2 Minute Talk Tips

2 Minute Tip: Confirm Value At the end of a presentation, I like to ask the audience, "Was this helpful?" or "Was this valuable?"   Usually there is still a lot of energy in the room and folks will answer with an enthusiastic, "Yes!"   Obviously, this is great for my ego, but it also does a couple other things. It gives the audience members a chance to acknowledge their own approval. They have now acknowledged that yes, this session was a good use of their time. They are also more likely to remember that it was valuable because they experienced saying it was valuable. Further, once folks say something out loud among other people, they are more likely to continue to believe it.   Post Tip Discussion: Avoid Offensive language   Among the updates to the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is a change to pronouns. They now consider "they" and "their" to be acceptable 3rd person, singular, gender-neutral pronouns. This got me thinking about the evolution of language.   Words and phrases that may have be