Leaders with lots to say are catching on: a blog is the best way to manage your communication.

With your blog every message you create can be stored in one place, posted and preserved in chronological order.

Where do you start? Draw up a personal communication plan that captures all your expected outreach for the year. Decide which medium works best for each message – email, voicemail, video, e-news, visual presentations, e-newsletters, and meetings. Each time you create and distribute a message, post it on your blog.

Your blog becomes your backstop. It:

• Houses all your communication in one spot
• Accommodates any medium – text, video, slides, photos – either by direct post or link
• Gives you a place to share your news – and views
• Offers your people an easy way to play catch-up
• Gives your people a voice, by encouraging them to ask questions and comment on posts

Build your blog. Advance your personal leadership. Inform and engage, recognize and motivate.

In recent posts we covered the four keys to making a good presentation: content, voice, body language and visual aids. Think you have it nailed? Time to practice.

Even the most seasoned speakers get nervous. Practice helps them tamp their anxiety. They practice until they like what they hear. They prove to themselves that they can deliver a great presentation.

Practice makes you more competent. When you become more competent, you become more confident. When you are confident, you perform at your best.

Whenever you have on a speaking assignment – be it a ten-minute presentation, a one-minute eulogy or a ten-second toast – prepare with care. Ask a trusted confidant to critique you.

Start by checking your content. Make sure you are saying what you want to say.

If speaking from a script, say your words out loud. Which sentences sound good? Which sound too long or too complex? Which words are hard to pronounce, or not quite on the mark? Substitute better words as needed.

Next, check your voice. Think about your pace, volume, pronunciation and tone. Decide which words you want to emphasize. Underline them in your script. Note where it makes sense to pause. 

How are you doing on body language — your posture, eyes, face and hands? Is your posture relaxed? Are you using your eyes to project confidence and credibility? Let your facial expressions reinforce your words. Make sincere smiles work for you. Work in your hands; add simple gestures to reinforce your key points.

Finally, double check your visual aids. Make sure your visuals enrich your verbal message.  

No one masters these attributes all at once. But over time, your abilities will grow. You will learn how to choose your words. You will know how to use your voice and your body to connect with your audience. You will create visual aids that augment but don’t overpower you – the lead act. You might even look forward to taking the stage.

Skilled presenters use visuals to enrich their verbal message. These 10 guidelines will help you create visuals that connect you with your audience.

Go light on text. Use slides as your headlines. You deliver the news. Brief text keeps the focus where it should be – on you. Heavy text leads the viewer to read – and not listen. Use bullet points – no more than five per slide. Limit each bullet to eight words max.

Embrace white space. Let your slides breathe – leave lots of white space. Avoid pointless graphics and chunky text. Less clutter is more power.

Prepare a background document. Each time you present, prepare a document that conveys the essence of your content. Give that document to attendees – and to anyone absent. Don’t give them copies of your slides.

Make it easy to read. Use 44-point text for titles and 32-point text for subtitles and bullets. If the room is large, consider increasing the size. Use the same font set throughout, and use no more than two complementary fonts (e.g., Arial and Arial Bold). Sans-Serif fonts (Arial or Gill Sans) work well. Whatever font you pick, make sure the text is clear from the back of the room.

Limit builds and transitions. Bits of animated text are fine, but too much stifles momentum.

Use attractive graphics. Quality photos work well, especially photos of relevant people. Take your own with a digital camera, buy good stock photos, or use images available on line. Avoid PowerPoint Clip Art or cartoonish line art; most of it is tired and unprofessional.

Create a visual theme. An original and consistent visual theme adds class. A generic design will suggest your presentation is canned. Make your own design or buy templates on-line (see www.powerpointtemplatespro.com).

Chart the right course. Pie charts, bar charts and line charts can be a good way to display data. Display what matters, nothing more. Limit each slide to four slices of pie, or six bars or lines (or six pairs).

Use color well. Colors help persuade and motivate. Cool colors such as blue and green work best for backgrounds. Warm colors such as yellow and orange-red are best for text. A failsafe combo: yellow text on blue background.

Consider video and audio. Good video is a nice change of pace to your slides, a way to hold or heighten interest. You can use video clips in PowerPoint without leaving the application. Short audio clips work too, especially a relevant sound bite from an authority.

One final reminder: never turn your back on your audience and read off your slide.

Your body speaks its own language. One study found that when listeners judge the emotional content of a speech, they give most weight to facial expression and body movement (55 percent); followed by vocal qualities (38 percent); and the words (7 percent).

What are the keys to body language? Your posture, eyes, face and hands.

Posture. Stand upright, your knees slightly flexed. Keep your hands relaxed at your sides, or loosely clasped at your waist. Move around now and then. Take a few steps back, forward or to either side. After you move, stay still for a while. Don’t pace or “jockey” back and forth. Avoid shifting your weight between legs. (If you speak from a lectern, you can rest your hands at either side. But don’t grip it like it’s your life preserver.)

Eyes. Use your eyes to project confidence and credibility. Divide your audience into three sections – left, center and right. Take turns looking at a single person in each section, holding your gaze for a few seconds. Move across sections in random order. Everyone will sense that you are talking directly to them. Be mindful: darting or downcast eyes suggest tension, even dishonesty. When you speak to slides, glance at that material from time to time. But look at your audience for almost your entire talk. 

If you speak from a script you may ask, “How can I look at the audience and read my speech at the same time?” Print your speech in 16-point type. Practice looking at your script, absorbing a phrase or sentence, then looking up and delivering what you’ve absorbed. Rehearse several times. You will learn to finish sentences with your eyes up. Over time, you will learn to do this in a natural rhythm. 

Hands. Use your hands to emphasize a word or phrase. Simply open a hand, or both hands. Avoid contrived gestures like random hand motions, or rubbing your chin. Don’t cross your arms, put your hands on your hips, cover your mouth, or wipe your brow. Watch professional speakers. See what gestures work for them, and try them yourself.

Face. Each of us exhibits thousands of facial expressions. Professional actors learn how to command these expressions; we don’t. But you can put your best face forward. Relax. Let your expressions reinforce your words. Above all, use your smile. Smile when you take the stage. Smile when you say something positive. Smile at the end. Sincere smiles work for you.

The best presenters master five vocal attributes. They speak at the right pace and volume. They articulate every word. They control tone, emphasizing the right words. They pause at the right time.

Pace:  Inexperienced presenters tend to speak too fast, unsettling their audience. Speak a bit slower than your natural pace. A relaxed pace will allow you to breathe naturally. Your audience will hear and take in your words. When you rehearse, try to say no more than 150 words a minute.

Volume:  Pace and volume work together. When you speak at a deliberate pace, you will find it easier to control your volume. Speak loudly enough so that everyone can easily hear you. That means sustaining a volume that is slightly higher than your normal voice. If the room is too deep or wide, use a microphone.

Articulation: Pronounce every word clearly. One mispronounced word will erode your credibility. The same goes for names. With any tricky name or word, make sure you have it right. If needed, write in your script the phonetic spelling and indicate the accented syllables.

Tone: Vary your tone by drawing on the full range of your natural speaking voice. Highlight key words or phrases and emphasize them. Beware of speaking in a monotone; a flat voice ruins even the best-written speech.

Pauses. Most speakers are afraid of silence. But you need not fill every second with sound. In fact, your audience will appreciate a well-timed pause. It gives them to time to catch up with your words. Try to avoid using fillers like “um” and “you know.” These verbal hiccups distract your listeners and tar your credibility. Need a second to find the right word? Pause, but don’t fill.

Next up: body language

Four keys to firing up your audience

I’ve spent much of the last week helping pharma executives prepare to present at a national sales meeting. This exercise reminds me that skilled presenters master four keys: content, voice, body language, and visual aids. We’ll cover one key in each of the next four posts, starting today with content.

Content is king. You must be relevant. No shake, Sherlock, right? But how often have you sat through an eloquent talk that means nothing to you? I am convinced that the main reason people dread going to corporate meetings is because they learn nothing. Tell your audience something they don’t know. Better yet, inspire them. 

Let’s say the meeting owner or your boss assigns you a topic. If it’s relevant, great. Now challenge yourself to think of a better topic. Start by asking why you’re speaking to this group. What do you want to say, and what do they want to hear? Thoughtful speakers deliver on both sides of that question.

Once settled on content, skilled speakers shape their messages with a discrete opening, middle, and closing. They open by defining their purpose. They make their supporting points. They close by repeating their key points, and if appropriate, setting next steps.

Whether you speak off a script or to slides, act as if you are talking to a single friend. When you speak in conversation, you naturally vary your sentence length — short, medium, long. Do the same on stage, but favor short, simple sentences. They are easier to say, to hear, and to understand. Like the eye, the ear grows tired of big words.

When you have a resonant message, your next challenge is your voice – how you to say it. Tomorrow we’ll address your three most important vocal features – pace, volume, and articulation.

Every good email message has five parts: 

• an appropriate distribution
• an engaging subject line
• a proper greeting
• a message with relevant content presented in clear, simple language
• a credible signature line 

Distribution: Send your message only to people who can benefit or help you get what you need. A good rule to follow: everyone on the “To” line must take some action. Everyone on the “cc” (carbon copy) line is expected to read the message but not act.

Subject line: Think of your subject line as a headline for a news story. You want to draw your reader into the message. This line should say what the message is and what the reader must do. Aim to do this in six words or fewer. Here’s a weak subject line: Report due. A better one: Outsourcing Report due tomorrow. Avoid unfocused subject lines such as “Project North Star” or “FYI.”

Greeting: First impressions count. Consider your relationship with your reader. If you know your reader well, use the reader’s first name. When you write to someone you don’t know, use Mr. or Ms. Always confirm the gender of your recipient. If “Chris Jones” is a woman, she will not appreciate being addressed, “Mr. Jones.” When writing to a woman, use “Ms.” rather than “Miss” or “Mrs.”

Message: People who receive loads of email each day often read only the first line of each message. State your purpose in the first sentence. Show that you are providing some value, or asking the reader to do so. If you need your reader to take immediate action or meet a deadline, say so up front. Don’t bury a directive at the end. Here’s a simple example: “The meeting with Jim Nasium on Tuesday has been moved from the boardroom to the conference room, so could you please notify the caterer of this change? Please instant-message me today by 5 p.m. to verify.”

Signature line: End with a signature line that establishes your credibility. This information makes clear who you are, and allows the reader to contact you by phone, fax or mail. Your line includes:

•  your name                               Tory Smoot
• your position                          Vice President of Marketing
• company name                       Seasons Greeting Cards
• office phone number              917.415.6675 (o)
• mobile phone number*          917.415.3326 (m)
• fax number                             917.415.2343 (f)
• street address                          1400 Elm Street, Suite 2200
• city, state, zip                         Denver, CO 90876
• company web address            www.seagreet.com

 * (Think about whether you want this in the public domain)

Feel free to share these guidelines with anyone who communicates on your behalf.

Email is quick, easy and low-cost. It is less direct than a phone call, more reliable than a facsimile. Time zones and locations are no barrier for sender or receiver.

But email is misunderstood — and misused. Let’s puncture three myths:

Email is temporary. Since we delete most of the email we receive, that leads us to think that email is fleeting. The truth is, any email you send or receive can be preserved forever. Even an email that is deleted by the recipient can live on in servers that you and your recipient do not control.

Email is personal and private. Most accounts are protected by a personal password. But that does not mean that only you can gain access to your accounts. If your account is provided by your employer, your email is company property. Any message sent or received may be reviewed at any time by the company, without notice. Any message you create can be used against you in a legal proceeding. In a 2006 study led by the American Management Association, 24 percent of companies polled had e-mail subpoenaed by courts and 15 percent had faced lawsuits based on employee e-mails.

Email is a good place to vent. Before you tap out that scathing note, consider the difference between intended audience and actual audience. You may be sending your message to only one person, but that person could copy the world. The next time you have a pointed message to deliver, you may want to speak, not write.

When you use email for business, observe the overnight rule. Let any document that could be misread cool until the next day. Re-read it, and strike any content that could put you at risk.

Next up: the five keys to a powerful email message

Tiger Woods duffed his practice swing. Now he gets a second chance.

When his double life was revealed to the public a month ago, Woods failed on his first attempt at crisis response. He offered a half-baked admission that was more a lament about the perils of text-messaging than a heartfelt apology. He addressed a most personal issue not in person, but with a statement on his website.

Woods’ misadventures have touched off an avalanche of speculation and satire. Not a good place to be, especially for the world’s most famous athlete, a guy who lives in the very public domain of professional golf.

But now Woods has a chance to tee it up again. Tiger, here’s what you should do. Hold a press conference and tell your story.

1. Remind people that you have already admitted to unfaithful behavior. Leave it at that.

2. APOLOGIZE, to your family, your friends, your competitors, your fans.

3. Talk about what you have done to address your weakness – not in detail, but enough to show your commitment.

4. Emphasize the future. Say that your focus is on your family. Briefly address your family’s status. Nobody’s business? You’ve made it everybody’s business.

5. Talk about your passion to rejoin the tour and play at your best.

6. Stress that this is behind you now. That you will not talk about the past. That from now on, the focus is on the future, and Tiger Woods, the golfer.                

7. Do not take questions.

This will be a painful ten minutes. But it’s like the old Fram Oil Filter ad. You can pay me now, or you can pay me later. Step up and lead people out of the past and into the future. Say nothing, and let the avalanche keep surging down the slope.

Curious about “tablet” computing? Here’s what Sports Illustrated has in store.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyXvLnxyXk