Here’s where you’ll find insight into how we think and work, how we look and sound, and the tools we deploy to bring your goals to life. Our blog stretches way back, so you might want to peruse the list to see what strikes your interests or needs. Our videos offer a glimpse of several of our coaches — as well as insights into our methods. And when you do work with us, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with our Resource Toolbox to make working with us that much easier.
Blog
Our blog posts offer a rich gathering of insights, tips and suggestions designed to help you become more polished, more influential and more impactful in how you communicate with others. Skim to a title that strikes your interests or needs. And come back often because we are serious keeping it fresh and useful for storytellers everywhere.
3 Best Practices for Better Virtual Meetings
Ruth Milligan is back with another tip from the treehouse. And this time, it’s a survival tip on how to get through our new COVID-19
4 Things We Want You to Know
Dear friends and colleagues, The world feels a bit upside down now. To everyone who is experiencing illness or economic upheaval, our hearts are with you.
5 Tips for a Successful Virtual Pitch
Our Ruth Milligan is back with tips from the treehouse. We’ve been preparing a lot of clients for pitches lately. And we’ve also had clients
Don’t Stop Communicating!
Dear Friends: Our thoughts are with those families who are personally impacted by the Coronavirus. While news of events being cancelled due to the virus
14 Words for Speech Writing Success
In the last few years, I’ve found myself at the interesting intersection of supporting a leader who needs to evolve into an influential speakers, and
Coach Your Internal Speakers to Crush Their Next Talks
Development events, quarterly briefings, town halls, annual meetings, or investor days. If you’re a communication professional, chances are you’re charged with preparing the executives, researchers
Know Thy Audience
If you’re an executive in succession, whether you’re moving from manager to director or from director to the executive team, this tip is for you.
Panel Discussion Pro Tips
Ruth Milligan is back with her video tips from the Articulation tree house. Today’s topic: how to create more inspired panel discussions at your next
How do you get speakers to do THAT?
This week I was invited by a corporate communications senior team at a Fortune 10 company to answer a singular question: How do you get
10 Tips for Entrepreneurs on Articulation’s 10th Anniversary
It’s been 10 years since I shed the skin of my first business, a traditional PR practice, which I ran for eight years, and then
Leaders: How to Alienate Your Audience in 5 Minutes or Less
As you’re preparing for your next presentation, will you engage your audience or alienate them? Here are 5 different but surefire ways to alienate your
Go Deep: How to Show and Manage Your Emotions in Public Speaking
Emotion. Besides breath, emotion is one of the most underrated attributes of our oratorical treasure chests. Dig deep and you will find it can unlock
Big talk coming up? Try these tips to get comfortable.
What do you do to feel comfortable before a big talk? In August I had my largest audience ever: 1,800 at the Convocation for the
The Values of TEDx: Building a Resilient Storytelling Culture
Year 11. Last week we announced our 11th year of speakers for TEDxColumbus. I’ve transitioned to become a member of the curatorial committee, after 10
In your next presentation, seek the question
A while back a friend was invited to speak to the Board of Trustees at his institution. We discussed that while he knew the topic
Convert the conversation into a presentation
Every conversation we have is with ourselves. And on occasion it involves someone else. Every time I repeat this quote in a public speaking class
The Power of Story and Storytelling
As part of NPR’s StoryCorp visit to Columbus, Ruth Milligan participated in a panel discussion on the power of story and storytelling.
The Most Important Day of Your Talk Preparation
This blog post is a quick dedication to the one step in the talk preparation process that is the most important outside the day itself: the final rehearsal.
Videos
Our videos offer a glimpse of several of our coaches — as well as insights into our methods. And you can find more of our videos on our YouTube channel.
Ruth's Tips
FEATURED CLIENT TALKS:
The Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center, WexMed Live
The Ohio State University, Masterminds
Nationwide Children’s Hospital, DiscoveryX
TEDxChicago
Talks not publicly posted: Articulation has additionally coached talks at the following institutions and corporations: UnitedHealthcare, Ford, EcoLab, NetJets, Designers Brands/DSW, Miami University and University of Virginia.
Resource Toolbox
We go through lots of Magic Markers, Post-it Notes and handouts during our classes and coaching sessions. Aside from these basics, we rely on a set of readily available resources designed to be platform agnostic, intuitive and easy to work with. Take a moment to review the tools we’ll be using together.
Voice Memos
This voice recording app comes standard on all iPhones and is available for free for Android devices at the Google Play store. We use this app more than anything else to record practice sessions. We ask speakers to use it to share recorded versions of their talks. All files can be shared via text or email.
We use this tool to record all of our coaching calls. By using it, you’ll be able to listen to your call history and measure your progress over time.
This is our first choice for remote coaching sessions. If you’re used to working with Webex, that’s okay because we are, too. However, we find Zoom better suited to remote coaching and simplifying interaction online.
Power Point and Keynote
Speakers often use support slides in their presentations. But the slides — whether built in PowerPoint or Keynote — are less important than being able to record over them for practice, timing and sharing. That’s why we encourage clients to familiarize themselves with their preferred slide presentation software and its voice recording features. For more on recording with PowerPoint, visit Microsoft support. For Keynote recording help, go to Apple support.
Undoubtedly, this is the Cadillac presenter on the market. But once you understand its capabilities to help with timing and spotlighting, you’ll want one too.
Our most valuable tool is our Mac to HDMI adapter. Regardless of which computer you use, you’ll need the right HDMI cable to connect to our projector. You’ll find the one right for your computer on Amazon.
At-Home Recording Equipment List
Equipment suggestions for at-home video recordings. Download it now.
