Power Presentations

Bookends II

Last Sunday, Frank Rich, the New York Times political columnist, provided another lesson in writing style for presenters; in fact, two lessons. In a previous blog, you read how Mr. Rich had used bookends, a figure of speech—a quote, a title, an incident, a person— that he referenced at the ...

To Slip or Not to Slip

General Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, shared his feelings about his Commander-in-Chief with an advisor, who was later quoted in a Rolling Stone article: Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, ...

Sarah Says “No!”

Last Thursday, Sarah Palin and her political action committee, Sarah PAC, released its first campaign video of the year. According to a Yahoo! News article, the ad includes a vocal track of a speech Palin delivered in Washington in May, touting the rise of “mama grizzlies” and conservative women. Palin’s main ...

Ms Kagan Regrets

Cole Porter’s 1934 song, “Miss Otis Regrets,” a wry blues tale about a society lady indisposed to answer questions, had its modern variation last week during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. In the prior post, you read how thoroughly the ...

The Right Image for a Bad Message

It’s no wonder that BP finally replaced its CEO, Tony Hayward as its spokesman. He was the flash point for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In business as in sports, the manager gets fired after a big loss and Mr. Hayward made a mess of his ...

Murder Boards

The Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings today on President Obama’s second nominee for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan. Just as the first nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, and both of President George W. Bush’s nominees, John G. Roberts and Samuel Alito, and all the previous nominees of all the previous presidents, Ms. ...

Obama’s Oil Speech Postmortem

Thumbs Down, Thumbs Up In last week’s post on Obama’s Oval Office speech on the oil spill you read how Mike Allen, the Washington columnist the New York Times dubbed “The Man the White House Wakes Up To,” anticipated the importance of the event. Mr. Allen’s succinct postmortem: “It’s the first ...

Obama and the Oil Spill Speech

Taking Personal Responsibility In anticipation of President Obama’s Oval Office speech about the BP oil spill, Mike Allen of Politico, who was dubbed by the New York Times as “The Man the White House Wakes Up To,” wrote: “White House advisers acknowledge that if it doesn't happen tonight, it probably never ...

Less Is More Choice IV

In a prior blog, you read about how Less is More when it comes to store-front displays through one of Professor Sheena Iyengar’s experiments, and how the same principle relates to presentations. Now let’s take a look at another one of Ms. Iyengar’s experiments to see how this concept also ...

Politicians and Spin II

In the previous post you read about how Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, who is running for Christopher Dodd’s Democratic seat in the Senate and Rand Paul, the winner of the Republican Senatorial Primary in Kentucky, both had to walk back on controversial statements they had made. In ...