Even the best of the speech is lackluster. Now turn to Cicero's Philippics, as translated by the wartime code breaker DR Shackleton Bailey 30 years ago, and published late last year by Loeb. Though much is long, and embedded with subclauses, vivid phrases abound:

From a post at Forbes by Trevor Butterworth. I disagree with the point he ultimately draws--Twitter may be, in many ways, absurd; but it may also hasten the inner ear to the voices and glories of the past.--because as much as I wish I could speak as Cicero must have, I don't necessarily think that we have to sound like Cicero every time we speak. If we could all be Shakespeare, we'd certainly appreciate a break from the rhetoric from time to time, and it's the writing i another style that would gain impact. Read the whole post to see what you think. I did appreciate this paragraph about imagery because earlier today I appreciated Martin Shovel's post about imagery in Martin Luther King's speeches. I confess that I must have been anticipating this thought

There is no question that President Obama has revived political oratory from a sorry state, one that indicts Democrats as well as Republicans, and one dictated not just by the cutting power of television sound bites, which shrunk presidential aspirations from 42 seconds in 1968 to seven seconds by 2000, but also by the willful abandonment of the debating chamber for chatting in the committee room. But many commentators pointed out that President Obama did not seem particularly happy giving his speech at West Point, and no wonder, when he had to declaim entire passages that vary so little in length and meter.

when I was disappointed with my own writing this afternoon precisely because the sentence patterns were so repetitive and monotonous.

Just by chance I turned to Tom Peters after I read Butterworth's post and found this appreciation of Twitter limits and style

The "mea culpa" refers to my absorbing "distraction" (attraction) during the trip. Namely, Twitter. First, I like Twitter as a communication tool, though I plead guilty as charged by some in terms of mostly using it as a one-way communication vehicle—no small sin. Second, I find the 140-character limit a magnificent challenge! I am in the "beginner's mind" mode—and I am definitely learning anew that "practice makes better," or so I assume and hope. I believe that one can have a full-scale "opinion piece" on a serious topic that occupies 140 characters or less. Hence, I am choosing mostly to use Twitter as a straightforward opinion registry, and am leaving the mega-link practice to many many many others. In short, there are a host of things I really really give a shit about—I've been saying my piece in as many settings as possible for over 35 years, and I'm not inclined to stop; as I recently tweeted, my "live stuff" has absorbed about 5 or 6 million miles and about 9,000 flight legs since 1973.

Narrative is important to how we remember stuff. You remember the story behind Lord of the Rings because there's strong narrative. Sure, it's a big book and there's songs, poetry, history etc. all in there, but there's also a narrative thread pulling you through the whole thing (The Ring is dangerous, it needs to be destroyed in order to stop Sauron's rise to power, Frodo the hobbit takes the ring into the middle of the enemy's lands and destroys it even though to others he is a small and seemingly insignificant person). Long after you've forgotten the song of Tom Bombadil, you'll still remember the gist of the story of Lord of the Rings.

Lack of narrative makes stories much more difficult to follow - your brain has to work that much harder to recall the sequence of events later. Exhibit A - Ice Age 2. Chris Atherton (Finite Attention Span) points out that your brain has a better ability to recognise gestalt principles of similarity, connectedness etc. and so it seems natural to suppose that narrative helps us recall the content of presentations better.

BUT (and it's quite a big but) how do you construct narrative in technical presentations? There's no "story" right? This isn't "The adventures of Mike's data". Well, this is where it gets tricky. You need to think laterally.

Mike Smith addresses a common problem with technical presentations--since they lack a story, they're hard to remember--at Posterous. Read the whole post for Mike's solution.

Later today, Lisa Braithwaite offered these suggestions for storytelling as she recounted her experience at a specialty food trade show

1. Tell stories that engage your audience and make them want to stick around for more. 
2. You, the speaker, are your brand, and you are a human being. Make a connection like a human being, not like a salesperson. 
3. When you're trying to get people to notice you and hire you, you have to notice them. If you're too important or too busy, they will move on to someone who pays attention.

This video features the device I use to walk, the hospital where I learned how to use it, and the therapist who taught me to use it. Thanks to all.

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.