Jump to testimonials talk menu or talk video archive.
1. Experience you can count on
Berkun has delivered 600+ in-person and remote speaking engagements, at major companies, events and organizations like Microsoft, Disney/ABC, The NFL, Apple, The Economist, FedEx, Amazon, Fidelity, IBM, Netflix and more. From large event keynotes to online, Zoom based virtual presentations. You’ll have confidence that your audience will leave smiling, educated and inspired. Read the testimonials, watch full videos or see his popular talk menu. You can read his full bio here.
2. Engaging, inspiring and practical
He excels at balancing engaging and relatable true stories, with useful insights and a dynamic style. He knows how to deliver – enough that he’s often hired by organizations to train teams to improve their speaking skills (based on his bestselling book, Confessions of A Public Speaker).
3. Will help your event succeed
He’s an event organizer himself and knows how hard a job it is (and how hard speakers can be to work with). He’ll chat with you to understand your goals and audience and make sure he’s a good fit. He’s easy and straightforward to work with (no diva contract or rock star travel requirements). He’ll stay at your event to hang out with your audience, and sign books if you like, rather than speak and run (schedule permitting). Plus he’ll post custom messages to his twitter and mailing list to help with promotion.
Contact Scott for Availability and Rates »
Testimonials
“Scott absolutely crushed it at our conference. He was smart, funny and engaging. He gave the audience a lot of actionable ideas and insights to take away. It’s no surprise that he was the highest rated speaker at our event. I highly recommend Scott for your next event or conference.”
– Jeff Perkins, CMO, QASymphony
“Scott was great! Funny, inspiring and practical. A great storyteller and keynote for any event”
– Clint Wagner. Senior Director, NFL (National Football League)
“Scott drew a capacity crowd of our top Amazon talent. This is a tough group to engage on the subject of creativity, and Scott was more than up for the task. He captivated the room with an inspirational, provocative, and humorous talk, full of takeaways that I’ve put into practice with my team.”
– Darcy Menard, Manager, Amazon.com
“Scott was an amazing presenter… not only did he surprise us with new and unconventional insights into creativity, he also kept us hooked with engaging stories and anecdotes. If Scott is speaking near you, drop what you’re doing and go check him out!”
-Carter Morgan, Developer Advocate, Google
“He was the ideal speaker to motivate staff to think differently about the way they approach work and about what it really means to innovate.”
–Greg Denehy, Innovation Project Manager, Australian Department of Defense
“I received multiple texts from attendees DURING the presentation telling me how great he was! And of course I could see that for myself. Scott’s advice was clear, compelling, and immediately actionable. I’m so grateful we were able to book him – he was a hit with our audience!”
Jason Potts, Senior Manager, Innovation and Operations, Disney/ABC
“Scott Berkun brings a dynamism and authenticity to speaking about creativity and innovation. He dazzled a group of highly creative communications leaders at Ketchum by sharing his myths of innovation through memorable anecdotes and storytelling. I’m excited to bring him back to do the dance of the possible. He’s fun and he’s funny and he knows how to keep a jaded crowd engaged.”
– Karen Strauss. Partner/Chief Strategy and Creativity Director, Ketchum
“Highly recommend engaging Scott for your event… a gifted speaker with loads of energy and enthusiasm, Scott was genuinely interested in our association and what our members are doing to transform the field… to this day, attendees refer back to the content he presented.”
– Wendy Green, Leading Age
Popular Talks That Solve Problems For your Organization
1. How Design Makes The World
learning objectives: design thinking, project planning, customer satisfaction
Everything we use, from social media to our highways to our office desk, was designed by someone. What can we learn from their failures and successes? This talk teaches anyone how to better understand what good design is, how it’s achieved and why most things in the world are harder to use than their makers think they are. If you’ve heard about “design thinking”, this talk is a fun, fresh, true story based way to help your organization make better experiences for your customers and see the world with sharper eyes. Based on the new book, How Design Makes The World.
2. How Design Makes The World: Design Influence
For design/UX savvy audiences, this talk uses the inspiring stories from How Design Makes the world to teach lessons on how to improve design’s influence on decisions. With practical examples and techniques, this session will help your team be more effective both strategically and tactically at influencing your product organization.
3. The Myths of Innovation
learning objectives: creative process, innovation strategy, creative leadership, organization culture
Everyone wants innovation but the popular myths that dominate our culture get in the way. This fun, surprising and memorable talk uses the true stories of innovation to help you and your team think clearly about how breakthroughs happen, how do find and develop new ideas, and how to remove the roadblocks that hold you back. Includes advice on what managers and individuals can do to improve their own creativity. Based on the bestseller, The Myths of Innovation.
4. Effective Remote Work
Berkun’s Amazon book of the year, The Year Without Pants, documented how the 100% remote company Automattic is able to succeed with a workforce that works from anywhere in the world. He was a traditional manager at a big company and learned how to transfer what he knew into this new way of working. This talk will teach the techniques, processes and values you need to be using to make your remote staff more effective, productive and happy.
5. How to Master Remote Presentations
learning objectives: managing fear, crafting ideas, effective and concise messaging
An insider’s guide for how to improve your organization’s idea pitching, storytelling and communication skills. From overcoming fears, to writing material, to better approaches for practice, in less than an hour your team will dramatically improve their ability to pitch, present and communicate online through Zoom and other tools. Based in part on the bestseller, Confessions of A Public Speaker.
5. The Honest Guide to Practical Creativity
learning objectives: creative habits, idea generation methods, common mistakes and how to avoid
Many talks on creativity are surprisingly uncreative, repeating the same myths and misnomers. This fast paced talk debunks the erronous beliefs most people have about how ideas work and provides a fun and easy to learn way to improve creative habits and outcomes. Based on the book, The Dance of The Possible.
Many other topics available
Including: How to Lead Project Teams, The Political Playbook for People with Ideas, The Future of Work, How To Give Feedback on Ideas, Managing and Learning from Failure and other topics pulled from his many books and essays.