Public Speaking Rule No. 1: Know Your Audience

Basically this means that you should know enough about your audience to effectively impart information in a way that stimulates their thinking or motivates them to action.

How Can This Be Done

• Research your audience through interaction
• Consider what they already know about a subject and build on that information
• Make use of comparisons and contrasts for better understanding
• Explain how the information benefits them
• Pay attention to your “choice words”
• Add humor and stir

Tips for Bloggers

I was reading this interesting article online about how our eyes pay attention to information that we read online vs. what we read in a book.

It mentioned that when reading online our eyes are more likely to scan large blocks of text rather than read the entire paragraph. It suggested that we use short sentence fragments instead.

The use of bullets, lists and occasional use of bold is more likely to get a reader’s attention and the use of links gives our text more authority.

I have to admit, when I see a large block of text on an unfamiliar blog or website, I get ‘the lazy eye’ and I start scanning. With a book, I expect larger groups of words on a page and I read differently.

When you look at early research, it’s fascinating to see that even in the days of green phosphorus monitors, studies found that there wasn’t a huge difference in speed and comprehension between reading on-screen and reading on paper. Paper was the clear winner only when test subjects were asked to skim the text.

Maybe it’s the time factor. The web is for surfing and books are for nursing.

I never gave too much thought to eye tracking studies and what people really pay attention to when reading online so if you made it to the end of this post, bless you.

When you write a post for your blog, do you consider your readers? If so, how?

Do you think about how you can get them involved and not just skimming posts?

Do you worry about writing lengthy posts are do you prefer to keep it short and to the point?

You know what’s so great about blogging? Being able to write about an unpleasant situation, laugh at yourself and blog about it the next day. It’s like I can’t believe this crap is happening to me, but it sure would make a great blog post. You almost want something ridiculous to happen so you can blog about it, or is that just me?

Like imagine the story I would have been able to post had I actually choked my co-worker. I would have even posted the pictures of [their] bruised neck had they not been considered evidence. I was having that kind of week, but I manage to control my emotions by being reminded of a time when I didn’t and in front of a judge.

I was on my way to work driving down a narrow street and on my left was a parked, empty school bus. There were three cars ahead of me and because there was no stop sign from the school bus, we drove past it and stopped at the light.

A few seconds later, a male cop motions for all of us to pull over to the side of the road and wait for another officer.

When the female officer arrived, she was instructed to write all of us a ticket for failing to yield to a school bus (the other officer claimed the yellow lights were flashing), I can’t remember the exact citation, but we had to appear in court.

When I arrived in court, the prosecutor was ready to play let’s make a deal = you pay the court fine and I’ll reduce your charges to no points, deal? I wasn’t ready to admit to something I did not do, so after speaking with the prosecutor, I spoke with the female officer.

She said saw ME drive on the other side of the street (the narrow road with the parked school bus; apparently being last in line, I also went around the cars in front of me) to sit at a red light. I said you weren’t even there, how would you know? Well that was her story and she was sticking to it. Fine, I’ll go before the judge and ask for a new hearing with my attorney.

She was clearly lying, but in a “he said-she said” situation the person in uniform usually wins. By the time I got in front of the judge I was incensed, and it showed, but I agreed to the plea deal because I wanted it to be over.

When it came time for me to sign a sheet of paper saying I accepted the plea, I scribbled my signature with a wave of my hand and then the judge got mad! He said I could not sign my name like that because that was not my signature! Two hot heads. I was held in contempt, never made it to cell, but had to pay a fine for that public display in addition to my other charges.

So as I’m walking out of the court room, I say something to another person who was also pulled over and the judge said I was being disrespectful for talking in court and for rolling my eyes at him. I admit I was trying to burn a hole in his dress with my eyes and may have shown some disgust when it didn’t work. I guess he let his emotions get the best of him too because he reversed all my charges and said to come back next week and to bring my attorney.

*&^%!

Just so happened I worked, and still do, at a law firm. When I got to work, I had a few minutes to calm down and realized my plan to show up dressed as a nun at my next court appearance was probably not a good idea. After being assigned an attorney to represent me, I faxed a letter of apology to the judge and the prosecutor for my behavior earlier and agreed to apologize in court.

Several days later when I arrived in court with my attorney in tow, I was calm and made sure I didn’t make eye contact with the judge. When my case was up, he called my attorney into chambers and I assume they were talking about me.

Turned out the judge was good friends with the female partner at my job and I had the wrong attorney. Standing before the court, I said some stuff I meant and the rest of it was hogwash! I felt like putting on an Emmy worthy performance, but instead, I paid the fine and quickly left before I got into any more trouble.

While I can look back at this situation with a slight grin, I will never trust a cop and I’m afraid of school buses. I still dream of revenge but now when life hands me lemons, I make a blog post.

Photo of Lemons by Shaunb.blogs.com
Photo of Gavel by by Lubbock
Photo of Flame by Rotten Tomatoes

Why do we have all these “time saving gadgets” but we don’t seem to have enough time in a day? I thought when I moved from dial-up to high speed that I would spend less time surfing the web. Wrong! I spent more time surfing the web because I didn’t have to wait for pages to load or programs to download.

I found myself sitting at the computer for hours and the things I once enjoyed doing didn’t get done or when I did do them, it was done in haste. I was neglecting responsibilities, paper work was piling up, mail went unopened. I was not myself. I felt rushed, impatient, envious, always playing catch up trying to make up for the time I spent on the computer. My life hadn’t changed much, but what I was doing with my time had, I wasn’t using it wisely.

Even though I came up with some lively excuses to cover what I was really doing, in the back of my mind I knew what the culprit was and realized I had to get a grip on how I spent my time. I had other responsibilities and obligations that required my time and attention they just weren’t getting. It was easy to say “I didn’t have time”, but my truth was my time was being mismanaged.

I used to wonder how some people seem to get so many things accomplished in a day or even a week. What I’ve found is that 9 times out of 10, they have a schedule and they stick to it. To some, I guess a schedule is like a budget, it’s too restrictive and it doesn’t allow room for spontaneity. That could be true, but hours of unscheduled time doesn’t lead to productivity either, often times it leads to nothing.

Personally, I like the feeling of accomplishment and if I leave things to chance, chances are they won’t get done. I’ve been working on a schedule, trying to find a mix that doesn’t leave me feeling overwhelmed and here’s my work in progress:

1. I make a list of all the things I need or want to do
2. I print a calendar for the month
3. I pencil in my top 10 “must-do’s” on a day that task could be done (I spread them out during the week (i.e. Sunday - Exercise, Monday - clean bathroom, Tuesday - sweep floor, Wednesday - blog) so my schedule isn’t too full. By the end of the week, my chores/errands are done.
4. After these tasks become more routine, I go back to my list and add 5 more items to my weekly schedule.

This works for me, especially when it comes to keeping the house clean. I don’t want to spend the entire weekend cleaning and running errands, I want to relax too. Yes, write that on your schedule: do nothing. Each week can stay the same or you can add more things to your schedule from your list.

Another area I’m trying to get a grip on is when it comes to blogging. Actually, it takes me 15 minutes to write a blog post and 2 days, 6 hours and 4 minutes to edit it. Well not precisely, but I do spend a lot of time doing something I’m really bad at: editing and proofreading. I also like to read other people’s blog, this takes time. Some blogs I know I can read in the morning and leave a comment, others I read while at work and the rest I read when I get home. Generally I post on my blog three times a week and I reply to comments twice a day. This schedule works for me and I can keep up with it.

Also switching from I.E. to Firefox turned out to be a big help. If you have not made the switch yet, download Firefox here. It’s a cool browser with some great features. Below is a list of my top 3 time management add-ons:

• Time Tracker - Track how much time you are spending on the web. Numbers don’t lie. If you can’t get anything done and you’ve logged 6 hours surfing the web, do you really have to ask why? Keep track of how much you browse with TimeTracker.
• Reminder - ReminderFox is an extension that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. I love this one because the reminder pops up on my computer screen, unlike my other reminders that are emailed to me. Yes, I’m pre-alzheimers, not making jokes. Thanks to K for pointing me toward this great add-on.
• Split Browser - This splits the content area of the browser window as you like, left, right, top, bottom. My laptop can split the screen if I wish, but this add-on is a no-brainer for me. Great for when you’re answering comments on your blog. There’s no need to scroll up and down trying to make sure your answer everyone. Split the screen, keep your comments on one side as you type on your replies on the other. Thanks Barbara for sharing this find with me.

Of course, not everyday is a by the schedule day, I try to keep it light but productive. I’m always looking for balance and not chaos. So, how do you do all that you do? Does your life have a schedule? How do you manage your time?

Photo of timer: Valerie Morrison. Yep I bought a timer, I’m that bad.

PS - I know this font is too small for some of you, I’m working on it….

Okay this has got to be my longest post title, I’ll have to continue the rest of it in another post. I’m still learning my way around WordPress so actually this post won’t tell you everything you want to know, just the little bit I do know, by accident.

Blog Archive. If you’ve ever paid attention to your post titles or looked at the top of your browser, the word “Blog Archive” appears before your post title. I hated it, but never bothered to ask or even search how to get rid of it. Kathy was kind enough to Zoom the fix for removing blog archive from WordPress allowing me to find it. The solution can be found here. It’s very easy to do because I did it, just don’t forget to backup your blog, always. Also after you remove ‘blog archive’ you will still see this “>>” the solution to removing this is also on the same blog post. I however had to use this: wp_title($sep = ‘ ‘, $display = true) { instead of what was suggested in the post. Keep a copy of any code you are overwriting in, say for example, a WordDoc.

SEO Title Tag. I actually made the edits to my blog myself, but if you want to save about 5 hours, several bouts of crying and pulling your hair out, try this plug-in. This is just one of many, find the one that works for you. I did not know how to do this before yesterday, but if you know what you are doing, it only takes a minute. With a few modifications now the name of my blog shows at the top of the browser along with the post title and no ‘blog archive’. To make this happen I made changes to the Header.php file. Thanks to Megan for pointing me in the right direction.

Find this:

<title><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php wp_title(); ?></title>

Replace with this:

<title>ThinkingOutLoudBlog.com<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> <?php wp_title ($sep = ‘-’); ?></title>

Of course, replace ThinkingOutLoudBlog.com with the name of your blog, unless you want to leave it there.

Okay two things you probably always wanted to know about wordpress (but were afraid to ask). I tried out some other customizations, but I won’t post them until I get them working, I hope these two are helpful.

I was able to install edit comments on my blog, so now you have the option of editing your comment after you hit send. It took me all of two minutes to try it out on my test blog before making the changes here. It’s so easy, even a cave man can do it.

If you do need help though, feel free to email me.

I guess I do have a lot of time on my hands. Well actually I don’t, but I found time (stayed up late) to make a little movie that shamelessly promotes my blog. If you have 2 minutes (and 53 seconds), I’d like to show it to you.

C’mon, click the button. I promise I won’t rub dirt on your carpet and then blog about the many ways I can get the stain out. Nor will this shameless blog promotion stain your clothes (I hope you don’t either), it does not contain background music (okay there’s a little at the end), but if you want to hum “We are the World” while you read it, that would not be inappropriate and best of all, it’s rated G for girl needs a life! Please dim the lights…

If I had some animation skills, I could do a better video. I might look into doing something really, really simple, like talking stick figures and hand puppets. So if one day you have nothing to post, throw this up there and join in the shameless blog promotion movement. Spread the Word!

P.S. Have you done any shameless blog promotion? What did you do?

EDIT: Same shameless blog promotion, but with music this time. Pick your pleasure, you can have it both ways. With music or without. Hey when you guys are right, you’re right. I’m shrugging my shoulders. Ahh, it was fun and shameless!