Dollar Store Glasses

I am putting together a new presentation called "Your Message Has Landed". While talking it over with my husband he came up with a little idea I would like to share with you.

You Need
two pairs of glasses

See these glasses (pick up a pair). These are my old glasses that I bought at the dollar store. They were cheap and more or less did the trick. But after a while, they didn't really fit my needs. I mean, why would they; they were made one size fits all? I had a problem with my left eye, that these glasses just didn't fix.

So I had to go to get a pair of prescription glasses, designed just for me (hold up a different pair) - not for the masses. They fit well and they take care of my particular problem."

What I Would Do With This
In the same way as you need to get your glasses made just for you, one size fits all won't work for getting your message across. You need to consider the needs of the listeners; sales groups, IT groups and management all have different needs and need different types of glasses.

Another Way to Use This Idea
When you are trying to show someone how what you do; the way you can customize things just for them or their organization will give the most effective results.

I think our home may be turning into Metaphor Central.

Where's the Cow

/www.naute.com/illusions/cow.phtml

Check out this wonderful illusion.
How I Would Use This

I am preparing a speech for a group of professionals and will insert this picture into their handouts. I will ask them to find the cow. I think most of them will find it, but some people always have trouble with it.
The point I am making is that the brain is always trying to create order. In this case it is faced with a black and white blob image and tries to find something it can recognize.

In the same way, when we communicate with others, people are always trying to find order in our messages. So it is important that we help them follow the flow of our presentation. Openings that introduce the topic, transitions that help people follow where we are going and conclusions that wrap up the main points all help the listener find order. Without that order, all the words are just a jumble that are clear to only one person - the speaker.

Illusions are wonderful tools for making points. Google the words visual illusions and see what comes up.

O'Reilley on Advertising

Heard this fellow O'Reilly on CBC radio. He does a great show about the behind the scenes world of advertising and it is just fascinating. I got a great idea that I think I will use in my next big workshop.

To paraphrase O'Reilly (and he did put it much more beautifully) if I throw you 5 apples all at once you would probably fumble them and drop them. But if I lob you one perfect apple you should be able to catch it.

He was basically saying, "one ad, one message".

Now I think this applies well when you are thinking of the topic of communication. Instead of throwing 5 messages at someone and bombarding them, try lobbing them one well-thought out perfect message.

I feel that we usuallly don't spend enough time trying to figure out what the messages of our presentations really are. I know when I have nailed this down, my communication is so much clearer.

So I am going to try this at my next workshop. I am going to throw (gently) 5 apples at someone and then lob them one perfect one. What do you think?