When you try to message your milestone, it’s easy to mistake the milestone for the message. It’s important to realize that what’s meaningful to us internally isn’t necessarily meaningful externally. You still need to show your audience, clients, or customers that you’re helping them get a goal that they want: achieve something, solve a problem, or meet an unmet need.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Jan 16, 2019
5 min
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.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Jan 9, 2019
9 min
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.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWester.com.
Jan 2, 2019
11 min
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 may shape who you are.”
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Dec 19, 2018
6 min
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.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Dec 12, 2018
6 min
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. It’s common for ALL of your messaging to be focused on how: the features and benefits of your product or service. The problem is that How is only useful to address once the audience when your audience gets to What Now.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Dec 5, 2018
7 min
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. But there’s one more thing we can do to make our stories even more powerful. Because in the second act of a good story, there’s a Moment of Truth that causes the third act to happen.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Nov 28, 2018
4 min
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, Peter C. Brown’s Make It Stick, and Magic Words by Tim David.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Nov 21, 2018
5 min
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.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Nov 14, 2018
5 min
Presenting without slides or notes can happen by accident or on purpose, but how do you do it? It’s not about memorization, but internalization. With memorization, you’re thinking about which word comes next. Internalization, however, is about remembering which concept comes after which concept.
Find the Red Thread at TamsenWebster.com.
Nov 7, 2018
8 min
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