April 10, 2013

Take 20 minutes to learn the best presentation tips

What are the attributes of a good presentation and how can you adapt them to the next one you develop?

Below are three links – two videos and an article – that clearly and concisely lay out some great tips and simple truths about great presentations.

The first video teaches us that:

  • You’ve got to tell a story
  • Go low tech in the preparation phase (don’t start off in PowerPoint!)
  • For design, less is more
  • Rehearsal is perhaps the single most important aspect of preparation (that’s often overlooked)

The second video (that deconstructs the Steve Jobs presentation formula) teaches us that:

  • Setting the theme right up front is key
  • Providing an outline sets the pace
  • Managing topic transitions helps the audience follow along
  • Always, always, always put numbers in context
  • Again, be visually compelling by keeping design simple
  • Show passion and don’t be afraid to use a little showmanship
  • Rehearsal is crucial

Finally, in the article below, Nick Morgan lays out the basic story constructs and how they can be employed in your presentation.

All in all it should take about 20 minutes to watch and read this information, which could transform your next presentation from bad to good (or good to great). Enjoy.

How to Give an Awesome (PowerPoint) Presentation [video]

Present Like Steve Jobs [video]

How do you take an ordinary presentation and turn it into a powerful story? [article]

 

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April 3, 2013

A Personal Appearance

chrisbroganWhen you give a talk, you convey information. Well, ideally, you communicate an idea. Better still, you provide insights, change someone’s perspective, and motivate them to act in a new way.

That’s a lot. And focusing on organizing the content, structure, and delivery of that sort of presentation is a complex task that can become a real technical challenge. But style matters a lot too, of course.

Here’s another way to look at it. Your talk is a personal appearance. It is YOU who is delivering all of the above. And that should be reflected in the talk.

Personal Appearance

I got the chance to watch a real pro in action in an intimate setting. Chris Brogan came to guest lecture at the eMarketing class I teach at Bentley University. We had talked about the class, topics covered, and where I thought Chris could provide some really valuable insight.

Like a pro, Chris came prepared. He had an elegant presentation that tied together many great ideas in an interesting way. Of course he’s done a lot, like write 5 books in the space, so he’s got material. And he’s also a professional speaker, so he knows how to do a presentation.

But, this wasn’t a presentation as much as it was a personal appearance. And it wasn’t a personal appearance of the get a photo with a celebrity sort (though Chris is certainly a celebrity in the digital media and marketing space). Rather, it was a personal appearance in that Chris Brogan the person was there, delivering his thoughts and ideas – his unique perspective – and delivering it in his personal style.

Everything from prepared remarks to off the cuff answers to random topics that came up was delivered with his honest and direct assessment of the world as he sees it – complete with his own quirky phrasing, made up words, jokes, story telling style and more. With his personality.

And isn’t that what you want every speaker to bring to all the presentions you attend?

Isn’t that what you should bring to your next presentation?

No wonder why his business is called Human Business Works. Great job, Chris. We appreciate your time, your presence, and your bringing your whole self to the class for us.

Photo credit: Chris’ Twitter Profile

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March 27, 2013

A TED Talk in the Making

320px-David_Meerman_Scott-David Meerman Scott was my special guest last night at an eMarketing course I teach at Bentley University. We use his book The New Rules of Marketing and PR in the course, so it was great to talk marketing with him. It was a delightful, insightful, and revealing discussion with the students.

And we got another real treat while he was there – a chance to watch a craftsman at work.

David is working on a TED Talk and he demoed an early version with the class. You’ll have to wait until it’s done to learn about the content, but let’s talk about the process.

Prepare and Practice

Good talks come from preparation. And preparation takes time. David put a lot of time (many, many hours, and counting) into preparing the ideas, organizing the message, and working on delivery. And don’t just practice alone, use a live audience – that’s a much better test.

Seek Feedback, Early and Often

David delivered his talk to us, complete with slides and props.  Then he asked for feedback – and he meant it. He ran a great discussion about the talk and each suggestion or comment that was raised. The dialog was great, with lots of good ideas exchanged that will no doubt help David to improve the talk. Don’t just ask for feedback, embrace it.

Hone Your Craft

Even though David is an A-List speaker on the marketing circuit, he works with a speaking coach (Nick Morgan, whose book on speaking is one of my favorites). As he explains, professional athletes use coaches, why not professional speakers? A great sentiment.

But even if you don’t want to go quite that far, you can do this – record a video of your talk. David came prepared with a tripod and video recorder. He even recorded the feedback discussion to make sure he captured everything.

Do Like David

Presentations are key to success. The ability to give a good talk is important in any leadership role. So, learn from David and:

  • Prepare (think, ponder, sketch, research)
  • Practice (really practice, like David – in front of a live audience when the stakes are high)
  • Embrace feedback  (ask for it and then listen and engage in dialog)
  • Hone your skills (even if you’re a good speaker, you can always get better)

Oh, and definitely check out his talk when it’s released. It’ll be a good one.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom, insights, and process with us, David!

Photo credit: wikimedia commons

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March 18, 2013

Delivering a small product

deliverableTalk is good, but not enough. Even if you’ve established a real dialog in a meeting. You’re listening. They’re listening. Ideas are being discussed, debated, understood. That’s great, but you need to ask people to deliver something too. They need some “skin in the game.”

When they go away and explore the idea further by themselves, or analyze and debate the options in a smaller group knowing that they need to deliver, everything changes. They need to decide what they’re going to put together, how they’re going to put it together, and how they’re going to present it. And, they’ll need to think about it from different angles – how would they defend it? What are the weaknesses, strengths, and alternatives? Which part do they really feel strongly about, and how will they back that up?

The deliverable can be small. It can be turned around quickly. The point is not to add formality or beauracracy, but to force a different way processing the ideas. To make them more concrete and real. To start to internalize and own them.

Photo credit: juhansonin

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January 23, 2013

Will your presentation pass the smartphone test?

smartphoneEver since the Blackberry invaded corporate meeting rooms, they and their successors have been an annoying distraction. Setting policies around use of devices, collecting them at the door, and other measures have tried to curb the effects of these devices. We’ve tried to stop attention from waning over the course of a discussion, from dissipating away from the matter at hand. But perhaps we’re treating the symptom instead of the problem.

When you’re in the presence of a good speaker doing a great talk, you’ll notice that nobody is checking smartphones. Heads are up and facing forward, focused on what’s happening right here, right now, in this room, in this moment. That’s the unique ability a live meeting offers – a chance to connect, to captivate, to gather and unleash energy.

Figuring out how to engage minds and focus energy and attention in this way isn’t easy, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

Photo credit: Buzz Farmers

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January 13, 2013

The onus is on the writer

writing deskIt’s the writer’s job to make things easy on the reader. The writer needs to work harder than the reader. In fact, the writer’s goal is to absolutely minimize the effort required by the reader. That’s how you get your message across. That’s how you get the answer you need. That’s how you engage someone through the hurdles of space and time.

So don’t be lazy!

That single email message you craft, that report you prepare, that set of instructions you post is worthy of the effort. It will be read by (perhaps many) people who need the information. Or by people that you need to get information from. Or by people you’re trying to influence or help.

Check your email

Here’s a simple exercise: Go back and scroll through a dozen of your recent emails. Which ones stand out as helpful? Which ones did you respond to? Whose messages are you likely to welcome in the future? (And whose messages do you dread?)

See what I’m talking about?

Avoid being the originator of the messages that are hard to use. Be the writer who respects the reader.

Photo credit: gudmd.haralds

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December 16, 2012

Assimilation and Accommodation, the ways we learn and change our minds

perspectiveFrom our earliest days we analyze and organize information about the world, forming mental models. The world is large, complex, and confusing, so this is no trivial task. And the breadth and volume of things to be learned and understood is without limit. Fortunately, humans have amazing powers to observe and process information. But also serious limitations that can be equally powerful and insidiously invisible (even to us).

Understanding the ways we learn and adapt to our world can help us to become better learners, and also to understand why it can sometimes be so hard to convince someone else to change their mind.

Assimilation

Familiarity is a crucial shortcut for us. We organize things in our minds by matching up with others we’ve seen before, fitting them into categories and placing them in the context of our current understanding. If you know what a baseball is and how it’s used, it’s very easy to understand a softball when you first encounter one. This style of learning works for complex scenarios and concepts, too, and forms the foundation for learning. We understand certain aspects of the world in a certain way based on all our prior learnings and we assimilate new things into our understanding according to those established models.

This makes learning fast and efficient, which is absolutely essential in a world where an overwhelming amount of information is to be processed constantly. The limitation, of course, is that quickly assimilating new information into already existing understanding doesn’t challenge our current understanding. Without challenge, nuances of that understanding go unexplored and the understanding itself never gets questioned in a meaningful way. It’s just accepted, we fit things into it, and we move on.

Accomodation

Far more difficult, but far more powerful is modifying our worldview to see new things more completely, or to see familiar things in a fundamentally new way. When we do this, we make accommodations to our mental models so that we can house these new ideas.

This is hard for a few reasons. Most notably, a certain level of awareness is required – “Hey, this new thing, idea, or concept is totally unlike the others in my worldview and I need to figure out a way to understand this.” This is very different from the fast-paced processing we’re wired so effectively to conduct all day long. Also, we need to allow this new thing to challenge aspects of our current worldview, which is often based on long-held mental models where we’ve assimilated lots of information. And these fundamental aspects of our worldview are based on beliefs held by us, and often also by the communities in which we operate. Challenging and changing some of these can open up a pretty serious can of worms for us. It can be messy and confusing and riddled with conflict.

That’s why it’s so hard to change someone’s mind, sometimes.

But on the flipside, it’s where some of your most profound learning can come from.

Photo credit: Brett Jordan

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December 13, 2012

Learn how to edit your own writing

Learning how to edit your own writing is one of the most valuable skills you can develop. As more and more work depends on your ability to communicate effectively, good writing skills are of paramount importance.

The writing isn’t hard, you do that all the time. You write notes, type up emails, blast out tweets, tap out texts, and update Facebook. Indeed, in this day and age we’re all writing a lot more than we used to.

But that’s part of the problem.

We write so much and in so many formats that we’ve developed a casual attitude. Actually, a cavalier attitude may be a more accurate description. We’re used to auto-correct oddities, shorthand abbreviations (YKWIM?), and we even skimp on capitalization and punctuation. It’s something we tolerate in the new world of constant connectedness and information overload.

Seeing it from the other side

As the recipient of hastily crafted messages, surely you can see there is room for improvement – particularly for longer form formats like email. If you want to get your point across in an email (or blog post, or letter, or memo), take the time to edit your work.

Draft your message and then review it. Try to see it through the eyes of the reader. Is your message coming across the way you intended?

Cut out superfluous words (and sentences). Re-order ideas to make things clearer. Fix typos. Add whitespace or bolded subtitles if it helps to make the message more readable. Make sure the tone and tenor of the message are appropriate.

Counting on yourself

Sure, the old classic advice still helps – ask someone to review your message before you send it out. But we don’t always have that luxury in today’s fast-paced world.

It pays to develop the habit and the skills to improve your own writing. Taking just a few minutes to re-read your message will pay huge dividends.

Every time you re-read, you should find something that can be tweaked to make it better. At first you may be just catching mistakes – typos, capitalization errors, and punctuation mistakes. With practice, you’ll catch more. You’ll notice that the flow is off or that the point you’re trying to make isn’t as clear as you thought. You’ll realize you didn’t explicitly ask for the information you wanted or that you didn’t include an important detail.

As you continue to edit your writing over time, your editing skills will improve. You’ll edit faster and become more sophisticated at it. All this editing will inform your writing, and you’ll get better at that too. You’ll develop and evolve your writing style and voice. Writing will become easier and your quality will improve.

And all that good writing will help you to more clearly convey your ideas, gather the information you need, and influence others to act. You’ll become more productive and effective in this age where writing is abundant, but good writing is rare.

Photo credit: the Italian voice

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November 16, 2012

Framing the conversation

The way you introduce an idea impacts everything else you say. A good setup establishes a framework that influences the way the person listening to you processes everything else you say.

It’s a helpful guide to them, and so it’s readily accepted. And it’s a great opportunity to get the discussion off on the right foot. To get the message heard the way you want it to be heard.

Establish a framework, and then fill it in.

Photo credit: xb3

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November 15, 2012

Leave room for the mouse

In the game of persuasion, we sometimes focus too much on what we need to tell the other person. We throw data, information, and arguments at them as if through a fire hose. We’re so intent on convincing them that we don’t leave room for them to convince themselves. They need some space and time to think, to absorb, to process.

“When baiting a mousetrap with cheese,” said the famous ad man Howard Gossage, “be sure to leave room for the mouse.”

Photo credit: Patrick Hoesly

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