Public Speaking – Speech Giving Versus Presenting

As a seasoned public speaker of many venues, I can tell you there’s a big difference between giving a speech and giving a presentation. One cannot, of course, teach presentation skills without teaching basic speech skills, and vice versa. The two are closely related in terms of understanding how to use body language, voice, eye contact and other techniques. But while there are many similar and overlapping skills, the difference lies in the objective.

Let’s start with giving a Speech.

If you’ve taken any speech classes in college, you’ve probably heard there are three types of speeches: informative, persuasive and entertaining. While this is fairly accurate, it won’t help in discerning between speeches and presenting because many think they are one in the same. But they are not.

Primarily, the purpose of a speech is to simply deliver a message. Often, a speech does not require the use of visual aids because a good speech can actually stand on its own without support or explanation. At the end of an effective speech, an audience will be stirred into thinking in a way or doing something they may not have before hearing it.

But most of us of in everyday life will generally hear two kinds of speeches: the kind that entertain and the kind that aim to change thinking or attitudes. After-dinner speeches and wedding toasts are in the former camp, most others in the latter. The “change” speeches can still have entertaining elements, but their purpose goes beyond that. Consider eulogies, for example. A eulogy is, or should be, in honor of the deceased. It should therefore connect with, and hopefully uplift the hearts of the mourners. It’s a speech, not a presentation, and the intention is to generate affection and good feelings.

Speeches are often, but not always, written out word for word and are given by individuals who normally don’t speak to crowds, or at least don’t regularly engage in public speaking (presidential speeches are an obvious exception). This is why a person giving a speech can and is usually expected to read the speech from paper or a teleprompter. An experienced speech giver, however, will still attempt to make the reading sound like he or she is actually talking to the audience at a personal level rather than just reading to no one in particular.

Many speeches also tend to be formal in nature. Consider how graduation speeches or State of the Union Addresses are delivered. Because of the formality, the speech would sound very similar from one audience and situation to another. But while it’s true that from some speeches there have been spontaneous outpourings of impromptu words and passion, most stay within the script.

Now let’s talk about Presenting.

A presentation needs a proposition and typically, a call to the audience for decisive action afterward. A good presenter understands that he or she is putting on a performance to a degree. Presenting is a form of art, a direct connection with an audience that engages people on intellectual and emotional levels. It should be designed to give an audience an experience, not just information. Presentations involve more entertainment, more senses and more activity from both the speaker and audience. An effective presentation is an orchestration of many pieces of many things to enhance the message.

Presentations tend to be less formal and the material should not be delivered by means of reading from a script. In fact, they should never be written word for word, or even memorized word for word. A seasoned presenter knows how to use notes with just key or “trigger” words to remind him or her of what to say. Also, presentations will often employ storytelling that the presenter can do off the cuff and from the heart.

The beauty of a presentation is that the presenter can be spontaneous and add, modify, or eliminate material according to the audience’s reaction or things like distractions or time constraints. This is why the same presentation can be delivered in vastly differently ways depending on the crowd and venue. And unlike speeches, presentations often will involve the use of visual aids to stir emotion or drive a point. At the end of a presentation, if the presenter has been effective, audience members will not only be moved to do something afterwards, they will also have some new knowledge in their mental arsenal to take away.

Finally, another purpose of presentations is to make a sale. A presentation geared toward selling is an emotionally compelling one designed to create a perceived need to buy the product, whatever it may be. Everything the presenter does and shows will be engineered to create and feed that need. Such a speaker will usually have books or DVDs or sign-up sheets waiting in the back.

In summary, if you’re going to be a speaker at some engagement and trying to decide what format to use, a good question to ask is: What is the purpose of my talk? The answer to that question will help you decide what you’re there to do for your audience, what they expect, and how you’re going to deliver it.

Operating Room Fires – Increasingly Prevalent Problem Presents Potential For Product Innovation

Operating room fires, once thought to be rare, isolated incidents, apparently are more prevalent than previously realized. The nonprofit healthcare research organization ECRI Institute published a report suggesting that hundreds of fires occur during the roughly 50 million inpatient and outpatient procedures that take place annually, often resulting in serious injury or death. This is a significant increase from the 50-100 previously estimated by patient safety organizations.

Some medical groups say fires have increased over the past two decades with the increased use of lasers and tools employing electric current. The ECRI estimates that 44 percent of operating room fires occur during head, face, neck or chest surgery in which electrical surgical tools and lasers are too close to the oxygen the patients are breathing.

The current ideology is that the basic elements of fire – heat, fuel, and oxidizer – are always present during surgery, and only through training and instituting stricter guidelines can these horrible accidents be prevented. Unfortunately, few products exist that could lower the risk of operating room fires and explosions. This suggests that the market for such products presents a potentially lucrative opportunity for medical device and pharmaceutical companies to focus their research and development. A patent review similarly shows little activity in this area, again leading to the conclusion that opportunity awards imaginative innovators.

Fuel Is Abundant in the OR

Fuels commonly found in the operating theater include prepping agents like degreasers (ether, and acetone), aerosol adhesives, and tinctures such as hibitane, merthiolate, and duraprep. Other fuels include supplies: drapes, gowns, masks, hoods, caps, shoe covers, instrument and equipment drapes and covers, egg-crate mattresses, mattresses and pillows, blankets, gauze, sponges, dressings, ointments such as petroleum jelly, paraffin and white wax, flexible endoscopes, covering for fiber optic cables, gloves, stethoscope tubing, smoke evacuator hoses and other equipment/supplies used in the OR.

Oxidizers in the OR include oxygen enriched mixtures above 21 percent oxygen used to ensure proper oxygenation of the patient during anesthesia. Whenever the oxygen concentration is above 21 percent, an oxygen enriched atmosphere exists with the potential to feed fires. Oxygen is supplied via anesthesia devices, ventilators, wall outlets, or gas cylinders and all are potentially hazardous. Oxygen can also come from the thermal decomposition of nitrous oxide, which should also be considered an oxygen-enriched atmosphere. Materials such as drapes absorb oxygen and retain it for some time which makes them easier to ignite, causes them to burn faster and hotter, and makes them much harder to extinguish.

The Key Is Controlling Heat Sources

The introduction of lasers, electro-surgical tools and other exothermic surgical instruments has significantly increased the incidence and risk associated with operating theater fires. ECRI notes that the key to preventing fires involving surgical patients is controlling the OR’s various heat sources and preventing them from contacting fuels. Beyond that, however is the potential to reduce the chances materials will combust. Currently, the medical community is completely reliant on alcohol-based antiseptic products and surgical textiles that trap oxygen within their fibers. With the current surgical antiseptic industry alone worth over $500 million dollars, a company that can develop a fire-resistant alternative that offers the same antimicrobial protection found in traditional alcoholic based antiseptics could dominate this market and become an industry leader and innovator.

Just a Few Patents Recently Filed

However, few companies appear to be innovating in this area. Patenting activity, for example, suggests that medical device and pharmaceutical companies have not realized the opportunity that exists in technologies that could launch them as the new industry leaders. In fact, the few recent patents addressing preventative technology innovations are exclusively assigned to individual inventors.

One such patent, for example, describes a fire-resistant phosphate composition with antibacterial, antiviral and fungicidal properties that claims to be ecologically pure, non-toxic, non-carcinogenic and non-allergic. Another patent describes a surgical drape designed to prevent the buildup of trapped oxygen and thereby decrease the risk of fire. Yet another describes an oxygen sensor system that would sound an alarm if oxygen levels are unsafe.

The fact that these fires were significantly under-reported but are now gaining extensive media scrutiny increases the need for innovative companies to address minimizing these risks through their product development strategies. The lack of innovative patents indicates there is a potential to tap into a severely deficient market opportunity. Are you up for the challenge?

Business Coaching Tip – Dare to Be PRESENT – Or What’s the Point?

As a business coach, I ask my clients, “Have you ever had any of these experiences?”

~ You drive home from work and then don’t remember how you got there.

~ You sit through a meeting or business coaching session and can’t account for what happened in the meeting, the outcome or the details.

~ You read a book to your child or grandchild and can’t recall what the book was about.

~ You work out and have so much mind chatter that you’re not even sure what muscles you were working.

~ You have a conversation with a colleague and miss the important undercurrents of that discussion because your mind was elsewhere.

~ You give a presentation and miss the impact you’re having on the audience because you’re too busy wondering, “How am I doing as a public speaker?”

~ You have an argument, and you’re so busy proving your point, you miss the others’ points completely AND any opportunity for alignment.

~ You go home at night and spend time with your family, only to think about everything that happened at work today and what’s about to happen tomorrow.

Sound familiar? Perhaps the better business coaching question, instead of “Have you ever experienced any of these?” is: “Have you experienced any of these things today?”

We’re talking about presence. Being PRESENT is defined as “existing or being in the time occurring NOW.”

I work with business coaching clients on several kinds of presence: “Leader’s Presence”, “Emotional and Mental Presence” and “Physical Presence.” It’s essential to pay attention to all three in order to be aware of your impact, create intentional impact and be present to your life. Because if you’re not present to your life, what is the point? Truly. Think about that. IF YOU ARE NOT PRESENT TO YOUR LIFE – WHAT IS THE POINT?

We’re given the beautiful gift of life, relationships, family, work we can love, health, emotions, the ability to make an impact, gain work/life balance and so much more. We could go through our days with our minds in other places, missing all the beautiful gifts of the moment, wishing we were an hour, a day or a week ahead. We could yearn to be somewhere other than where we are NOW. Or we can go through our lives, each day, conscious of each moment – easy or hard, stressful or peaceful, mundane or exhilarating.

When we are fully present, we experience LIFE. We can see more clearly what has to happen. We can see the truth about the moment. We can see the truth about our impact. We can fully feel our feelings: joy, anger, sadness or excitement. We are present.

It is from this place that life happens. It is in this place we actually can find authentic emotions, and ultimately peace, in the moment. It is in this place that we can better identify, as leaders in our own lives, what needs to happen next.

Field Work Challenge: This month, notice when you’re present in the moment and when you’re not. Do you find it challenging to stay present 100% of the time? Most of us do. So, no big deal, just notice the impact.

What do you miss out on when your mind is multi-tasking? On what relationships and connections do you miss out? What opportunities are lost? What shifts for you when you are present to your life? What do you realize needs to be ‘cleaned up’ when you are present? What shifts when you walk through your day fully awake? Fully engaged?

When you notice you’ve lost presence, ‘recover’ and come back to the moment. It’s actually that simple. Enjoy your month. Savor your life. DARE to fully engage.