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Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Public Speaking Tip: Check Local References

On the international speaking tour I just returned from I could have made a serious flaw had I not checked out material with the locals after I got in the country.

Apparently one country hates a certain kind of animal to the point where some natives actually try to run over the animal when driving on the road. A nearby country loves the same animal.
Although in this case I chose to avoid any comments about this animal issue, I could have ruined a speech by saying the wrong thing about this animal in the wrong country.

This same concept can apply to different areas or the same country or even different parts of the same city. Always check comments you plan on making that are localized with several local people before using them. You might just save yourself a big embarrassing bomb.

Additional Quick Tip:
In the last issue http://www.antion.com/ezine/v5n3.txt I talked about using sound effects as a humor technique. Reader Doug Orwig responded with a great site for finding sounds. It's really oddball name: http://www.findsounds.com

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