Marshall, in a recent blog post consisting of interviewing tips, explains that while ultimately, you need to ask insightful questions and lead the interview in interesting directions, you're far more likely to have a good interview if you drop the stiffness and have a real, honest conversation with the person you're interviewing. This may seem obvious, but he lays it out in a way that makes it really clear and easily to implement:

I, as did every super-novice interviewer except maybe Michael Silverblatt, started out by scripting elaborate sheets of questions ahead of time. This is death. Work from a question sheet, and you kill any chance of organic exchange, of real, vital intellectual back-and-forth. You just tick off the boxes and grind awkwardly forth.

As Jack Paar told Dick Cavett, "Kid, don't do interviews. That's clipboards, and David Frost, and what's your pet peeve and favorite movie. Make it a conversation." I once thought of this as a dichotomy between two equal and opposite hosting strategies. In the "facilitated speech," the host's goal is simply to elicit maximally interesting and detailed responses from the guest, minimizing their own presence. In the "conversation," the host both contributes and seeks contribution, potentially even mirroring the guest's role.

Maybe you're doing an interview or an interpersonal communication project from one of the advanced manuals. Maybe you've been stuck in an interview you wish hadn't happened. Here's good advice on how to do it right. More at the source.

Public speaking comes with a lot of assumptions baked into it--forms, formats and formalities that have been used over and over again for centuries. Here's the basic recipe: Someone, the expert, strides to the front, gets introduced, stands behind a lectern on a raised platform and speaks for 30 minutes to an hour, perhaps taking a few audience questions at the end, but only if time permits. People in the audience listen, and clap at the beginning and end. There might be handouts to take away with more information, or business cards.

More and more, I'm seeing that standard recipe get re-mixed, thanks to the influence of social media--and not just one kind of social media, either.  Here are the six ingredients of speeches and presentations that are getting tossed and turned in the process:

1. Who speaks:  Today's audiences expect to speak, share, question and contribute--so much so, I encourage my trainees to open their presentations with a Q&A session, to get the audience participating right away.  All forms of social media, from networks like Facebook and Twitter to online video and blogging, have given "the people formerly known as the audience" a series of microphones and platforms of their own, and they're using them. 
2. Who shares: Once upon a time, only three people controlled what was shared outside the meeting room: The organizer, the speaker and any journalists who were covering the session.  Today, the tools for sharing what's happening, live and in real time, are right in your mobile phone or laptop. 
3. Who stands where:  At a TEDx event in New York focused one education, speaker Jeff Jarvis told his listeners, "You should be up here."  He was speaking to the audience's expertise, but many speakers also are moving into the audience to hold listeners' attention, make a stronger connection and provide some visual variety.  Standing behind the lectern's falling more and more by the wayside.
4. Who listens:  Listening in doesn't require being in the room anymore, thanks to the backchannel on Twitter and similar sites. That also means that "listeners" can scroll through an account of your talk hours, days or months later. You may need to provide more context online, including your slides, the text of your remarks or additional comments.  I've taken to creating blog posts with useful links after my major addresses--they become the "handout" and the context, all in one.
5. Who watches:  With a webcam on a laptop, a cellphone or a Flip camera or other ultralight camcorder, your audience can record and upload your remarks within minutes--or choose to livestream it.  Speakers who address audiences with "just between us in this room" remarks, beware. 
6. And for how long:  The instant gratification, speed and variety of information available in social media can't be matched in most formal speeches.  Attention spans are getting shorter, which is why I recommend that speakers need a strong, fast start.  No matter how much time you're allotted, use far less for your formal remarks. Open it up for questions, take some Twitter breaks and get the audience involved.

Denise Graveline's title for her post is "How social media remixes public speaking." You get the point. The nature of speakers and audiences is changing. You've got to recognize it and be ready for it.

Lisa Brathwaite uses a spot you didn't see during the Super Bowl to ground a valuable question for your next presentation: "How can you find a way...to turn a traditional or even clichéd concept on its head?" Click through for her whole post.

You want to learn how to make a good presentation?

Who better than Cicero himself could teach you?

Here is the recipe of Chef Cicero, the master of Rhetoric in Ancient Rome:

Serves a small meeting as well as a thousand people conference. Adapt the length of the cooking to the length of the speech. Now and then, stir the pot. Adapt the cooking temperature and seasoning (delivery, especially) to the type of audience and the result expected...

First find the ingredients  

• Fresh and juicy Arguments
  

• Piquant and sharp Counter-arguments

• Toothsome Ideas

• Scrumptious Examples

• Sweet Anecdotes

• Spicy Stories

• Mouth watering Savory metaphors

• Peppery Data

• Gustatory Images

I found this appetizing piece on Marion Chapsal's blog via a post in which Kathy Rieffenstein suggests blogs you shouldn't miss. Maybe this isn't such a novel idea, though. I was also struck by a piece on Lifehacker recently which suggested structuring meetings like dinner parties for good results.

3 March

I found another reference to this theme at Presentation Advisors.