Blogs | Social Signal

If you're involved in public speaking – as someone who delivers speeches and presentations, or as an executive communications practitioner, or as an event organizer – then this is for you.

Over the next several weeks, I'm going to share conversations I'm having with some of the smartest people I know about public speaking and social media: how connected audiences are transforming the world of presentations, and how some forward-thinking speakers are making the most of it.

Dearest Valentine,

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking what we do online isn't real, and doesn't matter. And it doesn't help that we've developed the acronym IRL, In Real Life, to refer to the offline world. 

One of the most seductive things about social media is the way it allows us to quantify things. I have more friends than she does – I must be more popular. That blog post got more hits than this one, so that one's more effective. We have more Twitter followers this month than last month, so we're on the right track.

Numbers are lovely that way. In a world where everything seems open to interpretation, numbers offer certainty. Five is bigger than three: end of argument.

Back in the day, the only real way to have an online conversation was to build your own blog or online community. These days, many people, companies and organizations have their first taste of online conversation and social media through pre-established social networks like Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

A lot of speeches begin with someone introducing you to the audience - reciting your background and qualifications, and then encouraging them to greet you warmly as you head to the microphone.

And once the applause dies down, you're looking at a sea of people who are probably as unfamiliar to you as you are to them. Your first few lines not only have to launch your speech, but establish a rapport and some degree of trust with your audience.

Speechwriting is a notoriously solitary profession. You might have a few conversations with a client, their staff or — if you're writing for yourself — a mirror. But a lot of your work is going to be just you, a keyboard and the unforgiving blank screen.

At least, that used to be the case. But when you're crafting a social speech, speechwriting can be a team activity. And even though you still have to do the actual writing, you can draw on the ideas, experience and ingenuity of a large networked audience.

Can social media catalyze or support political change? To answer that question, you have to understand who is asking, and what they really want to know.

Gmail has had a very interesting redesign. (I love the big fat red "Compose" button. Doesn't work on me, though; I press it, and I'm just as anxious as ever.) You can read about some of the details on the Gmail blog, including an account of the choices they made around designing the left sidebar.