffled, here’s a pretty good primer.
• Feedly is my newsreader of choice. (My wife and I still feel resentful about what happened to Google Reader.)
• By the way, the great OG RSS explainer video (which helped launch a thousand imitators) comes from Lee and Sachi Lefever. Some of the references are a little dated nearly a decade later, but I still love it.
• Talkwalker is a handy tool with a free option for searching social media for mentions of keywords, hashtags and usernames.

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere. Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Jessica Lee on Unsplash

The post Ep. 59. Leadership communication through curation appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

With so many face-to-face presentations being cancelled, a lot of speakers are looking at going virtual. But with webinars and online conferences suddenly getting a second look, it’s important to keep in mind their special demands.

This episode, we talk to presentation coach, theorist, blogger, speaker and author Dr. Nick Morgan about what we lose when we go virtual, and how to make up some of that lost emotional connection. And we’ll hear from author and (her delightful description) camp counselor for grownups Kim Werker. In roughly a week, she’s had to move an event months in the planning into cyberspace. She’ll tell us all about it.

This is part of a series on how leadership communicators are grappling with the coronavirus pandemic.

Links:

Here’s Nick’s book on restoring clarity and connection to online conversations, Can You Hear Me? And be sure to check out his classic on moving audiences to action, Give Your Speech, Change the World.

I love everything about Kim’s book Mighty Ugly. And this might be the perfect time to subscribe to her podcast, Mighty Creative. Kim has a great Twitter thread summarizing how her team took their event online. (And that event itself is A Multi-Faith Discussion on the Climate Emergency.)

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere. Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Image: Based on a photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash

The post Ep. 58. Going virtual (and staying human) appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

Cancelled speaking gigs are a fact of life, but never more than today. And hey: with social distancing and disease prevention rightly taking precedence over oratory, we know better than to feel sorry for ourselves over postponed conferences and scrubbed events.

But when you’re left holding a speech without a stage to deliver it on, what’s your next move? Instead of letting all your work writing and preparing your presentation go to waste, try these suggestions for getting some real value out of that broken speaking date.

This is the third episode of our five-episode series looking at leadership communications in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.

Links: Episode 27 goes into more depth on ways you can spin great content from a speech.

The Nonprofit Technology Network hosts my absolute favourite annual conference. They announced this week they’re cancelling it for the year, which is devastating for them because it’s where most of their revenue comes from. They do terrific work helping nonprofits make the most of digital tech, and they could really use your support.

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/). Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The post Ep. 57. Making the best of a cancelled speech appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

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Getting leadership communications right is never more important than in the middle of a crisis. And as COVID-19 coronavirus outbreaks happening throughout much of the world, you may well be facing a crisis soon.

Last episode, we talked about planning for your crisis leadership communications. This episode, we look at putting that plan into action with seven key principles:

1. Be transparent and honest.
2. Communicate early.
3. Be proportionate.
4. Connect emotionally.
5. Be flexible.
6. Listen.
7. Inspire hope.

And stay tuned all week, as we look at some of the implications of the coronavirus outbreak for leaders and the communications teams that support them.

Be safe, everyone.

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/). Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

The post Ep. 56. Leadership communications in a crisis (part two) appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

In a crisis, people are looking for reassurance, a sense of security… and leadership. And with COVID-19 coronavirus outbreaks happening across the planet, you may soon need to step up on behalf of your organization — for anything from coping with a supply-chain issue to temporarily shutting your doors. How you communicate will make all the difference for your audience.

This two-part episode looks at effective leadership communications in a crisis. Part one is all about preparation: the plans you can put in place now so you’re ready when the storm hits… either with this crisis, or the next one. Among other elements, your plan has to specify goals, target audiences, messages, roles and channels.

And stay tuned all week, as we look at some of the implications of the coronavirus outbreak for leaders and the communications teams that support them.

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/). Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Incidental music is taken from his latest album, Music for Podcasts: True Crime Edition. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

The post Ep. 55. Leadership communications in a crisis (part one) appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

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Are you falling into the trap of sing-song delivery? You could be sapping your speech’s strength and breaking your connection to the audience. Here’s how to recognize it… and how to stop.

Wondering what’s different about this episode? Could be the new theme music!

Links: Episode 51 talks about how to reclaim your natural voice by talking to an audience of one (even when it’s actually one thousand).

Those voice acting lessons I mention are at Vancouver’s On the Mic Training. Highly recommended!

Music: All music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/). Theme: “Twitter Will Kill Us All.” Incidental music is taken from his latest album, Music for Podcasts: True Crime Edition. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: Marius Masalar on Unsplash

The post Ep. 54. It’s called public speaking. Not public singing. appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

But there can come a point where you’d actually like to make a living from speaking. And if you’ve wondered how to become a professional speaker, here’s an answer.

The Successful Speaker by Grant Baldwin, co-written with Jeff Goins, dropped just yesterday. (Grant’s podcast The Speaker Lab has plenty of great advice on all aspects of speaking, the craft as well as the business.) And it does something I haven’t seen done anywhere else this well and this concisely. It’s a step-by-step career guide that takes you on a very clear, well-laid-out path to becoming a professional speaker.

Grant sets out a menu of choices you have, like the kind of speaker you might like to be, some of the ways you can diversify your income, and the niches you might like to explore. He walks you through five steps: choosing a problem to solve, preparing and delivering your talk, establishing your expertise, actually hunting down and landing those gigs, and scaling and diversifying from there.

He starts with that question — what problem do you want to solve for people? — because the answer affects everything else you do as a speaker: the events you approach, the audiences you speak to, the content you deliver. And he has some solid advice around it.

Case in point: One of the first things Grant recommends doing is choosing an industry to focus on. That’s “industry” in the sense of seven broad categories of potential audiences and clients: corporations, associations, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, government and military, colleges and universities, and K-12 education. Choosing an industry to specialize in lets you focus your professional efforts, so you’re not trying to boil the ocean.

In step three, he has some good advice on speechwriting and delivery. This isn’t the be-all-and-end-all on speaking technique and content, and it isn’t meant to be. But as an overview of the field, it’s solid.

The book kicks into high gear with step three, when Grant starts talking about establishing your expertise and marketing yourself. (If you’re the kind of person who throws up a little when you hear the term “personal branding,” you’ll need to make your peace with it. Because what you’re selling when you have a speaking business is yourself: your voice, your expertise, your skill at communicating.)

There’s a lot of nuts-and-bolts advice here, including some very helpful pointers on setting up a speaker website and pulling together a demo video. And I like that when it comes to a website, for instance, he basically says “WordPress if you’re tech savvy, Squarespace if you aren’t.” Are there other choices? Yes, of course. And if you want to dive into those choices, you can. But if you don’t, or if you’d rather direct your energy elsewhere, they’ll do you admirably.

That’s true for step four, too, where Grant lays out a process for getting speaking engagements and negotiating terms. His technique certainly isn’t the only way to get them. But if you don’t want to do a whole deep exploration of sales processes, and the market, and… — well, here’s a workflow that works well for him and for his students.

(And by the way, there’s a single page in there that I’m guessing will save a lot of people a lot of grief — and potentially a lot of money! — on how to price yourself.)

And then step five offers a range of ways you can diversify your income and extend your speaking into other fields. Consider this your entrepreneurial buffet of intriguing menu options.

The Successful Speaker doesn’t try to be the comprehensive guide for a professional speaking career. You won’t find any discussion of speaker’s bureaus or managers, for instance. It doesn’t claim to be your lifelong roadmap through to retirement.

What it does, and does well, is chart a path for you to launch a speaking career. And if that’s a path you’d like to explore, I’d encourage you to do it with Grant’s book at your side.

The post The Successful Speaker: a new guide to launching a speaking career appeared first on Rob Cottingham.

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Sooner or later speechwriters and other leadership communications practitioners find ourselves talking to a subject matter expert: somebody (usually part of your client’s organization) who’s going to give some of their time and knowledge to make your speech or article better. Here’s how to get the most out of their time and yours.

Thanks to Clare Kumar, Deb Rohac, Patti Bacchus, Evan Leeson, Ben Roberts, Ben Lucier, Mark Busse, Rob Beggs, Susan RoAne, Jamie Cohen, Luis Giraldo, James Glave, Anthony Floyd, Andréa Coutu, Richard Eriksson, Robert Beggs and Michele Owens who all weighed in online with their advice for talking to subject matter experts!

Music: Theme: “Good Times” by Podington Bear (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/).

Incidental music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com/) including “And So Then,” “Ingenuity,” “More On That Later,” “Looking Back,” “Systematic” and “Sad Marimba Planet.” Used under a Creative Commons license.

Photo: James Lee on Unsplash

The post Ep. 53. How to Talk to Experts appeared first on Rob Cottingham.