I confess, I underestimated the power of blogs. For years I treated them as just another distribution method, like a fax or an email service. Now I have come to learn (belatedly) that blogs are their own end, in and of themselves.

For years I told people that I blogged. I did, indeed, write a daily column, occasionally about stuff in the news. And this column was posted at either www.tjsights.com  www.speakingchannel.tv. But I wasn’t writing a true blog. I wasn’t connecting to the greater blog community and I wasn’t linking to the rest of the world. I was simply taking an old-media world column and shoe-horning it into a different format. It wasn’t working.

I stand chastened. Today is the first day of my first real blog. Here are a several guiding principles I plan to follow over the coming years:

1. I will take you into my world of working with high level leaders around the world on their speaking skills.
2. I’ll take you through the many processes of refining the speaking craft.
3. I’ll frequently point out my own flaws and mistakes as a speaker and ask that you learn from my blunders.
4. Political leaders will be a frequent focus of this blog, but I will examine only the speaking skills of leaders. Of course I have views on political ideas themselves, but I have found that there is no way to start a discussion about political values without politics consuming the discussion and driving away the 99% of people who don’t care to enter a political debate. Please don’t presume to know anything about my politics because of how I rate a politic ian’s speaking skills (you will be wrong).
5. I will explore all areas of spoken communication in life, not just so-called “formal business presentations” that constitute the bulk of my business running Media Training Worldwide.
6. I will give honest assessments and ratings of speakers around the world, and I will let you do the same (even if that means giving me a low rating to one of my own speeches).
7. Everything I share with you will be based on a combination of personal experiences speaking, experiences training people around the globe, plus my attempts to analyze and synthesize everything else I can find that is written about or discussed as it relates to speaking.
8. This blog is primarily about you. And by you, I mean someone with an interest in speaking, spoken communication, public speaking, and everything else that goes into talking to people. However, I am going to draw upon many personal things that happen to me, as they relate to speaking. No, I won’t tell you about what breakfast cereal I ate or what movies I like (unless a movie has a speaking focus), but I will tell you about personal mistakes and blunders I make while speaking to large audiences or even one-on-one situations.
9. While I will try to write every day for you, I will try to use the medium that is the most effective way to deal with speaking, i.e. video, even though it is not as convenient as typing.
10. I want to hear from you. Please send me your questions or suggestions for topics for this blog to tj@tjwalker.com.