We all have an audience.

We all want to connect to our audience, whether it's an audience of one or one thousand. We want to be part of communication that engages people and gets results in a two-way, co-creative exchange. What we know from experience is that what doesn't work is walking into a meeting/presentation/conversation with a spigot of agenda-driven content that we turn on when we walk in the room, throwing a towel over our shoulders as we leave. OYF focuses on helping clients create a back-and-forth flow that is rich with story, fresh and surprising, and sometimes going deep to the things that matter most. Below are the types of programs we have created that focus on high impact communication for small and large groups.

Breakthrough Conversations

What does it take to have a breakthrough conversation in an important relationship? What could your team accomplish if you could truly leverage different perspectives and have productive conflict that led to new, highly committed action about issues that matter? We work on your real stuff, blending potent conversational recipes for confronting challenging issues with playful exploration into personal patterns and what it takes to step into the unknown and unexpected part of a conversation- and thrive.

Engaging your Audience

We all have an audience, whether we're pitching to a small group or presenting to a thousand. And all audiences want to be engaged. Improvisers know a lot about what engages an audience, and here's a hint: it isn't dense PowerPoint slides read in a monotone. (We have actually been called an antidote to PowerPoint, see above) You know this of course, but there's more to the story... We focus on the dynamics that make presentations engaging, interactive, full of learning, and truly memorable. This can begin with a geranium and lead to a grapple, with a lot of surprises in between. These sessions give practice with design and delivery of your real stuff. Presenters leave with a set of interactive tools, structures, and responses to almost any presentation circumstance. This work is perfect for training pitch teams, senior leadership, product development and technology teams who want to engage their internal stakeholders. We have also worked with groups to apply the methods to advertising briefs, messaging and specific pitch challenges.

PowerPoint Antidote

Organizations spend millions of dollars each year to host conferences for their employees, staff, and leadership. These conferences feature speakers, events and training all designed to have a lasting impact on the attendees. For maximum ROI, we put engagement elements and structures in place to ensure that attendees remember and use the information and learning that they experience at any conference they attend. We develop programs designed that reduces "conference blur" and increases participant learning and the "stickiness" of any event.

Interactive Keynotes

Nothing excites us more than 450 slightly cynical salespeople who think they have nothing new to learn. OK, maybe 475 salespeople... 1000, anyone? We really shine when we deal with big audiences. In part it's because you can see our shirts from 150 yards away, but it's mostly because we are light on PowerPoint, heavy on audience interaction and participation, and we've been known to bring audiences to their feet, both to bring them up on stage with us, to get everyone to do something in the audience, and twice in a blue moon, in a spontaneous standing O.