(Stockholm, Sweden)

There are many “Superstars” in the world of professional speaking, and I have meet quite a few of them and learnt a lot from them – but today I met something even more impressive. Today I met with Ola Ahlvarsson, a man who is not just a  superstar – he is a “Superman”- and he told me about his approach to moderating which I found very interesting.

But before I tell you about that, let me tell you about Ola.

Ola is one of Sweden’s most popular international speakers and moderator. He has been chosen to host and lead discussions in some of the world’s most prestigious events, amongst them at the World Economic Forum, DLD in Munich, World Knowledge Forum in Seoul and Le Web in Paris.

But he is so much more than that.:

Ola has been working with and managing leading internet ventures ever since the early days with Spray, Boxman, Blocket,  and many more. As a specialist on innovation and internationalization Ola has been advisor to world leading organizations like Google, Ericsson, Samsung, Microsoft, and many more.

Being the founder of over 20 companies, his current portfolio exists of companies like: international expansion and innovations advisors Result, Star Stable, the world’s largest game for girls passionate for horses, Sellbranch, a leading Nordic advertising technology agency (managing Twitter and Yahoo in Scandinavia), and Epicenter, a 30 000 m2 innovation house. In addition he holds a portfolio of angel investments select range of companies from psychology clinics to castles.

Ola has a unique background in martial arts with a World Championship and European Championship gold in Goju Ryu Karate, a bronze in Taekwondo World Championships and a World Championship in Kick-Boxing.

A speaker and moderator yes, but also – at the same time – a business man, an advisor, an entrepreneur, an events organiser, an athlete, a founder of social enterprises, a super networker – and an active dad.

You now understand why I call him a Superman? 🙂 (And that was an abbreviated version of his CV… you can read more about him at www.olaahlvarsson.com.)

Today I had lunch with Ola to discuss speaking and moderating. (Ola does more than 100 speeches, presentations and moderations per year.)

Ola is one of the best moderators I have came across, so naturally I asked him what he thought was the secret to being a great moderator.

He said: “To be genuinely interested.”

I hope you see how unique that answer is.

Many moderators look at themselves as being a neutral entity, as someone who should not gett too involved in a panel, but just guide the discussion along.

Ola looks at it differently. He is on stage to learn. He really wants to find out what the panelists know, and he wants to know how that is relevant and useful.

Ola is one of the most curious people I know.

When Ola is on stage the audiences can feel how he wants to learn from the panelists, but it goes deeper than that. Ola sees his job as making everyone in the audience curious on what the panelists have to say, and he wants that so much that he will help the panelists get their message out. (Say, for example, that a panelists said something interesting but in such a way that the audience doesn’t  understand how interesting it is, then Ola will repeat the essence of what the panelist said but in a more energetic and fascinating way. He will magnify his panelists message, make them better by helping them shine.)

He is so concerned with creating great panels that he often plays an active part in deciding who the panelists should be.

I do not moderate panels, I just give keynote speeches. But I think Ola’s message of “genuinely interested” is applicable for speakers too – especially when it comes to the research phase, when we conduct interviews, collect examples and find new things to talk about.

I was genuinely interested – and fascinated -by the meeting I had with Ola Ahlvarsson today. I left the lunch inspired to want to learn more.

I guess curiosity is contagious.

 

(Svanholmen, Stockholm, Sweden)

“What do you speak on?”  is probably the most common question professional speakers ask each other.

It’s understandable, we want to find out what the other speaker’s expertise is.

But personally I like this question better: What is your next speech going to be on?

Because I find it more interesting to learn what a speaker is doing research on at the moment, which things has triggered the speakers thoughts recently in such a way that he (or she) feels compelled to write a new speech about it. I want to know what the speaker thinks that others should be thinking soon.

It’s more interesting to find out where someone is going than to find out where he (or she) is at. At least it is better at triggering my imagination.

Today I sat down with fellow speaker, Magnus Lindkvist. Magnus is a truly global speaker who has been able to develop an impressive speaking career over the last 15+ years that has taken him literally all over the world to speak.

But today he was not travelling the world, but sat with me on my island and discussed future speeches.

 

As a speaker we normally have a “theme” that we talk on. The subject that we are “thought leaders” on.

Magnus is a “trendspotting futurologist”, I am “the global conference speaker”, and the topics I speak on are “Business Creativity”, “Change” and “Global Mindset”.

Over the years I have developed new speeches based on the topics that I have come to understand that my clients need to hear.

(A new speech should be a combination of a) Something you want to learn more about, 2) Something you are already an expert on 3) something clients are willing and interested to hear more about.)

I started speaking 20+ years ago and talked about “Internet and Marketing” at a time when most business leaders did not even know what the Internet was about.

Then in 1998 I wrote a book about “internet and customer service” and turned that into a speech at a time when companies still thought that the Internet was just a marketing channel.

Then I wrote a series of books, and a speech, on Business Creativity when I realised that one big advantage that the Internet had brought with it was the ability to make companies look at their business model in a new way, but that they needed more creativity in order to keep questioning what they were doing and why.

In 2005 I moved to China and started work on a book that would become “The Developing World” about what I learnt about creativity in developing countries – after I had travelled to more than 20 developing countries and met a series of very creative people there.

And in my latest book “One World. One Company.” I studied the concept of Truly Global Companies which is now one of my most popular speeches.

All of these speeches might seem very different from each other, but for me they have a very logical and clear connection: They are subjects that I have found so interesting that I had to study them deeply and yet been topics that the general business world did not have enough knowledge of at the moment.

In order to stay relevant as speakers we constantly need to stay ahead of the curve, constantly think of new speeches that we can develop.

I find that the best way to do that is to learn as much as we can from the clients that we are working with as speakers. But I think the best way to learn about the process of developing new speeches is to learn from other speakers.

Thus my afternoon in the sun with Magnus today.

What is your next speech going to be about?