Industry Trends
Color Psychology – What Colors Make Great Presentations?
In the branding world, color psychology is frequently fussed over, but seldom understood in a concrete way. That’s because, like so many facets of marketing and communication, the impacts colors have on audiences are often contingent on the personal preferences, experiences, cultural differences, and context each audience member brings to the table.
Read MoreAudiences are Selfish – Give them Empathy
Audiences are selfish. Listeners care about themselves. Viewers want to be entertained. Meeting attendees care about what the content means for them. As a speaker, this means that one of the most critical components of communicating is satisfying your audience’s needs. A great way to do this is through empathy. Empathy in the context of…
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Practicing with an AI Avatar: Overcoming Public Speaking Fear
Glossophobia—the fear of public speaking—affects three out of four people, with 5–10% of the population facing severe glossophobia that can significantly impact their day-to-day lives. Few people immediately and innately enjoy public speaking, but unlike with clinical phobias, most discomfort with public speaking can be addressed with training exercises, practice, and a gradual, self-led increase…
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Is Training Dead?
Traditionally, training has always been a one-directional process. A coach or instructor relays information to students and then tests them on how well they retain the material. With the recent innovations in online learning such as MOOCs (massive open online courses) and Quantified Self learning tools such as Lumosity, many experts are asking if the…
Read MoreEye Contact – A Declining Communications Tool?
A recent article from the Wall Street Journal discusses the effects of declining eye contact in the workplace, citing our own research on ideal eye contact behavior, and we wanted to share our further analysis. As background, we know that because of evolution it is easy for humans to “speak” with their eyes. An article…
Read MoreThe Power of Pause
Pauses can be an incredibly powerful tool in public speaking, as they provide several benefits to the speaker as well as to the audience. According to our research, the average professional speaks at a rate of 150 words per minute. Yet, according to Colorado State University, the average person thinks at a rate that is…
Read MoreThe Challenge of Video Communication
Source: inBlurbs According to the Visual Networking Index Forecast from Cisco, online video will soon surpass Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media in terms of usage. By 2017, 81% of the world’s internet users will also use online video services (compared to 58% of internet users in 2012). The report states that “It…
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WSJ: Just Look Me in the Eye Already
Exciting to see our analytics in the Wall Street Journal! Just Look Me in the Eye Already The Workplace Perils of Staring at Our Phones and Elsewhere; The Ideal Gaze Lasts 7 to 10 Seconds By Sue Shellenbarger You’re having a conversation with someone and suddenly his eyes drop to his smartphone or drift over…
Read MoreWhat does your Accent Say about You?
What does your accent say about you? The above map comes from a website by Rick Aschmann which outlines the geographical locations and characteristics of different North American English dialects (linked above). Rick’s website also includes audio samples of each dialect, and several charts and guides describing how sounds differ between each dialect.
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Communicate Effectively with Data Visualizations
UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism The immense power behind big data is acknowledged by most people. It has the potential to objectively unlock solutions to problems that were previously overlooked. We discussed an example of this in our previous blog entry about people analytics and big data’s effect on the HR department. However, the…
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