I overthink so you don’t have to.

There are two kinds of change, technical and adaptive, and you need to solve for the right one. Tamsen is working on a book about the Red Thread, and it’s been hard to get that change to happen. Michael Bungay Stanier’s advice was that she was probably solving for the wrong kind of change. Technical […]

Now that you have a great title, how do you write descriptions for your talk or presentation? Again, it’s about framing the ideas for the organizer to say yes, which means using the Red Thread. If we write descriptions so the organizer gets all their questions answered, it’ll answer their attendees’ questions, too. To do […]

When we’re trying to title a TEDx talk, we need to make sure it fits a format the organizer expects. If you look at the top 20 titles of TED talks, you’ll notice that none of them use the “Name: Subtitle” format. Instead, they’re always phrases like, “Do schools kill creativity?” or, “Your body language […]

In order to title your keynote or presentation, start by asking what the audience needs to hear. This isn’t necessarily what you yourself think is most interesting or compelling. Instead, it’s about what your audience needs to say yes to before they can engage with those ideas. Your audience wants to know how your keynote […]

You have a message. You want to get it heard. That’s all good. (I mean, people have to hear your message to act on it, right? Right.) Except that’s not enough, is it? Nope. Because after someone hears something, they react to it,  and it’s that reaction that determines what happens next. You can’t get the action […]

Long sales cycles make it hard to structure your message and address the right questions. The key is to instead structure a series of messages that answer the right question at the right time. A message format that your organization probably uses is focused on how. In fact, it’s common for ALL of your messaging […]

The ABT method is just about the simplest storytelling structure, but we can make it more effective. ABT, developed by Randy Olson, stands for “And, But, Therefore.” Each of those words corresponds to an act of a story. The first act is set up so you present, with the “And,” two pieces of information that […]

 This week we look at 3 books that will make you a better communicator by making the useful usable. Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, is amazing at detailing how to get your message to stick with your audience. They make that information usable with an acronym: SUCCES. A great message is […]

Waffle House stays open no matter what, and the Waffle House Index represents their Red Thread. Even though this chain of southern restaurants is committed to keeping their doors open, there are times when a disaster or national emergency makes that impossible. But this is where the Waffle House Index comes into play. Because Waffle […]

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” “Haters aren’t your problem. Ignoring them is.” “You can’t change what you do until you change how you see.” What do those three phrases have in common? They capture someone’s Big Idea (Simon Sinek, Jay Baer,…me). They’re short (tweetable, even!).  They’re clear. They’re memorable, […]