Are you talking to me?

When you're giving a presentation, do you start by doing your homework on who is going to be in your audience? It may not be who you think it is if you're not sure when your microphone is on (especially when you're the British Prime Minister).

I asked Accenture's Business Operations Director Bob Kress for his top suggestion on how presenters can make their speaking more effective. His first recommendation: be familiar with your audience.

"When I'm presenting to any group, one of the most important things to understand is who the audience is and focus on their primary interests. If I'm talking to more senior people, I tend to use fewer slides and focus on business issues vs. technology. Matching the appropriate level of detail and relating it to the audience is a key piece of giving a great presentation. Using the right examples and stories is the way to make any presentation more memorable."

See the full interview in today's TechRepublic on how Bob has adapted the technology strategy at Accenture to a struggling economic climate.

Job Seeking Advice from Ivanka Trump

Heiress Ivanka Trump (now Kushner) has some refreshingly down-to-earth ideas in this interview that aired on FOX earlier this week. Of course, it's not easy to talk convincingly about hard work when you grow up in a life of privilege, but she certainly comes across as more credible than say, Paris Hilton.

The Economics degree from Wharton doesn't hurt the street cred either. Is she more eloquent than the Donald? You decide. My favorite is her job-hunting advice: "Are you counting on the interviewer to ask all the questions?" Kind of reminiscent of The Art of The Deal.

What we repeatedly do

One of my favorite quotes (in fact, it's the first one in my new book) is from Aristotle, who said, "We are what we repeatedly do."

This makes a couple good points at once. First, it's not the exceptions and anomalies that are you. It's not that one piece of chocolate cake, or the one day you don't get your treadmill time in, or even the one time you are late to the office. It is what you do as a habitude.

Secondly, what you repeatedly do is usually up to you; which is both a freedom and a responsibility. As the apostle Paul famously points out, "That which I would do, I do not... wretched man that I am."

Some of the greatest things are very simple in the end (in fact, a lot of them are). I came across this stunningly practical site ("Habitforge" above) recently and hope you'll think it is too. The only caveat I would make is that when you break a habit, it needs a good replacement in order to make a lasting change. And since this is a free site, that doesn't cost anything extra.

* - A giant note of thanks to all of you who have downloaded the free PDF of the book summary from the TechRepublic site. It just went over 5,000 downloads last week.