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500,000 TEDxNelson Talk Views | Celebrating With A Giveaway

Half a million views equates to 19mins x 500,000 = 9,500,000mins / 158,333hours / 6597days / 942weeks / 18years of watching time.

That’s quite a juicy number in a little over a year and by way of thanks to the community I thought I’d create a fun offer to further aid the promotion of the talk…

…so if you:

  • share the YouTube video of my talk on LinkedIn / Twitter / Instagram / Threads (or any social media platform), and / or
  • feature it on your blog, and / or
  • shout it out in your email newsletter, and / or
  • leave a comment on the YouTube video

…you will go into the draw for the following package:

  1. 1x 75mins of 1-2-1 speaker coaching (for you or whomever you gift the time to); or
  2. 1x 75mins Presenting Engagingly Online masterclass for a group (whether it be a bunch of souls you bring together, your own leadership group in the organisation you work for or again gifted on to another deserving project);
  3. 2x codes for free access to the Presenting Engagingly Online course;
  4. 5x ebook / audiobook codes for free access to the Speaking With Purpose bundle;
  5. My thanks!

Deadline for participation is Valentines Day 2024, February 14th and winner chosen by random.

And if you’re new here or haven’t seen the talk here it is:

Small print: Winner will be drawn at random. My ball, my rules, my final say. (#1) 1-2-1 and / or the (#2) online masterclass to be completed 6-11.30pm GMT weekdays or on a Monday or over weekend, before 31st March 2024. You either must tag me into your LinkedIn post or send me a link to it / other social media platform shares / features in blog posts / email newsletters etc. via my contact form. Many thanks and good luck.

ADDENDUM 14.2.24: thanks to all who participated. Winner has been chosen.

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250,000 Views On My TEDx Talk | Celebrating Milestones

It’s with much surprise and pure delight I noticed my little TEDxNelson talk has reached over a quarter of million views in nine months of being live:

Put another way, that’s 9 years and 3months or 3298.625 days or 79,167 hours or 4,750,000 minutes of viewing time accrued.

In that time you could watch the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies 3,900 times!

During my near-long-decade TEDx licensee / producer / speaker coach, many speakers would ask what viewing number should they expect and / or aim for and my response was always the same: it’s not the amount of views but who viewed that’s important.

However, I have to be honest, reaching this number makes me feel bemusedly-giddy as it’s something as I never expected (nothing I’ve ever done has matched these figures).

The impact has been an increase in my website views, a flurry of emails saying ‘thank you’ and follow up questions related to the topic, my ebook / audiobook on the same subject making me some side-coin, as well as several agencies offering their services to boost my views further (have not taken anyone up on the offers).

So a chunky thank you for all these views up till now, to those who shared on as well as reached out directly, and here’s to the next quarter of a million!

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My TEDx Talk Just Reached 100,000 Views | Pre-order Announcement Of New Book: ‘Speaking With Purpose’

Half-price ebook + audiobook pre-order offer open to celebrate reaching hundred thousand views (pre-order closed).


BUY NOW Speaking With Purpose: A guide to delivering impressive presentations!

For only $10NZD this bundle deal featured an ebook with a juicy 37 chapters, nearly 14,000 words across 89 pages plus a 1hour34mins audiobook version (read by me).

Read the blog post announcement or purchase below:


I remembered chatting to a friend before the above TEDx talk went live and saying how happy I would be if it hit five figures in views. Well, in just three months to the day of it going live it x10 that!

TEDxNelson Talk 100k views

ANNOUNCEMENT

During the Christmas and New Year break I’ve been tapping away writing a companion guide to the talk which broadens out the things discussed. What it manifested into though is a series of monographs relating to the three elements of what makes a great presentation, the basis of my coaching system with clients and what I deliver in my masterclasses.

It’s currently being proofed by trusted peers under the title of “Speaking With Purpose : A guide to delivering impressive presentations!

There are currently 30+ chapters and over 13k words detailing all that I know about public speaking, coaching this challenging skill-set plus tackling the biggest hurdles of nerves, emotional connection and storytelling models. And just as way of a teaser, here are three random un-proofed chapters:

Welcome—this book is for those who have to speak in public, present to small and large groups of people, and who want to master their nerves. It’s also for individuals looking to hone their physical and vocal nuances to deliver insightful content in a way which creates emotive action from their audiences. 

These monographs detail the three elements of effective public speaking and will outline practical advice you can start applying during your next talk; whether you be a student delivering your final thesis, a confident leader having to deliver a closing keynote to a large conference crowd or a Chief Executive pitching the next 20 year plan to the board.

I trust you as an adult to take what you need and dismiss what you don’t.

This is not a ‘you should’ but more like a ‘you could’ guide based on everything I’ve learned in this arena (although these are tried and tested approaches which achieve re

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
Phillip Pullman

As detailed in my bio I was the licensee and producer of the TEDxWellington events for nearly ten years and one thing we provided was a five week coaching experience to aid the development of the talks. One year we had an individual we were failing in this sense as we were busy encouraging them (along with the other speakers) to stand in their story, project out and connect with the audience that way.

Well this person just wasn’t comfortable with this and as the weeks passed it became apparent it wasn’t going to work. I remember the conversation with them exploring other alternatives and the answer came from a comment she made about sitting in her office, across from her clients on two comfy sofas and how that was her most authentic self.

So, we put the speaker in a comfy chair and wow, instant success. The talk became intimate and focussed. Soft as well as powerful.

This was the best version of them to deliver their story in their way, not in our expected way of standing.

It also aligns with a favourite TED talk of mine which is a deeply moving, gentle and poignant, all delivered whilst sitting in a chair (please check out BJ Miller 2015’s talk: What really matters at the end of life). Another case of cultivating closeness through the simple act of sitting.

You’ll learn in a later chapter (DIVA) that understanding and stipulating the best environmental factors for you to deliver a great talk is paramount. And hoping the above story and examples give solid reasons to think differently in this area (albeit in rare cases).

One word of caution here for those hosting and ‘sitting’ on panels at events: this is a very different domain that what is described above in terms of a solo speaker in a chair. Unless you use clever lighting it’s very hard to create the same effect as what I’ve described in the other cases although much of the other stuff in the book can be applied in this scenario.

So lets get back to presenting and the body by focussing on the…

Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”
Charles Mingus

Nobody likes the way they sound. That’s a given, therefore, get over it. I guarantee you sound just fine enough.

Accents rule. Lean into them with just a side consideration of clarity for those with thick regional ones. Over the years, due to my international work plus living overseas for over a decade, my Welsh accent has softened. Then again, I still roll my “r’s” heavily and when I get excited it comes out wonderfully. I just make sure I articulate correctly and it’s never been an issue.

Cadence is how you modulate your voice and add stresses to what’s being said. These inflections can assist the audience to consider the importance of certain aspects of the story.

Just like the cadence, the rhythm is another aspect to consider. Varying the speed throughout any talk can be an effective way to add some ‘colour’ to an orators style. Although, don’t have too much of a difference here as it will sound awful.

Play around with subtle shifts in both cadence and rhythm which match the emotional range, like a little faster when it’s an exciting element of the story with a higher register and then slowing down again to annunciate for the poignant aspects which allows for reflection.

By the way if you want to create tension or make the listeners understand of the important of a statement, just pause.

A pause is like an underline is writing. It emphasises what came before.

Now the other way to do this is to repeat something. However this can only be used sparingly, like cumin in cooking.

Repeating something, even twice in a talk, gets noticed and I would suggest using this trick just once. Focus it on your biggest point or statement or piece of information which is truly arresting. Like a statistic which generates a ‘wow’ from when you share it, or a summarising line or two to distill a big topic which you’ve been introducing, or a revealing insight from a lived experience or even report. Just be careful with this one beyond that one time use.

The ebook and audiobook will be available on sale from end of March 2023 although making this pre-order live in celebration of the 100,000 views mark. Half-price. If you purchase I’ll send it through a couple of days before going live to the public (pre-order sales closed).


‘Speaking With Purpose’ is my second book, my first being ‘Zen And the Heart Of Social Media’ (see books), written back in when I was delivering in the social media space. This book is now free if you want it (all you have to do is ask).

Again, HUGE thanks to the TEDxNelson team, the other speakers and organisers plus licensee & producer Kara for the original invitation.

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#48 December 2022 + January 2023 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

A bunch of things (which I tweeted) for your eyes and ears plus brain to spend time on.

READ

Different things are now being considered about the cause of depression (beyond the low levels of serotonin in the brain).

Written in 1998 but nothing has changed: How to Kill Creativity.

This will make you rethink a few things: Don’t Treat Your Life as a Project.

My fav geoglyph is this one: Archaeologists Uncover Nearly 170 Nazca Lines Dating Back About 2,000 Years in Peru.

What has come into the Public Domain Day from 1st January 2023.

My Youtube earnings from the very popular ‘Brick Experiment Channel’ which is a superbly honest breakdown of monies / states / data from a very successful creator.

The Zuck is doubling-down on the failed / failing metaverse plan: Meta is facing the test of its lifetime + read also (& shudder): Meta faces $1.6bn lawsuit over Facebook posts inciting violence in Tigray war.

Urgh: Musk’s Neuralink faces federal inquiry after killing 1,500 animals in testing.

WATCH

EXPLORE

Later is an open source Mac menu bar app that clears and restores your workspace with ease (great for presenters / workshop takers like me).

APITable an API-oriented, open source and easy-to-use visual database for everyone.

Remove noise from voice recordings with this speech enhancement tool from Adobe. Have tried. Is very cool.

This YouTube transcript creator.

If you need a Matrix web-based green code rain screen.

lightyear.fm show how radio broadcasts leave Earth at the speed of light. Scroll away from Earth and hear how far the biggest hits of the past have travelled. The farther away you get, the longer the waves take to travel there—and the older the music you’ll hear.

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.
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The Public Speaking Lesson You Never Had | My 2022 TEDxNelson Talk

Got an important presentation or pitch coming up and struggling to prepare? This will help (or your money back): exploring the three elements which make up a great talk plus a Jedi-mind trick which will reframe those debilitating nerves once and for all.

What a joy to be invited to give a TEDx talk last month in Whakatū Nelson, at their first ever in-person event.

After nearly a decade of developing and delivering the TEDx offerings for Te Whanganui-o-Tara Wellington, was an honour to be stepping on that red rug as just a speaker to share my ‘idea worth spreading.’

Am currently working on a companion guide to this talk, an ebook of what I’ve learned in the last 16 years, speaking on five continents to audiences large and small, plus during the last decade of coaching others to step onto the red carpet and other stages / boardrooms.


BUY NOW Speaking With Purpose: A guide to delivering impressive presentations!

For only $10NZD this bundle deal featured an ebook with a juicy 37 chapters, nearly 14,000 words across 89 pages plus a 1hour34mins audiobook version (read by me).

Read the blog post announcement or purchase below:


As discussed in the talk, scripts are rubbish, and just to prove here’s mine which I prepared my talk from after developing different options via the post-it note medium (if you’re speaking from lived experience this is all you need):

Thanks to all the good people behind the scenes at TEDxNelson for the opportunity to share my story/ies plus the attendees and other speakers for making it a great day.

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TEDxWellington 2021 Cancelled & License Hibernated | A Big Hole Appears In My Diary

For nearly a decade, a huge part of my life has been devoted to a pro-bono endeavour of producing the community TEDx events here in the capital.

The decision to cancel this years event really hurt—read the full announcement here—as the 2021 event was going to be my last and boy I was aiming to go out on a high (with a 2,000 person event plus some wicked delegate experience ideas to boot as well).

However, after:

…my time as the kaitiaki of the capital city license has ended.

SO, WHAT’S NEXT?

Rest.

Then explore new paid opportunities which align to my skill set and serves my individual purpose regarding enabling people to find and have voice through delicious learning experiences.

Am looking to work with kind humans who reach beyond their grasp and have complex problems to solve—I like intersecting disciplines, leading on collaborations and crafting outcome-based connections through content creation.

Big words for basically saying making cool and complicated stuff with nice people!

As way of an illustration, I recently developed and delivered an in-studio learning experience for Teulo which is an online platform for architects and designers.

Let me know if you are in need of a DK-shaped human to assist in any creative project directing / producing.

And I will continue to offer and deliver speaker coaching (one-to-ones and group masterclasses) for select clients as well as developing out the fourth Creative Leadership NZ 2021 conference for the end of the year.

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TEDxWellington 2021 Call For Speakers & Performers Announced | Going Big

Boldly planning a mammoth capital experience.

For the past seven years or so I’ve been dedicating my pro-bono time to the TEDxWellington endeavour and last night we announced our public call for speakers and performers.

This is a not-for-profit venture for the wider community organisers by a wonderful bunch of humans volunteering their precious time to enable local stories go global.

The next event will be the biggest of its kind with 2,000 delegates at the award-winning Michael Fowler Centre, held on 8th May 2021.

What a time to be considering such a grand thing, however, with the ‘team of 5 million’ again pulling together to eliminate community transmission of COVID-19 from our shores, we’re leaning into the hope this will sustain through to next year and beyond.

So if you know anyone in or associated with the Wellington-region who has an idea worth spreading, here’s their chance to get considered for the TEDxWellington 2021 stage:

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Creative Welly Episode #2 | More Courageous Conversations

Another two good souls exploring all manner of wonderful topics, ideas, stories, experiences etc.

We curate and collide intrepid talent from the coolest most creative little capital in the world (with a few out-of-city friends as well from time-to-time).

Subscribe and catch the first episode via Creative Welly.

Again, this project is totally self-funded and wouldn’t be possible without these amazing collaborators:

All episodes are shot and edited by the wonderfully talented Jono Tucker, Empire Films. An extremely diligent and personable soul who has added a polish to the resulting video which I never could’ve achieved, thank you Jono.

Hosted at Xequals, a centrally based web development agency who provide us with a kick-ass office which totally gets kitted out for the shoot. Thank you Alex Matthews for being so gracious with your space.

Learn more about the background in this ‘Creative Welly Launched | Learning Out Loud‘ post.

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People Are Awesome | The Hope Generator That Is TEDx

ADDENDUM 21.8.19 Here’s a short video from the day of me talking about the above, full reflections here:

The innate goodness of humans.

Last night was the first of five TEDxWellington speaker coaching sessions with these people:

Being surrounded by impressive souls (full bios) was a much needed reminder of the innate brilliance of humans doing superb things (from an initiative to track human rights violations to how to build homes so that the materials can be reused, a programme to teach mindfulness to children to new technology to help diagnose breast health, from ethically built sensors to monitor the health of your home to an ongoing project which cleans our underwater environment, from teaching communities to cook on a budget to an evolving body positive programme for females, from championing the use of menstrual cups for system change to rethinking our criminal justice system).

To feel that warmness of hope and genuine awe seems rare these days in the global gloom which blasts through the news and our other media channels.

Devoting time to remind oneself that the world is not what the media tells you is a must for our mental health. So thank you TEDx for continuing to offer opportunities which lightens the soul.

Deadline for ticket registration ends soon.
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