CARSTEN WENDT

Is it your experience too these days? When we speak in the virtual world, we need to do some things  decidedly different. But, luckily, other things stay pretty much the same. I recently experienced this again when I had the honour to moderate the 30 anniversary Interreg event for the European Commission.

The event was supposed to be hybrid: half the audience online, the other half joining us in the wonderful Gold Hall at the Square here in Brussels.

But, surprise, Corona forced us to go entirely virtual. The big hall ended up almost empty. I found myself talking into cameras to an audience I never saw.

Here I am. Almost all alone. The audience at home.

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Less is more.

Heard it a thousand times.

But how? How do you start with less?

There is a super simple answer to that and it lies in a moment:

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How do you persuade people (and organisations) to embrace a change-management concept like Excellence?

Murat Aydin and Christian Forstner invited me to their third edition of Excellence Talks to discuss this (see the video below). Both know a thing or two about selling Excellence. Christian is one of the world’s leading experts in the field and Murat has led his company’s (GC Europe’s) journey to winning the EFQM’s Global Excellence Award last year. EFQM is the European Foundation for Quality Management.

Okay, but what does Excellence actually mean? Read more…

Had you told me a few weeks ago that I’d be as enthusiastic about virtual presenting as I am now, I would not have believed you.

Going into lockdown here in Brussels in March, all physical trainings were immediately postponed. At the time, most clients weren’t ready to move trainings online. Understandably so, they had other things to worry about.

But what if they had moved trainings online right away?

Would I have felt ready?

The answer is a resounding “Yes but…”

The yes

The biggest obstacle in making a good presentation is good content. Your presentation has to give the biggest possible value to the audience. I haven’t given a training where this wasn’t so: creating the value is the biggest hurdle a speaker needs to take. And it’s the biggest help I give: a method that shows you how to create top notch content every time. Read more…

I was invited this week by Patricia Mansencal to give an online-workshop on the Power of Metaphor at the newly chartered but already wonderfully dynamic Toastmasters Academy Rome.

Metaphors are powerful because they are visual and because they help us explain concepts in a non-abstract way. I mentioned recent creative uses of metaphor by my fellow Toastmasters Allisha Ali, Krisztina Stump and by Florian Mueck, with whom I recently had the honour to share the online stage at Lukas Liebich’s Storyteller Sundays.

At Toastmasters you always always always get feedback. Lilian Shaftacola, a fellow Toastmaster from Cyprus, recommended one thing I didn’t do: give examples from a famous speech. Read more…