Record Your Presentation? The Audacity!

If you’ve seen the classroom video Speaking Effectively to One or One Thousand, then you might remember towards the end of the video that the participants videotaped themselves so they could critique their performance. More Than Powerpoint has an article about the benefits of doing this, even if you only record the audio portion of your presentation:

It’s not because I adore the sound of my voice. Like most people, I don’t care for the way my recorded voice sounds. I prefer the familiar, idealized way my voice sounds in my head. After all, I’m more accustomed to hearing my voice through the thick layer of my skull.

But my recorded voice? To me, it sounds repugnant. Like I’m on the verge of hysteria.

Mercifully, my audience hears my voice differently than I do. Ergo, I frequently record my voice to gain audience empathy… but for two other key reasons, as well.

Yahoo to Allow Users to Skip Targeted Ads

Wired has been tracking stories over the past month about targeted advertising. When you’re on the internet, cookies (packets of data saved to your computer by web sites) keep track of the kinds of searches you make. In turn, that data gets reported back to search engines such as Google or Yahoo, and they are supposed provide advertising to you that’s supposed to be more relevant to your interests based on that search data.

Of course, why I still continue to get banner ads for singles and women in bathing suits on my Yahoo email account is beyond me. I didn’t realize that a search for “smallest town in Indiana” would net me that kind of marketing. Even complaining to them about their near-pornographic banners doesn’t seem to help or bother them–the guy from support asked me if I was seeing a banner with a picture of a “sexy woman” on it. (I told him, no, I don’t see a picture of my wife there, but I digress.)