Includes practical greetings and poems to be used in speeches for special occasions.

After-dinner speeches, toasts and roasts, product announcements, job interviews, eulogies, new business pitches, media interviews, arguments...virtually everything we say every day is "off the cuff." Yet how many of us are confident when asked, as we so often are, to just "say a few words"? An estimated 99 percent of what we say is impromptu, which is defined as without preparation or advance thought. Off the Cuff offers that preparation in an easy-to-read, easy-to-reference guide for putting words together to motivate, direct, entertain, and succeed. It will help you learn both basic and advanced skills in solving communication challenges that range from apologies and meetings to introductions and eulogies. Except for those rare moments when we have given a scripted speech, we've been speaking off the cuff our whole lives. Now it's time to learn how to do it easily, effectively, and fearlessly. Book jacket.

Focusing on the problem of time—the paradox of time's apparent universality and cultural relativity—Carol J. Greenhouse develops an original ethnographic account of our present moment, the much-heralded postmodern condition, which is at the same time a reflexive analysis of ethnography itself. She argues that time is about agency and accountability, and that representations of time are used by institutions of law, politics, and scholarship to selectively refashion popular ideas of agency into paradigms of institutional legitimacy. A Moment's Notice suggests that the problem of time in theory is the corollary of problems of power in practice.Greenhouse develops her theory in examinations of three moments of cultural and political crisis: the resistance of the Aztecs against Cortes, the consolidation of China's First Empire, and the recent partisan political contests over Supreme Court nominees in the United States. In each of these cases, temporal innovation is integral to political improvisation, as traditions of sovereignty confront new cultural challenges. These cases return the discussion to current issues of inequality, postmodernity, cultural pluralism, and ethnography.

50 Scientifically-Supported Techniques to Create More Confident and Compelling Speakers

Many of us assume that our creative process is beyond our ability to influence, and pay attention to it only when it isn't working properly. For the most part, we go about our daily tasks and everything just "works." Until it doesn't. Adding to this lack of understanding is the rapidly accelerating pace of work. Each day we are face escalating expectations and a continual squeeze to do more with less. We are asked to produce an ever-increasing amount of brilliance in an ever-shrinking amount of time. There is an unspoken (or spoken!) expectation that we'll be accessible 24/7, and as a result we frequently feel like we're "always on." Now business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to unleash your creative potential. Whether you're a creative by trade or an "accidental creative," this book will help you quickly and effectively integrate new ideas into your daily life.