I haven’t been a member of Toastmasters for many years, but I can spot a Toastmaster on one of our courses almost instantaneously (people who’ve done debating are even more obvious!) The Toastmaster program and culture tends to encourage people to develop a certain rather “stagey” style. When I made the transition from Toastmasters to real-world presenting I had to make the transition from my Toastmaster style to a more conversational style. If you’re in Toastmasters break out of the Toastmaster mould this year – start talking in a conversational style to individual members of your audience (see this post for more on How to get the most out of Toastmasters.)

Olivia Mitchell offers a tip for Toastmasters. The whole post has tips for many other kinds of presentations.

And yet, even as business has slowed, we have been speeded up, and the dead giveaway was the growth of laptops in paradise. Five years ago, in Barbados, none of us consulted a computer. Three years ago, in Costa Rica, a few family members walked to an Internet cafe and checked our e-mail one afternoon just for the novelty of being online in a faraway place.

This year I stood in a long line in the lobby of this resort in the Dominican Republic, to wait my turn to sign up for 25 hours of Internet service for $25. Several in the family brought laptops and we checked our work e-mail daily.

From a pretty good, and pretty telling, essay in the New York Times. Read the whole essay to appreciate the writing of Michael Winerip and to enjoy a wry conclusion.

Miep Gies, the woman who was the last surviving protector of Anne Frank and her family, died this week at age 100. She's the person who discovered Frank's diary after the Nazis raided their hiding place and took them to concentration camps. The New York Times obituary notes that she preferred a quiet life and avoided public speaking until her own story became known:

Mrs. Gies sought no accolades for joining with her husband and three others in hiding Anne Frank, her father, mother and older sister and four other Dutch Jews for 25 months in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. But she came to be viewed as a courageous figure when her role in sheltering Anne Frank was revealed with the publication of her memoir. She then traveled the world while in her 80s, speaking against intolerance....she began to travel widely as a living link to Anne Frank and spoke on the lessons of the Holocaust, often talking to schoolchildren who were reading Anne’s diary.

That's astonishing, in its own way: She started a public speaking career in her 80s, even though her preference seems to have been to remain quiet. I think that adds to her eloquence, and find myself struck by the power when a quiet person chooses to speak out. Perhaps that's because, as seems to have been the case for Gies, they're doing so not to advance themselves but because they feel passionately about their subject. In fact, the obituary notes that Gies and her husband would stay quietly at home on the anniversary of the raid, preferring to remember their friends rather than participate in public ceremonies. MSNBC has a previous interview with Miep Gies here . (Photos of Gies in 1999, right, and with her husband Jan Gies, on their wedding day in 1941, left, courtesy of the Anne Frank House.)

I've been surprised by and ashamed of my ignorance of Miep Gies, who died this week. But I have been amazed by the story and moved by the many tributes I've seen. Of all of them, I think this is the most eloquent.

If you attend a lot of online or phone-based meetings, chances are you may love Ketchup, a snappy web-based meeting-notes manager that keeps track of agendas, attendees, action items, who said what, and more.

Ketchup seriously couldn't be any simpler to use. It takes seconds to register for a free account, then you're up and running. Just give your meeting a name, record who's invited or attended, drop in any agenda items and you're done.

There's plenty of room for copious notes, and each meeting record can be easily printed out in a couple of clicks. If you want to make your notes public, just tick the box at the top of the page and your notes will be assigned their own unique URL.

Since it's still under development, Ketchup is currently free. Although its creator says paid versions are in the works, Ketchup will always offer a free version for light users.

Ketchup is a pretty bare bones affair and doesn't have a zillion features, but that's part of its charm. When you need an easy and basic way to track the activity at your next meeting, Ketchup could be just the ticket. What features do you look for in a meeting note manager? Talk about it in the comments.

Ketchup [via Download Squad]

Could come in handy for a lot of folks. And a couple of hours later I saw this notice of Timebridge integration with Evernote. Think of how useful it would be to have searchable and universal access to your meeting notes.