What you need to know before using a cartoon in your presentation

Welcome to this blog – my aim is to make a difference to the success of your presentations. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Olivia

I was reviewing a technical presentation for a client. The topic was the latest dental procedures. Every few slides a cartoon popped up. Cartoons about people with bad teeth. They were tangentially relevant to the topic of the presentation – but didn’t help to promote the message of the presentation. When I asked the client why she had included the cartoons she said: “My presentation is soooo boring. I need something to keep the audience awake.”

Can you relate?

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6 presentation tips from a professional speaker

Scott Berkun’s book Confessions of a public speaker is an entertaining and enlightening read on what it what it takes, and what it’s like, to be a professional speaker.

I’ve shamelessly cherry-picked the presentation tips from Scott’s book that I most agree with. [Read more]

What’s my best presentation tip for the presentations that you do?

Every type of presentation has its own challenges. As part of a “Public Speaking and the New Year” blog carnival organized by Angela DeFinis, I’ve identified what I see as the major challenge or trend for each presentation type in 2010 and given you my best presentation tip to overcome it.

Best presentation tip for a training session

Running long (sometimes all-day) training sessions is probably the worst possible method of learning. So, as trainers we have to compensate for the terrible format. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, delivers 50 minute lectures. His experience, backed up by peer-reviewed studies, was that after about 10 minutes of the lecturer talking, most students had checked out. So he applies the 10 minute rule: [Read more]

How to handle a texting audience

A reader asked me this question:

Some of us who are 45+ are finding that younger people text and use computers during presentations to the point of rudeness. This happens even when others in the presentation give great evaluations.  We think we’ll be seen as “old farts” if we ask them to disengage.  How do we bridge this generation gap?

Strip the generation language from this question and this is a question about attention. [Read more]

How to propose a toast

Give the gift of public speaking this holiday season. It’s the time to show your love and appreciation for your family and friends. Here are some tips for proposing a toast:

1. Plan your toast in advance

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