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Nick Morgan’s Speaker Critiques
Are you looking for a speaker for your next event? Do you wonder whether or not that famous speaker is as good as the hype? Do you want to learn from the best? Communications coach Nick Morgan analyzes some of the world’s most prominent speakers and provides his honest critiques based both on live performances and on videos of their talks that have been posted online.
Shai Agassi’s plan for electric, zero-emission vehicles makes so much sense and is such a radical departure from the old thinking on the subject of powering cars that I’m afraid it won’t get the hearing that it deserves. Agassi needs to work on trust rather than intellectual argument, and his brilliant idea will spread much faster. More…
Stewart Brand is one long-term cool individual. He was associated with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, he founded The Whole Earth Catalog, and he wrote one of the most interesting books on buildings ever written: How Buildings Learn. More…
Richard Branson may well be the world’s most famous entrepreneur. He got his start selling records out of the trunk of his car — or ‘boot’, since he’s English. Today, some 360 companies later, he’s the Chairman of Virgin Group, and has innovated or even overturned more industries than most of us have heard of, including space flight. But how good a speaker is he? More…
Marcus Buckingham is a phenomenon — a polished speaker able to project a poised, conversational, comfortable demeanor on small screens and in big halls, and a bestselling author several times over. Marcus comes out of the Gallup organization, and he bases his work on one simple claim from years of Gallup polling and research: you’ll do better to focus on your strengths (and your employees’ strengths) rather than trying to fix your (and their) weaknesses. More…
Ram Charan once was the best-kept secret in the business world. Only the CEOs of companies like GE, Verizon, Novartis, Dupont, Honeywell, KLM, and Bank of America had heard of him. Today, thanks to his speaking, his books, and his articles in BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, and Fortune, which described him as the “most influential consultant alive,” he’s widely known as one of the world’s top management gurus and advisors to CEOs. More…
Robin Chase is the genius behind the Zipcar, the urban solution to the hassle of owning a car that allows you to pick up the kind of car you need when and where you need it and then leave it parked on the street when you’re done. I’ve always been impressed with the concept, and so I looked forward to her talk on TED.com with great interest. Unfortunately, her manner of delivery seemed to put off the audience and get in the way of receiving those good ideas. More…
Jim Collins, author most famously of Good to Great and Built to Last, doesn’t speak in public all that often, but when he does, he’s worth hearing. He’s a brilliant, charismatic speaker, because he embodies the 2 secrets of charisma: focus and passion. More…
Mihaly is the expert on ‘Flow’, that state of happy absorption into any creative process that he has documented as part of a life-long research project on happiness. What’s Mihaly’s insight? It turns out, alas, that money doesn’t buy you happiness. In fact, beyond a certain minimal level, happiness does not increase with increased material wealth. More…
Noted scholar Jared Diamond presents at TED on “Why Societies Collapse.” It’s a classic instance of brilliant content married to a faulty delivery. Diamond describes five reasons why societies fail. He uses as an example the European settlement on Greenland, that began in the 900s or so and died out roughly 500 years later. More…
Few of us have climbed a mountain or won a top sales prize, so those that have done so are worth paying attention to for what they have to say. Fewer still have climbed a really big mountain, like, say, McKinley, or won a President’s Club award — the kind that go out to the very best salespeople. But I can only think of one person who has climbed the highest mountains on each of the 7 continents (yes, that includes Everest), and won 11 President’s Club awards over a 23-year corporate career: Susan Ershler. More…
For energy and passion on a subject that is important for everyone interested in the future of the human race to rally around, Steve Farber is hard to beat. In his earlier books, The Radical Leap and The Radical Edge, Steve worked to infuse love, energy, audacity, and proof into business leadership. In his latest book, Greater Than Yourself, he urges people to give up traditional mentoring and instead take on one person that you’re going to help become… Greater Than Yourself. More…
Seth Godin has an extraordinary ability to take complex topics and break them down, explain them clearly, and make them appear simple. That’s the essence of great marketing, and it’s why so many of Seth’s books have been bestsellers. As a speaker, Seth has the persona of an approachable, down-to-earth academic, very smart and savvy. More…
Marshall Goldsmith is a professor, consultant, and coach, who talks and writes about leadership. He’s the author of some 24 books, including The Leader of the Future (Jossey-Bass, 1997), perhaps the most popular book on leadership ever written… He pioneered the idea of 360-degree feedback, and Fast Company has named him America’s pre-eminent executive coach. More …
The management guru Gary Hamel has had more Harvard Business Review articles reprinted more often than anyone else — 15 and counting. He’s a visiting professor at the London Business School, the founder of a new venture called MLab, which seeks to “accelerate the evolution of management knowledge and practice,” the author of several seminal books on management… The Wall Street Journal recently said he was the world’s most influential business thinker. More …
Plainly, the Heath brothers are gifted packagers and storytellers. What you’ll see in Dan (at least) is a very engaging, relaxed speaker who’s quite good at holding an audience — even after lunch. He’s a natural teacher, at ease with asking his audience to take a short test and throwing his listeners lots of questions to keep them engaged. More…
It’s an ADD world, information-saturated, and 24/7 — this everyone knows. Sally Hogshead has figured out what anyone wanting some attention can do about the short attention span of our fellow humans. In a word, what you have to do is fascinate your species. More…
Bjarke Ingels is a Danish architect on a quest to prove to the world that sustainable building doesn’t need to be boring or self-denying. With cool irony and sly humor, Ingels grounds a discussion of three extraordinary building complexes in a bigger argument for thinking way, way, way out of the box architecturally speaking. More…
Steve Jobs has a near-mythical reputation in the presentation world as someone who has regularly wowed audiences over the years with his new product announcements at Macworld. But just how good a public speaker is he really? I’ll probably get grumbles from Jobs’ fans for saying this, but he’s a good, not a great, speaker. More…
Guy Kawasaki epitomizes Silicon Valley cool — he’s a former Apple employee, now a venture capitalist. He’s written books on entrepreneurship that eschew grand theories in favor of practical advice: The Art of the Start and Reality Check. I recommend both highly if you’re an entrepreneur or you have those cravings. Wearing my own entrepreneur’s hat for a moment, as the President of Public Words Inc, a communications company, I can vouch for the good advice in Guy’s writings. More…
Philip Kotler is a marketing consultant and a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University in Chicago. He’s probably the world’s most influential thinker on strategic marketing. He’s on any number of top ten lists of important business gurus. He’s written more than 40 books, including some of the basic textbooks in the marketing field, such as Marketing Management and Principles of Marketing. More…
Paul Krugman shows up as number 3 on Forbes’ most influential management gurus list. He’s a brilliant economist, winner of the Nobel Prize for his work on international trade, prolific writer of books, and blogger for the New York Times. What kind of speaker is he? More…
Called “One of the Most Influential Women in Technology” by Fast Company, Charlene Li is an accomplished speaker on the subject of social media — the topic of her notable book Groundswell (Harvard Business Press, 2008) and her research. You can see her speaking on interactivity and social media here… More…
David Meerman Scott has just updated his 2007 bestseller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR. A lot has happened in the last 2 and a half years in social media — Facebook, Twitter and Ashton Kutcher, to name a few — and the good news is that David gets virtually all of the new developments in this second edition. What makes David such fun to watch is his enthusiasm and passion for the topic of social media. More…
Nicholas Negroponte talks at TED about his One Laptop Per Child program. It’s a great program and one that deserves wholehearted support from people in developed countries. My comments focus on the talk and Negroponte’s delivery of it, not on the worth of the program. In fact, to demonstrate that sentiment tangibly, I’ve just gone to the OLPC website and made a donation to give a laptop. I figure that entitles me to speak freely. More…
Jamie Oliver burst onto the world scene as a celebrity chef thanks to his “Naked Chef” TV series in the late 1990s, followed by other TV shows, successful books, endorsement deals with supermarkets, and an assault on school lunches, first in the UK and then in the US. He won the 2010 TED Prize for his efforts to start a healthy food and eating revolution. How does he get a standing ovation, and more importantly, how does he make the speech memorable? More…
Why is Tom Peters cool now? He’s just come out with a new book, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE. The guy is a phenom and well worth the price of admission, whether it’s for the books, or a speech, or just a visit to the website. Peters should be on everyone’s guru short list — and a source of inspiration in your day-to-day work. More…
Pink was Al Gore’s speechwriter before he became a free-agent, right-brained, intrinsically motivated writer and advice dispenser. Oddly, his speaking style is reminiscent of Gore’s — but in a good way. More…
Michael Porter is a University Professor at Harvard, one of the founders of the Monitor Group, the author of several of the most significant books on competition and competitive advantage, including On Competition, Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage — and the guy who taught the world how to optimize a supply chain. More…
Is it possible to give an entire 20-minute talk without breathing? Of course not, but Virginia Postrel gives it a good go with her talk on glamour on TED.com. The talk is fascinating because it shows all the reasons why breathing is the most important fundamental of good speaking. To breathe poorly or shallowly is to invite disaster. More…
Samantha Power works at Harvard, and writes about U.S. foreign policy, especially as it concerns war and genocide. Her talk on TED.com is remarkable for two reasons. First, she discusses, with passion and insight, the issue of U.S and global response to genocide. She gives us all a grade, as befits a part-time academic, and it’s not good: a ‘C’ at best. More…
Who is the world’s most influential business thinker? According to Forbes, it’s C. K. Prahalad, Professor of Corporate Strategy at the University of Michigan, and author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Competing for the Future, and other books.More…
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Sir Ken Robinson is passionately devoted to spreading creativity around, first in education, and then in the rest of human endeavor. I’m wholeheartedly with him on this project; it’s a life-long cause of mine too. He’s written 2 books on the subject: The Element and Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative. More…
Tim Sanders is a certifiable rock star of the business speaking circuit. Check him out telling a story about Timberland from his new book, Saving the World at Work. Tim’s the author of two very successful previous books: Love is the Killer App, and The Likeability Factor, and he’s an amazing speaker with tons of energy, enthusiasm, and, well, likeability. More…
A talk on TED.com inspired me because I often get questions about presenting in pairs — people ask, is it a good idea, how do you do it, what are the pitfalls, and so on. Keith Schacht and Zach Kaplan are two lovable nerds who run something called Inventables, which seems to be a company that collects ideas and products that use materials in new ways. More…
As CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt needs little introduction. And before his current world-shaking job, he was CTO of Sun Microsystems, where he led Java development, and CEO of Novell. He was also on the Board of Apple before he resigned to avoid conflicts of interest between Apple and Google. Clearly, he’s a big deal in the rarified world of high-tech giants. More…
Stoll may be the weirdest public speaker I’ve ever seen, but you probably have seen weirder ones. Let me know your nominations for the title, and I'll blog on the best ones over the holidays. In the meanwhile, Stoll’s TED performance will teach you a good deal about how to hold the interest of the audience. More…
James Surowiecki wrote a bestseller, The Wisdom of Crowds, in which he discussed how large groups of people are able to predict the future (in horse racing, for example) or make accurate estimates (the number of jelly beans in a jar) with far more accuracy than individuals — or even experts. It’s a great book, so I looked forward to James’ talk. More…
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Gary’s passion spills out all over the set, the stage, the audience. He’s taking no prisoners, and the result is captivating. It covers the many little ways in which he breaks some perfectly good rules of public speaking. More…
Jack Welch is probably the most famous CEO in the world — still, despite having been retired from GE since 2001. His reign there was controversial — some called him Neutron Jack for reducing GE’s head count from over 400,000 to less than 300,000 in his first five years as CEO. In 2000, he was named ‘manager of the century’ by Fortune. More…
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Once in a while, I get to see a real pro at work, and it helps makes up for all the painful speeches I’ve had to sit through. Benjamin Zander’s 20 minutes on TED.com demonstrates how good a public speech can be when you do everything right. More…
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