Presentation Skills
the blog for presenters and public speakers
Presenting for academics…
069 days
by Simonr
in Presentation tips
It’s a hard life being a research academic. I know – I spent 24 years doing it. You’ve got to get everything right: with one little mistake, the kind that no notices or cares about in the real world, your entire career can come tumbling down around your hears… worse, if you’re an engineer the bridge you designed can come tumbling down! 
The result is (well, okay, there are other reasons for it as well!) that conference presentations are boring – because every tiny little detail has to be covered – everything that was part of the research is important and if it’s important you’re damned well going to talk about it, right?
Well that’s part of the problem – that’s one of the reasons most academics are shocking bad at presenting.
Hopefully this short vid might help a little. :)
The confidence to present
074 days
by Simonr
in Presentation tips
Confidence can be very visible.
I’ve been working hard (honestly) recently on our new Confidence Tricks course (face to face training in feeling confident and acting it when you’re not) so it’s not surprising that confidence has been on my mind – specifically the confidence to make presentations. Thinking about it more, and talking to colleges around here lead to one of my more contentious tweets:
If you don’t have confidence to make presentation ask what UR afraid of. Is it presenting or is it discovering you don’t know your subject!?
I’ve thought about it since and I’m beginning to have more subtle feelings about it but heck, given the 140 character limit of twitter it works for me!
What I’m getting at is that all too often wanna-be presenters (or more often wanna-not-but-have-to-be presenters) seem to think that there’s a Holy Grail to making presentations and use ‘research’ about the techniques (for which read ‘dicking about instead of getting down to it) as a way of putting off the hard part of actually figuring out what they’re going to say. The number of times people ask me to help them design a presentation before they’ve got the content sorted out never ceases to amaze me.
For the record, it goes like this:
- Figure out what you’re going to say.
- Then figure out how you’re going to say it.
Sure, there are exceptions to that rule but they’re so few and far between they’re about as likely as the people who genuinely do drive better after three glasses of wine or pints of beer.
It does not go:
- Figure out what the template/structure of a perfect presentation is.
- Fill that shape with data.
If it did, life would be easier for us all, frankly.
And I contend that for the vast majority of people the reason they go for the latter option is that figuring out what they’re going to say is bloody hard work. It involves looking at the intersection of what you know and what the audience wants to know about and thinking very hard. Very hard. It’s the grown up equivalent of the kid who spends more time working out a revision timetable (and colouring it in, of course!) than in actually getting their head down and working at the revision.
And when this would-be presenter stands up to speak, the chickens come home to roost – in the sense that deep down at the bottom of them they know they don’t really know what they’re talking about. They’re afraid of looking stupid and rationalise it as a fear of presenting when it’s actually a fear of people seeing what they’re really like. They’re afraid of questions because they may not know the answers, not because they fear being asked questions. They’re afraid of standing up and being looked at in all their finery because, at the back of their minds, is the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Do me a favour – do yourself a favour – figure out what you want to say, and if it’s worth saying, before you figure out how to say it.
Presentation systems… It doesn’t matter what your system is…
090 days
… so long as you’ve got a system!
I’m often asked (it’s the second most common thing people ask for help with, to be honest), about how they can remember what they’ve got to say once they get up on stage.
Well, there’s the (dumb and generally limiting) option of having a script, obviously, but it’s pretty close to impossible to have a script and be outstanding… which leaves us with various different options for things which act as an aide memoire.
I’ve been involved recently with a discussion with some fellow professional trainers and presenters about the best option and there are pros and cons for each and every one of them.
Mindmaps, for example, some people swear by them and some people simply find them a confusing, apparently random arrangement of boxes on a page.
Presenter View – with your keywords jotted down below the slides, that your audience doesn’t see (my personal favorite.
Notes on your lectern – perhaps in list from, perhaps in some other format; perhaps on paper, perhaps on index cards; perhaps colour coded perhaps ‘straight’…
Scripts - least said the better
I could go on. The list isn’t endless but it’s certainly extensive.
The thing is, each has its own strengths and weaknesses and each has it’s own fans (and detractors!). What’s gradually dawned on me (after watching my daughter and several other people revise for their medical school finals to become medical doctors) is that the system doesn’t matter.
Honestly.
It doesn’t matter what system you use (so long as it works for you). What matters is that you have a system. You see, as Eisenhower observed in terms of military planning (and let’s face it, he know a thing or two about war)
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
My point is simple: it’s not the system that matters, it’s not the system that allows you to remember what to say… instead it is the effort you put into setting your system up that works at least as much.
If you’re creating a list of key words, for example, while the list is a trigger in the end, what’s at least as important is the mental energy and time you put into deciding what the keywords are that locks things in your head (for the written list to trigger when you’re on stage). Without that effort, they keywords are just, well… words.
A Mindmap is just a set of squiggles on the page unless you drew it yourself – and if you did, if you spent the energy and time drawing it, if you set your mind to it, you’ll find that the finished product is nothing more than a key to release what you already know – what the process of creating the Mindmap fixed in your head.
So in a significant sense, none of it matters – all the fuss about what system to use is important on its own… whatever works for you works for you. The important thing is that you put effort into it and it’s in that (not only but largely!) that the choice of system is important.
Presenting for bloggers
1I’ve been busy – honest I have – which explains why I’ve not posted here… sorry! But I’ve not been not blogging!
If you’re interested in some tips in your first speaking gig, you can see my guest post on for http://bestbloggingtipsonline.com/: it’s here. Enjoy!
The presentations at Holocaust Memorial Day
1111 days
I’m not Jewish: I’ve got Jewish friends (I think) and I’ve got a lot more friends where I don’t know if they’re Jewish or not. To me, that’s as it should be. A person’s religion should be ‘transparent’ in that sense: you can’t discriminate on what you don’t notice or care about!
That said, I’ve just finished working (as part of our 13% Presentations Promise) on the day of our Holocaust Memorial Day Service itself. (I blogged recently about some of the things the readers and I explored on a day’s workshop earlier.) This blog post represents only a few semi-random reflections and observations about the day – not in any particular order and not with any great master-plan…
The stage in final tests
Firstly though, I should probably set the scene: by the time the stage was ready to go, it looked more or less like this. The lighting was tightened up later so that it didn’t spill onto the screens, obviously (but I didn’t have time to get a pic). To the left, as you look at it, is the lectern where the MCs stood; in the middle of the stage is the podium for the guest speakers and on the right is the candle that was used in the later stages as a symbol of hope.
Perhaps more important that what it looked like though is what it stood for and what I was doing there. Going back to the opening sentences of this entry I need to correct myself: I assumed, when I first agreed to help, that Holocaust was a particularly and specially Jewish tragedy. In a sense it is – but when you use a different name, genocide, it’s sadly no longer unique.
As the speakers delivered their messages of hope, tragedy and (sometimes) redemption I was struck time and time again not just by how beautifully powerful the human condition can be (as well as how ugly) but also by how often genocide is and how common it was.
I, for one, will be looking at Bosnia in a different light, for example.
As for the speakers… well the main characteristic of this year’s celebration is that it was to involve young people. Teenagers in front of big, big audiences can go badly wrong, as anyone in my line of work will tell you. I’m proud to say it didn’t: speaker after speaker stood tall and spoke clearly. All were eloquent and some were passionate. Some were better than others, obviously, but every one of them looked their audience in the eye (not that they could see them because of the 15000 Watts of light they were plastered in!) and said what they were they to say. I was proud to have spent some time with some of them.
The world is just a little bit brighter for me this morning – and I’m not (I promise you) normally given to fits of sentimentality.
Long may the young people of our country (and the world) continue to know what is right and what is wrong and long, long my they continue to stand up to say it.
On a technical aside to finish with, I’d say that the most common problem we encountered while coaching the speakers was speed. If you’re unused to speaking into a microphone into a big (and acoustically badly designed) space, remember to slow down. In training I often found myself using the metronome app on my iPhone, sitting in an acoustic dock to make it louder, to slow people down. Having a ticking box on the floor beside you at only 60 words per minute doesn’t slow you down to 60 words, but it slows you down from nearer 300!
Tweeting presentations?
4123 days
by Simonr
in Presentation tips
The twitter logo
Over on his blog, the fascinating Jeff Hurt is saying some interesting things. On one post in particular, asking “Is your Conference Twitter Worthy or Not?” he makes the suggestion that technology, in the context of social media is the sixth sense… it gives us an awareness of where our friends are and what they’re doing.
The important point however, from my point of view as a professional speaker and trainer is that I’m not sure I’d want people tweeting while I was talking… obviously if they’re doing it to let everyone know how wonderful I am it’s not as bad as if they’re saying the opposite but whatever they’re tweeting, should they be tweeting if they were as interested in my message as I’d hope?
(Have a quick read of my comment on Jeff’s blog to see where I’m starting from.)
Now obviously I’m over-stating the case here for the sake of a quick blog post (who me? cynical?) but I’m generally sticking by my guns here – if people are ‘able’ to tweet while listening to the speaker, the speaker has a problem… even if the tweets are complimentary. The point is that your presentation should, in an ideal world, be so interesting and to provide so much information that the audience simply doesn’t think of tweeting – they’re too fascinated!
Is that just me? Am I too optimistic to suggest that a professional speaker should be able to hold the attention of his or her audience?
Postscript: That said, I can see a use for this kind of technology if it’s use to provide immediate feedback to the speaker – such as by asking questions or getting an informal feel for the opinion of the room. Asking everyone in the room to tweet with a #hashtag followed by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ might be useful.
Holocaust presentations
1125 days
I spent much of today (as part of our 13% community and charity giving back promise) working with speakers who are presenting at this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day. It didn’t go entirely according to plan, but it was very definitely work the hassle of working on a Sunday!
With no pretense that this is anything like a comprehensive list, here are some of the things that we discovered between us, for when it comes to events like this…
Practise. Well yes, obviously. You should practise any public speaking event of course, but in particular we found it was particularly important do so for this kind of event where, to be honest, we thought that audiences would be potentially offended, or even upset, by mistakes. While you might not intend to be at all disrespectful, if you accidently find you skip someone’s name from a list then you’re naturally risking their ire.
Check your pronunciation. Generally you can simply pronounce things as you pronounce things – regional snobbery about accents is (almost) extinct (in the UK). For place names and (in particular) names of people making sure you pronounce them as they would pronounce them is simply a mark of respect.
As before, if you get it wrong, someone can easily be upset of offended.
Allow extra time and speak more slowly. For events like this, there’s a reasonable chance that some of your audience won’t have English as a first language, or may have some difficulty hearing, either because of the age or because of the venue. Speaking a little more slowly than you normally do will help.
Be absolutely clear in your diction. Again, this is to help people who may need just that little bit of extra help but will also be useful in terms of making any microphone-to-speaker system more useful. Generally (though not always) PA systems make your voice less clear:you can at least do your best to start with clear diction!
Take great care with your nerves – not just your nerves, do be honest, but the same tools work very well in terms of making sure you don’t get caught up in the emotion of the event. Being passionate is one thing, letting it show too much is another. Remember always that the audience (or congregation, call them what you will) are more important than you – your job is to facilitate their experience, not have one of your own.
Whatever similar event you may be speaking at, good luck. And if you’re speaking at on Holocaust Day, may I wish you, sincerely, all the very best.
Scamper through your presentations
0136 days
Lydia Bates
My friend Lydia is a copywriter and general wordsmith (and does a cool training course on writing for the web). As part of that course she uses the acronym SCAMP to help people remember how to write online: it’s so useful for that that I reproduce it here (with comments of my own) with reference to slides and presentations.
Lydia’s original comments are as quotes below (she was writing in a bullet-point list at the time!)
Simple – avoid jargon or sales patter, keep words easy to understand
Oh, if only people who wrote presentations and slides in particular would keep to this advice! Trying to keep this kind of stuff out of your presentation when you write it is tricky because if you try and censor yourself as you write you’ll inevitably reduce the flow of your writing and end up cramping your style.
What I suggest instead is to design your presentation as you would normally, then take a break to get your mind clear; come back to what you’ve designed and written with a clear head and cut/edit everything that’s not simple and clear. It takes longer at first but it means your presentation is much, much better written.
Concise – about half as many words as you would use in print
This is almost irrelevant for slides, where there should be almost no words at all, of course, but you get the idea! Less is more. Almost always. As someone said “Make sure you stop talking before your audience stops listening”! (Sorry, for the life of me, Google can’t find who said that originally!). Ask yourself, how long would you be able to concentrate for… not listen… concentrate… then plan your presentation to finish in just less time than that!
Active – eg ‘Mr A did action B’ rather than ‘action B was done by Mr A’
This is just plain obvious, isn’t it! Active stuff is much easier to listen to!
Meaningful – edit out any padding that doesn’t actual mean anything
Again, this is best done using the two-step strategy. Write, refresh yourself, then edit! The problem for expert presenters is that they know too much and find it hard to decide what’s meaningful. Well of course they don’t! What they find difficult is to figure out what’s meaningful to their audience at that time, in that place.
Positive – eg ‘we do this’ rather than ‘we don’t do that’
Again this is just easier to listen to and easier to act on. Obviously there are some exceptions. “In case of fire do not use the lifts” makes more sense than “In case of fire do use the stairs” but as a general principle, it takes some beating. The key to a good presentation is that it changes something – usually the way members of the audience behave by the end of the presentation – giving them something to do rather than something to not do makes a lot of sense in that context!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting this is ‘the answer’ any more than anything else I’ve ever cited in this blog, but it’s a nice start!
Five tricks to improve your presentations
0152 days
by Claire
in Presentation tips
I’m not one for simple lists of tips. The Devil’s in the details, generally, and just saying ‘do this, do that’ doesn’t really help anyone. We’re trying to be a bit more useful on this blog… but for what it’s worth, here are five simple, straight-forward ‘do this’ type tips for people wanting to speak to garner themselves some PR and marketing…
Talk from the heart
Talk about topics which mean something to you. Although you’re welcome to talk about any topic you can imagine, you have better chances of making an impact if you talk about topics which are close to your heart. Do not talk about global warming if you’re actually a qualified life coach. (Seriously, I’ve seen this!) Don’t talk about Life Coaching if you are a PhD is astrophysics… (Yep, seen this one too!) Topics which are not your speciality won’t allow you to showcase the authority so won’t help in attracting those people who may be interested on what you provide.
Besides, if you’re not helping people, you’re hindering them. As the old adage goes, of you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem!
And while I’m ranting about this, don’t talk to people who don’t want to hear. If you’re in front of a group of accountants, talk about something you think (hope?) will interest accountants. They might be interested in climatology or life coaching but they might not, okay?
Use ultra powerful titles (no, really?) Okay, don’t
You can improve your presentation’s impact by making use of expertly written slides to grab the attention of your target audience. The best way I’ve ever come across is to think of the titles as being akin to headlines in a newspaper article. Instead of talking about ‘five main fears’ mention the ‘five greatest nightmares’. No one is suggesting that you don’t back it up with hard-core facts and figures but if you don’t grab people’s attention, no amount of worth data is worth the electrons it’s stored as. Serious – don’t forget to add something extra to rouse their curiosity, and think about how you can target their emotional hot buttons.
People don’t respond to facts too well. If they did, we’d all eat less and exercise more. Give them something they can respond to.
Make your data count
Data is valuable. It costs a lot to collect and it’s not to be given away lightly… unless you want to do something useful with your presentation…!
Offer your audience something they can make use of; something that will help them do things on their own or help them solve their problems. This approach generates much more interest than telling them the history of the things they may not even find interesting. If your audience is interested in your data, they’re likely to want to learn more about you and the product or service you offer.
But – and it’s a big but – don’t be temped to put your data into your presentation (unless it’s a workshop scenario) because people can’t learn facts that way – get them interested in the real data in your presentation and then have the hard-data-document available as a PDF download.
Share a slice of your expertise
As a presenter, it’s crucial to convince possible clients you’re very expert. A few gems of in-depth knowledge through your presentations and a start. A torrent of good stuff is better!
There’s no point in presenting if you don’t have anything to say – you’ll just look a bit silly!
You’ll only get one chance at this, one chance at making a good enough impression for people to want to hire you, so I’d say it’s better to miss the chance until you’re ready than it is to take that chance before you’re ready. Blow it, and you’ve blown it – few second chances exist in this game!
Seriously – consider not making a presentation unless you’re good at it. If you’re presentation sucks, people will think your content does too.
Present like a professional
Even if you’re nervous, it’s important not to let your nerves show. Smile, be confident, venture out from behind your podium, and dont be afraid of being animated. Relax, take time to look your audience in the eye, take a deep breath and enjoy the results of your preparation. (You did prepare, didn’t you..?)
… and yes, I know that’s easier said than done: why not get some training? ;)
So there you have it… like I said, we’re not up much here for simply nieve lists. But just for once they can’t hurt, right?