One question the moderators asked of all the panelists at all the discussions was the following:

“What are some of the tools you learned at the Kennedy School that you use in your job today?”

Without fail, nearly all panelists stressed the importance of communication skills – writing, speaking – which they either studied at the Kennedy School or wished they had, because of how frequently they use these skills on the job. The importance of giving persuasive speeches, of using PowerPoint effectively, of writing with purpose and clarity – all of these were important skills which they used frequently.

I even received a few shout-outs from friends and fellow students who saw me in the audience and had attended my public speaking workshops at the Kennedy School or the Harvard Toastmasters Club.

Not only did these alumni stress the importance of communication skills in their own professional development, they also stressed the importance of strong communication skills in the employees they now seek to hire, making a strong case for current students in the audience to take a communication course when they returned to school to register for classes.

A few weeks ago, I was walking down the street in Buenos Aires when I saw someone wearing a T-shirt that read, “The internet was closed so I came outside today.” It was funny because there was so much truth to it.

Every year, we develop new ways to communicate with one another.  These tools give us more and more ways to build community with friends, family, and colleagues around the world. For example, a few hours after I saw the T-shirt in Buenos Aires, I sat down at the café across from my apartment in San Telmo, tweeted a picture of my perfect coffee and croissant, and used the restaurant’s Wifi to Skype with my family in the United States.

But sometimes these new ways of communicating can dull our interpersonal, in-the-moment responsiveness. Why challenge someone at a staff meeting when I can simply email the whole team and carefully choose my words? Why answer a phone call when I can wait for the other person to leave a message and think carefully about my response?

It’s becoming easier than ever to avoid face-to-face communication. But it’s ultimately unavoidable. At some point, we will be called on to give a speech, pitch an idea, or answer a question in front of our team. And we want to be that same confident individual in person as we are on email.

In this constantly evolving world of overlapping communication tools, the simplicity of face-to-face dialogue becomes more important than ever. The combination of a passionate voice, penetrating eye contact, and an authentic personal story can motivate a group of people like no email or web page can. That’s why I love TED talks, which combine inspiring ideas with passionate delivery.

So my advice in this new year is: make sure your offline profile matches your online profile. Spend as much time investing in your interpersonal communication skills as you do learning all the new digital tools that will surely come. Tweet from a café in Buenos Aires or Boston, sharing that perfect moment in time with the world – and then make conversation with the person at the next table, enjoying the thrill of spontaneous, unplanned, unprepared dialogue. Go outside, even if the Internet is “open.”

There’s a lot of pressure on you when you’re an opera singer. Every note must be sung perfectly in tune, every syllable pronounced perfectly as if you were fluent in the language, every facial expression carefully crafted to match the words. Even though you are human, your audience expects a super-human performance every single time you sing.

While my operatic training gave me great preparation for being a public speaker, I have realized that there’s a major difference between opera and public speaking. OK, as you can imagine there are many differences between opera and public speaking, but I’d like to focus on just one.

In public speaking, you don’t have to be perfect.

In the days leading up to the workshop, I thought about how I would introduce myself to the participants. I don’t like reading my bio: I prefer to use one moment in time, one story, to introduce myself. It’s more memorable and more personal. But what could I say that would specifically connect with this group? I didn’t know anyone in the audience and it was my first trip to Texas.

In my hotel room, on the day of the workshop, somewhere between making a cup of coffee and brushing my teeth, I had it.

An hour later, I arrived at the conference room ready for my workshop. Nearly 100 people were there (at 8am on a Saturday morning!), all employees of a few locally-owned successful businesses. I made sure the room was ready, hooked up my lavaliere mike, and smiled at the audience.

I started my opening:

“My great grandmother had 8 brothers and sisters [pause]. The family story says they all left Poland at the beginning of the first World War. My great grandmother came to New York, where my family grew up.  The other siblings settled all along the Americas: Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Argentina [pause]. As I was preparing to come here this weekend, my father told me that the Cuban relatives had actually lived in McAllen for some time and might still be here. So although this is my first trip to McAllen, I feel very much at home.”

People smiled, they nodded, they liked it.

I finished my opening with, “I guess that’s a long-winded but authentic way of saying, ‘It’s nice to be here.’”

But there was more.

During a break, the young man who arranged the AV equipment came up to me and whispered, “What’s your family’s name?”

I gave him the name. He smiled brightly and said, “They live down the street from me! Do you want their phone number?”

That afternoon, I spoke to my great uncle on the phone for the first time.  His father was one of my great grandmother’s 8 siblings, and he provided all the details on his siblings, their children, and their children’s children. I could just see my own father, the family historian, exclaiming in delight at all the family data.

Unfortunately we never met in person. But we exchanged email addresses and promised to keep in touch. We might even “Friend” each other on Facebook.

When you share a personal story with the audience, you might feel like you risk looking too vulnerable. But vulnerability can help you connect with an audience, and sometimes you are rewarded with a more personal experience than you could have ever imagined.

I’d like to profile one speaker whom I’ve heard twice and has consistently been outstanding. Why and how? Let’s take a look.

Matthew Nordan is a Vice President at Venrock Ventures. At last year’s Conference on Clean Energy, he pinch-hit for a canceled lunchtime speaker and gave a rousing 30-minute presentation with no advanced notice. This year, the organizers got smart and invited him to keynote the opening address.

What do I like about Matthew’s speaking skills? I’ve highlighted some take-aways that are applicable to any speech.

He was unexpected. To start with, he played a video game. That’s right: he actually played The Legend of Zelda, live, while standing in front of 200 industry experts at 9:00 in the morning, in order to demonstrate how important it is to recognize what you are up against and choose the right tools. He described this challenge – out loud – while choosing different tools to attack a killer rhinoceros.

He was passionate. He clearly loves the energy industry and isn’t afraid to show it. He easily walked around the stage and energetically used his hands to symbolize different points when discussing the past 10 years of cleantech investing. He used phrases like “This is awesome” and let his eyes and face convey the honest excitement he feels about the industry, reassuring us that its performance is better than it seems. It takes guts to use the phrase “awesome” in front of experts and not risk looking inexperienced.

He was knowledgeable. Matthew knows his technology, his knows his history, and he knows venture capital. It was evident in the way he structured his arguments and it gave him added credibility when he looked objectively at his own industry to provide suggestions for other VCs. When he ran his own numbers to prove his point, his credibility as a speaker helped us accept the credibility of his data.

He spoke in plain English – mostly. While he had quite a few industry-specific terms (it was, after all, an overview of the industry), he put everything in clear, concise English so that everyone in the audience could understand. This reinforces another recent blog post of mine about speaking to the least-knowledgeable person in the audience.

Every speech we hear has the potential to teach us what to do and what not to do when speaking in public. Matthew’s speech modeled some great public speaking skills that we can use no matter the subject or the audience. And when we use these skills effectively, we become very powerful communicators.

And I realized:

20 minutes is way too long for a startup pitch.

When I started writing this post, I was sitting in one such conference, listening to a series of 10 pitches, each one 20 minutes in length. And because we got started late and everyone spoke longer than they should have, we skipped our scheduled breaks.

So I was hungry, overloaded with information, and more interested in meeting all the other people in the room who so far I could only make eye contact with. That’s assuming I could make eye contact, because at least half the audience was looking down at some sort of screen (me included!).

Why is 20 minutes too long?

Because not everyone in the audience is interested in every single presentation, and not every presenter has the capacity to hold our attention for 20 minutes. So after 2 minutes we’ve decided whether or not it’s worth our time, yet now we’re stuck in the room when we could be doing strategic networking out in the hallway. In 20 minutes, the presenter is going into the minutia of technology, market landscape, and budget. That’s a lot of information and we don’t all need to hear it.

Unless you are in a private meeting with investors who have already expressed interest in your idea, the purpose of a pitch is to capture the audience’s attention and lead to private follow-up conversations. That’s where you can get into the details.

Once again, the KISS principle applies. Keep your pitches short, sweet, and pithy.  Leave people wanting more, not waiting to get up; the real impact is in the follow-up.

When you give a speech, what language do you speak? I’m not talking about speaking English versus Spanish, Hebrew, or Arabic. I’m talking about the way you use language in your speech.

Do you speak the language of business, or engineering, or law? Would someone without a degree in those fields be able to understand you?

Most people introduce themselves using their professional title, not what they actually do.

As a result, I think they’re selling themselves short; they hide behind their titles and they let other people box them in according to the assumptions people have about their industry (finance, government, etc).

So in the workshops I teach at the Harvard Kennedy School, I ask graduate students to introduce themselves by describing what they do – the impact and implications of their work – instead of merely using their title.

For instance, let’s say I want to introduce myself to someone and talk about the work I do at Harvard (when I’m not teaching). These are two different ways I could start:

• Option 1: I’m the Program Manager of the Wexner Israel Fellowship Program at the Center for Public Leadership
• Option 2: I work at Harvard, where I help Israeli public officials find ways to overcome their country’s leadership challenges.

Which option do you think captures people’s interest and invites more follow-up questions?

By focusing on what they do, not only do students network more effectively, but they also connect more fully with their passion and authenticity. And that makes for a more interesting conversation for both parties.

When you envision speaking in public, what do you see? Usually, we think about standing on a stage and addressing a large audience. This is certainly one example of public speaking. Yet the skills that help us speak well in front of 200+ people also help us in front of just 1 or 2 people.

Think about some of the best speakers you’ve ever seen. What made them great? Maybe it was their delivery: they made eye contact with you and used effective body language to support their point. Maybe it was their message: their ideas were passionate and crystal clear, so compelling that you wanted to join their team or buy their product.

The qualities of good speakers also make for great conversationalists. And in today’s job market, conversations can bring you more results than speeches.

Especially in Boston. Think about the kind of people Boston attracts: driven entrepreneurs, passionate students, and inspired professionals from every industry. I know many of them through Boston World Partnerships, which brings together Bostonians in all sectors to promote the city. Well-connected people are everywhere; there’s a good chance that the person who can get you to your next job is sitting next to you on the Red Line. Imagine if you could start a conversation with that person, exchange business cards, follow up by email, and have your resume passed directly to the hiring manager.

As a teacher of public speaking, I spend a lot of time helping people present their world-class ideas to investors, employees, or customers. When I help entrepreneurs with their pitches, I’m quick to tell them that they are always “on” – always pitching – because they never know when they’ll meet that VC whom everyone’s been chasing who just happens to be on the same train to New York.

Regardless of whether you are pitching an idea, you are always pitching yourself. Practice 3-4 sentences that explain who you are and what you’re working on in a way that captures someone’s attention and leads to follow-up questions. You’re not writing a dramatic monologue, you’re writing a conversation-starter. And then infuse it with the same passion and authenticity with which you talk about your hobbies or your family.

Entrepreneurs like Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot (Full disclosure: my husband works there) like to say that the best time to raise money is before you actually need it. Similarly,  the best time to look for a job is when you don’t need one. You can start a relationship just for the fun of it and then call on it later in life.

So how do you improve your public speaking skills? There is no end to the resources you’ll find in Boston. Start with Toastmasters, an international public speaking and leadership organization where people come together to practice their skills in a safe, welcoming environment. A quick search on the Toastmasters website returns 24 clubs in the city of Boston alone.  There are also classes at most colleges, universities, and adult education centers. And remember, public speaking is a skill more than a talent; it’s something that we can all improve with practice and time.

So in addition to improving your public speaking skills so that you can stand on stage and address 200 people, improve your public speaking skills so that you can speak well in front of that one really important person before he/she gets off the Red Line at Kendall Square.

But this summer, I’ll be teaching two classes through SkillShare, a newcomer to Boston which brings together teachers and students in their own marketplace. For $10-$15, anyone can take a class and learn a new skill. It’s crowd-sourced continuing education.

You can sign up for one or both of these classes:

August 18, 6pm - How To Teach Yourself a Foreign Language - I’m particularly excited about this class because I’m a lifelong language learner and have spent a lot of time researching the best way a person can learn a language on their own.

September 7, 6pm - Public Speaking 101, an introduction to the skill of public speaking, its importance, and how to improve. This is a participatory class so everyone who joins will get experience speaking briefly in front of the group.

Quick update: I had to cancel the Sept.7 class but hope to find a date to reschedule. Thanks!