Your People

I wanted to share a presentation called Your People that Pamela Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation, put together for a conference she went to.

After watching it, I heard several bits of advice that reminded me of Part 1 and Part 2 of the posts I just wrote about how to build your network. When you get to her example of casting a fishing rod into a new pond, I really was reminded of the information brokers termed in the Harvard Business Article I discussed.

In addition, she spoke to several elements of communication and connecting with people. Both of these really made a lot of sense because I just completed a Business Communications course at Georgia Tech that was taught by Joey Asher the founder of Speechworks. The essence of any speech is about connecting people and moving them in some direction. While she wrapped her conversation in a theme of social media and blogs, it is very applicable to any presentation you have to put on. When you watch, pay close attention to how many personal stories she gives you during her own presentation. Stories are better than any statistic, fact, or other evidence for getting your point across to people and getting them to buy in to what you are telling them. We hit this a lot in my Business Communications course, and she is a very effective communicator/presenter.