We are offering three (3) Scolarships to the 3/22 Mini-Conference for staff, board members, and directors of small Non-Profit organizations.

Please email Reiko@thetoolboxinc.com with your organization’s name, your position and a short paragraph about why [...]]]>

Would you like to come to the Mini-Conference but just can’t afford to? Scholarships available for 3/22 Mini-Conference!

Next Mini-Camp set for Tuesday, March 22, 2011

We are offering three (3) Scolarships to the 3/22 Mini-Conference for staff, board members, and directors of small Non-Profit organizations.

Please email Reiko@thetoolboxinc.com with your organization’s name, your position and a short paragraph about why we should choose you for one of the scholarships.  Scholarship applications will be accepted until Thursday, March 17th at 5:00 PM.  Scholarship recipients will be notified on Friday, March 18th.

We look forward to receiving your email!

Another point of note to really stress in continuing with this recent series of blog posts is to ask yourself these questions about what is potentially motivating your target audience:

It doesn’t matter how experienced a speaker is, when I put a camera in front of them for the first time most of them tend to get really nervous.  They start to lose track of their thoughts, their eyes start to dart around and their bodies become fidgety.  This happens so [...]]]>

Speaking on Camera is Different

It doesn’t matter how experienced a speaker is, when I put a camera in front of them for the first time most of them tend to get really nervous.  They start to lose track of their thoughts, their eyes start to dart around and their bodies become fidgety.  This happens so often that helping the speaker to relax and become comfortable with the camera in the room is part of the process of getting great video.

It is true that speaking on camera is different than speaking in person.  You can’t see the reaction of the person you are speaking to and attention spans of viewers is really short.  With this in mind there are a few things to keep in mind that will really help.

The first thing I do is to help the presenter with where to look.  It’s really important to keep eye contact somewhere.  Just like keeping eye contact with the person you are speaking to in person develops trust, the same works for the camera.

The second – do not memorize lines.  Unless you are a professional newscaster with a teleprompter or and actor, reciting memorized lines will sound fake.  Instead, have an outline of what you want to say and internalize your thoughts.  You are an expert in your given field and talk to people all the time.  Internalize what you think the most important points are and just tell them like you would in person.

Keeping these two simple ideas should really help.  If you would like to learn more about making great presentations for video, join us for our next Networking for Non-profits on the Cape, September 29th at Cape Cod Children’s Museum!

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event September 30th!

To continue from the previous blog post, it is important to understand the sequence of what you are asking. How do you get people interested? How do you show them you have thought this out? How do you get them to feel compelled?

I always stress to save the [...]]]>

Guest post by Chad O’Connor, Adjunct Professor Emerson College

To continue from the previous blog post, it is important to understand the sequence of what you are asking. How do you get people interested? How do you show them you have thought this out? How do you get them to feel compelled?

I always stress to save the more controversial or questionable parts of whatever you are saying for close to the end. Not the very end, as that can leave a potentially bad last impression if that is someone’s hang-up with what you have been talking about, but placed somewhere near the end can have a great effect. How this is achieved is that you have built up your case and hence your transactional credibility throughout the earlier parts of what you are talking about. By the time you get to the controversial or questionable material you have already built up a reservoir of good will and good thoughts from your audience – if you have demonstrated yourself well early they are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt and move on quickly to continue listening to what you are saying.

When you put questionable or controversial material early in the speech you risk turning off the audience all together. While it might be tempting to say you are going to save your audience time and cut right to the chase, first ask yourself if cutting to the chase is really in your best interest or if you need to take the time to build your case first. Hypothetically speaking, say your nonprofit’s mission is to help starving children in Africa. If you lead off with the blunt but effectively to the point “We are here today to ask for financial support in helping to feed starving children in Africa” my firm bet is that you will lose a significant portion of the audience right off who will instead be thinking of other things (probably closer to home) where the money would be better served in use. If instead you start off by outlining all the horrible conditions that starving children in Africa have to endure, have a personalized story, etc. before you get to the ask for money, you are much more likely to have them hooked.

Chad O’Connor teaches communication at Emerson College in Boston, serves as a connector for Boston World Partnerships, and works with various individuals, companies and nonprofits as a communication consultant on issues such as public speaking, message strategy, copy refining, etc. Chad can be contacted at his gmail account, chad.a.oconnor ,and found on Twitter @chadoconnor

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event September 30th!

In an earlier guest blog I mentioned some issues regarding uses and gratifications and selective exposure. To recap, we are constantly seeking ways when we communicate to get people to pay attention to us, and when they do pay attention to what we are saying they are more [...]]]>

Guest post by Chad O’Connor, Adjunct Professor Emerson College

In an earlier guest blog I mentioned some issues regarding uses and gratifications and selective exposure. To recap, we are constantly seeking ways when we communicate to get people to pay attention to us, and when they do pay attention to what we are saying they are more likely only listening for key signals and thoughts that reaffirm what they believe already.

To get deeper into this concept, it is increasingly important to focus on the way we phrase what we say, the order in which we are saying it, and changing our approach based on the audience. The importance of this comes to bear when people come to the conversation with preconceived ideas about the speaker and what the speaker is looking to accomplish. In the nonprofit world, just as in the rest of the economy, people are looking for money. Though your cause may be noble, this does not mean that your potential audience is experiencing some donor fatigue. They have been hit up for money already from so many angles that yet another person asking for money may be too much to bear. When they know they have a meeting coming up with a nonprofit they may be conditioned to be immediately defensive or reluctant if they know that an ask for money will be coming within minutes.

I suggest being open to outside the box solutions and asks because it truly engages your audience and reduces some of their preconceived barriers. By asking for more general help (ie. “So what we are asking for is your assistance in any way you thing you can help: connections to people; in-kind items or services that could accomplish X; coming to future events to show your support”) you get people to think about what is the best way they can get involved, not just say to themselves “I don’t have money to give right now so I’m not getting involved.” How you build this case will be the subject of my next blog entry.

Chad O’Connor teaches communication at Emerson College in Boston, serves as a connector for Boston World Partnerships, and works with various individuals, companies and nonprofits as a communication consultant on issues such as public speaking, message strategy, copy refining, etc. Chad can be contacted at his gmail account, chad.a.oconnor ,and found on Twitter @chadoconnor

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event September 30th!

The resume looks great, the prescreening phone conversation went well and now it’s time to meet the candidate face to face. Often times, the interviewer has less than an hour to make their determination on a candidate, so the questions must be effective in getting the information necessary to [...]]]>

Nancy Saperstone, Insight Performance HR Consultant

The resume looks great, the prescreening phone conversation went well and now it’s time to meet the candidate face to face. Often times, the interviewer has less than an hour to make their determination on a candidate, so the questions must be effective in getting the information necessary to make an educated decision about a candidate’s qualifications and potential success in a position. Sounds easy, but figuring out what those questions are, is not as easy as it may sound.

Behavioral Interviewing is an interview technique that relies on questions around how the candidate behaved in previous situations. The idea is that past behavior is a predictor of future success. Experience has shown that people are more likely to repeat behavior, rather than change, so by understanding what has happened in the past one can somewhat predict the future. By implementing behavioral interviewing techniques, companies often find a decrease in employee turnover, as they are able to hire qualified employees for the positions with a better fit.

Behavioral interview questions are open ended and force the candidate to talk about what they did in certain past situations verses how they might respond in the future. When asking traditional questions, the candidate is able to form an answer they think the interviewer wants to hear or how they’d like to perform, if given the chance. Behavioral questions, however, direct them to talk about what actually happened and to give a specific example of a past situation. Any interview will be a combination of behavioral based and traditional interview questions. Traditional interview questions allow the interviewer to assess experience as written on the resume, clarify skills and ask basic questions. The combination of both types of interview questions will result in a good assessment of the skills, experience and fit for the position.

In order to conduct an effective behavioral interview, the interviewee must prepare in advanced. The resume, job description and any other collateral information should be carefully reviewed. Determining specific skills and behavioral traits necessary to be successful in the job is imperative. Once you’ve identified those skills and behaviors, you can begin designing your questions that will help you assess if the candidate possesses those skills and behaviors.

What are you favorite behavioral interview questions?

Nancy Saperstone is a Human Resource Consultant and Blogger for Insight Performance with over fifteen years of experience in Human Resources.

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event in August!

You can’t escape social media and personal computer usage on the job – or can you? Many companies have implemented blogging and personal computer usage policies as part of their Employee Handbook and Information Technology Policy. The focus of such employee policies gives personal bloggers guidelines on how to reference [...]]]>

Nancy Saperstone, Insight Performance HR Consultant

You can’t escape social media and personal computer usage on the job – or can you? Many companies have implemented blogging and personal computer usage policies as part of their Employee Handbook and Information Technology Policy. The focus of such employee policies gives personal bloggers guidelines on how to reference their employer, their products and their services within their blogs or personal dealings on the internet. These guidelines are especially important given the Federal Trade Commissions guidelines to protect consumers from erroneous endorsements on social media and blogging sites. In response to the FTC guidelines, employers are strongly encouraged to specifically spell out what the company allows and doesn’t allow with respect to online comments about the company and its products.

While we do a good job addressing guidelines for personal blogging and computer usage, what many companies fail to address is how much personal access to social media and personal usage of computers can they tolerate on the job? I know what you’re thinking – “I don’t tolerate ANY personal use, let alone access to social media sites, while on the job.” But, is this really the best policy in today’s social media climate? Should employees be limited to NO personal use during the work day?

Many experts believe that in today’s technology climate, this is no longer reasonable and that allowing employee’s personal technology access can have positive effects on your workforce. Companies need to be realistic that social media is the way many people communicate. By limiting such communication you’re forcing employees to be “out of touch” completely while at work. This may make many employees uneasy and resent the organization’s stringent rules.  Allowing them access to check Facebook or send personal emails throughout the day allows them to make a quick connection to the outside world. According to the Harvard Business Review, there can be additional positive results to allowing personal access to social media sites during work. An organization that is more accepting of social media in the workplace can be viewed by many people, especially those of the younger generations, as a more attractive and as a forward thinking organization. Often times we believe that if an employee is spending time surfing the net, that’s time they’re not working and thus, loosing productivity. Research has shown the opposite; allowing employees to take a quick break allows them to return to their work refocused and more productive. Lastly, employees feel appreciated and more engaged when employers acknowledge their interest to check and use social media. The employee feels like the organization trusts them to do the right thing and often times, that trust goes a long way.

Facebook, Twitter, blogging and social media sites are here to stay – so embrace this new technology and determine what makes sense for your organization and design employee policies to support it!

Nancy Saperstone is a Human Resource Consultant and Blogger for Insight Performance with over fifteen years of experience in Human Resources.
Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event in August!

Chad O'Connor Adjunct Professor Emerson College

One thing I truly enjoy about coaching people on how to be better communicators is that every so often I am reminded about how much simple psychology is involved in the whole process.

I was recently contacted by a former student of mine [...]]]>

Guest post by Chad O’Connor, Adjunct Professor Emerson College

Chad O'Connor Adjunct Professor Emerson College

One thing I truly enjoy about coaching people on how to be better communicators is that every so often I am reminded about how much simple psychology is involved in the whole process.

I was recently contacted by a former student of mine for some professional advice. Some of you reading this might feel a lot like her on a daily basis – she was nervous about a presentation; in her opinion there was a lot at stake, more than in other situations. She has been hoping to parlay some project work she has been doing for an organization into a full time job (not uncommon in a down economy) and now was getting a chance to talk to a small cadre of the organization’s top brass about her research on a big project. All these executives, people who could make or break her career with the organization, were going to be there to hear what she had to say. She wanted advice.

Our conversation went something like this -

me: That’s great! Congrats, you’ll do fine. You always have.

her: I usually don’t mind public speaking, but this is a lot scarier.

me: Of course it feels that way, but once you start speaking it should feel like the other times you’ve done it.

her: But I’ve never talked to all these people like this, and I know they’re going to be judging me

me: Do you think people aren’t judging you the rest of the time you show up at work?

her: Okay, I see your point there.

me: And who asked you to give this presentation?

her: The boss.

me: So you are worried about these other guys being there? Why?

her: Because they could want to hire me if I do well.

me: I’d say you’re already in – think of it this way, their boss liked you enough to ask you to come talk to them to give them information, so he already trusts you enough to know that his reputation isn’t going to be damaged by having you speak to them. He’s not going to want to put any poor performers up in front of the room to make other people in the company question his eye for talent and wonder why he wastes their time with stuff like that.

her: Good point. Are you just trying to trick me into feeling good about this?

me: No, I am just trying to point out to you that if you change your thinking you can see this issue a lot differently. Don’t always assume you have a hostile audience! People want to be there to feel good about things, to feel productive, to feel like they’ve gained new information or insight, or have had their thoughts confirmed and reassured. As long as your presentation keeps that goal in mind you’ll do fine. And remember that your real target audience there is the big boss. His opinion of you will have a trickle down effect; do well in his eyes and you’ll be seen as someone with his favor. I’m not saying to patronize him, but it doesn’t hurt to tailor your approach to how he’d like to have it presented to him.

her: Thanks. That definitely helped calm me down.

me: And one last thing….stop doubting yourself. The better you feel about yourself and your product then the better it will all come across to them.

her: You’re right. I know. Thanks for reminding me.

So hopefully if you’ve read this and some of my previous blog posts here for NPTB you now get to see a small real world example of how it all comes down to the fundamentals. They don’t always end perfectly (especially once we gladly realize that perfection is an unrealistic goal that can hold us back), but there’s no better feeling I can have than to get a short text message from her after the meeting that simply says “Nailed it!”

Chad O’Connor teaches communication at Emerson College in Boston, serves as a connector for Boston World Partnerships, and works with various individuals, companies and nonprofits as a communication consultant on issues such as public speaking, message strategy, copy refining, etc. Chad can be contacted at his gmail account, chad.a.oconnor ,and found on Twitter @chadoconnor

Join us for our next Networking for Non-Profit Event in August!