10/23/2026

Editors: Rebecca Morgan & Ken Braly

See “About SpeakerNet News” at the end for information on how to submit tips and use this newsletter. Remember, your “dues” for this free ezine are submitting two tips a quarter. Send your best tips to editor@SpeakerNetNews.com.

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Miscellaneous Tips

Reducing cell phone distractions during presentations — Charles Hawkins

One of the most inspired requests for people to silence their cell phones came recently from my minister: “Please put your cell phones in their most reverent position.”

Create an “Adventure” to energize your breaks — Cher Holton

Right before you announce a break or meal time, invite attendees to participate in an Adventure Challenge. Some examples:

  • Learn the intention or desired outcome from this session from as many people as possible.
  • Invite someone you don’t know well to your lunch table. Find three things you have in common.
  • Meet at least three people who have a unique talent or skill.
  • Find someone who shares something in common with you (beyond visual things like hair color or type of clothing! Search for something like a common hobby, visited the same vacation location, loves a similar music group, etc.)
  • Exchange stories with someone about a recent customer contact experience you had that was outrageous (either good or bad).

After the break, do a quick debrief (this is very important — otherwise it feels superfluous). You can ask who would like to share something they discovered about someone else during the break — or see who talked with the most people about intentions — and maybe even get some “Intention Themes” from the group.

I never offer prizes or make this competitive — but I *always* find a way to tie in the Adventure’s focus with the presentation topic. It’s fun — and it is particularly helpful for folks who may not know others well — or the quieter participants who have difficulty approaching people they don’t know. This gives them a reason and permission.

Technology Tips

Use AI as a developmental editor — Rita Risser Chai

As an author, I write my articles and have them professionally edited. My usual editor wasn’t available to edit an article for a peer-reviewed journal. I told ChatGPT about the project and asked what type of editing it was best suited to perform. It suggested developmental editing as a first step. Within minutes, it gave me numerous excellent suggestions. It also asked questions about various points, and we went back and forth, which refined my thinking and writing. When it suggested specific language, I rewrote using my own words and sentence structure. By reviewing not only the text but also 115 endnotes, it caught discrepancies I don’t think my editor would have noticed. It was a highly worthwhile exercise.

Travel Tips

Check your passport’s expiration date — Jim Cathcart

I once discovered less than one week out that my passport expired one month after my next speech abroad. That meant that the airline here in Texas wouldn’t allow me to board the flight. Your flight needs to be at least six months before your passport’s expiration date. That led to a 3-city scramble for me and the passport agency. I made it, but not without hours of extra travel, waiting in line at the agency, arriving at the airport 7 hours early, and more. Check yours today.

Topic of the Month (TOTM) — Your Input Wanted

In January, we asked how AI was helping your business. These tools have improved exponentially, so we want to know how you’re using them now, differently from 10 months ago. Our TOTM is: What are some tasks you have AI help with? What have you had it help with that you’d been putting off? (Please state which AI you’ve found most useful for which task.)

Send your brief, pithy responses *that are different from those previously mentioned* to editor@SpeakerNetNews.com. Please put “Topic of the Month” or “TOTM” in the subject line.

— Rebecca Morgan

For several years, I’ve put off lots of projects that seemed overwhelming. I recently began using Claude.ai because I’ve found it much smarter than ChatGPT and Gemini. (If you want to switch AIs, ask your current one to create a document to tell the new AI all it needs to know so you don’t have to repeat yourself. Include any graphics the new AI would need to work on your project/s.)

In the last three weeks, I’ve had Claude:

  • Design two proposals in response to RFPs, including a description to match what the RFP required, a presentation run-of-show with activities, sample slides, and a sample handout. I still tweaked it, but it saved me dozens of hours.
  • Create a marketing plan based on what I want to accomplish
  • Create Rules based on my slide designs that it can apply to all my commonly used and future decks.
  • Update all my decks (one has 1400 slides!) applying the rules.
  • In cooperation with CastMagic, and after reading the transcripts from several presentations, it created frameworks for elements of my work, and graphics to illustrate them.
  • Taking those transcripts, it created social media graphics and a posting schedule. It scheduled these by integrating with the various social media platforms.
  • Using the transcripts, it created text and graphics for tip sheets, an ebook, and a full-sized book.
  • Create graphics, integrating with Canva, for a new framework, for use in blog posts, social media, slides and a book.
  • Update my primary website to integrate my new assets (without my webmaster’s involvement)
  • Create video clips from my virtual presentations to post on my website, YouTube and other social media.
  • Design flyers describing my most popular presentations to add to my website, send to prospects and add to social media
  • Give me a daily to-do list of the top 5 items to work on, so I don’t feel overwhelmed. It updates it based on what I tell it I’ve done.
  • Give me to-dos for my webmaster
  • Redesign my ezine, and pull together the next issues from the content it’s pulled from the presentation transcripts
  • Update a 2019 book with current study references and graphics
  • Redesign and updated a non-primary website
  • Give me reminders for specific dates for actions that need to wait.

Many of these tasks run simultaneously so I can get as much done as possible in a short amount of time.

I’ve directed it not to give my webmaster or me tasks that it can do.

I ask it to make Rules to chronicle my preferences and decisions so all the conversations in a Project know what to do.

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