New research: warning about story-telling

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

The guru of multimedia learning Richard Mayer has just published a new paper that all presenters should take note of. The paper is called “Increased interestingness of extraneous details in a multimedia science presentation leads to decreased learning”.

The research

Students received one of two PowerPoint presentations about how a cold virus infects the human body.

Both PowerPoint presentations included interesting but irrelevant details about viruses. In the first presentation the details were of high-interest eg: the role of viruses in sex and death. In the second presentation the details were of low-interest eg: health tips about viruses. [Read more]

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

15 ways to improve your presentations in 2009

This is a big meaty post with 15 ways to improve your presentations.  These ideas are designed to challenge you to stretch yourself. With each idea I’ve pointed you to further resources from fellow presentation bloggers or from my own archives.

Choose one or two to work on at a time. Bookmark this post, so that once you’ve implemented those, you can come back and work on some more during the year.

1. Customise your presentations for each audience

Don’t be satisfied with rolling out the same presentation time and time again. Customising your presentation makes a difference. It gets noticed by your audience - and you go up in their estimation. Christophe Harrer from the Empower Your Point blog says:

The real gain comes from your audience’s reciprocity. If they can feel and recognize all the hard-work and extra attention you have put in the presentation for them, they will feel the need to reciprocate. They will listen carefully, ask more questions and probably agree more.

2. Brand your Key Message

Your key message is what you want your audience to do or remember from your presentation. Your key message can be a branding statement for your presentation. Doug Stevenson has a great podcast on how to do this - he calls it mental Velcro. Here’s a quote from Doug:

Branding is about having one consistent message, one consistent imprint that is repeated so often and so consistently that it sticks to the brain of the intended audience like mental Velcro.

3. Switch the focus from yourself to your audience

In a pitching or selling presentation, it’s easy to get caught up in telling your audience about you and your organisation - rather then focusing on them and their needs. John Windsor tells of a construction executive who wanted to show off his firm’s safety award. John coached him to switch his focus to his prospective client:

“We share your concerns about safety on this project and here is how we’re going to manage it.” [then detail three specific aspects] “And as evidence of our commitment and results, we were recently recognized for having the best safety record in the nation for a firm of our size.”

Do you have a section on the credentials of your company - before you get to what your prospective client is really interested in - their own problems and how you can solve them? Leave the credentials out. Once the prospect is interested in what you have to offer they’ll ask questions to ensure that you have the ability to effectively deliver.

4. Delete or explain the jargon in your presentations

Have you been guilty of using jargon without explaining it. M J Plebon of the Presenting Your Point blog talks of the dangers of jargon. He relates his experience with presenting on the topic of “oil/water emulsions”:

Claiming your technology treated an oily water emulsion could have two completely different meanings based on the audience’s background.  Not knowing the difference in the meaning could damage your professional credibility and communicate a confusing message.  One way to remain safe was to define the term oil/water emulsion every time the presentation was made.  This would put everyone on the same page and reference point.

So if you use jargon - assess whether it’s the only way to express your concept succinctly. If it is (and I accept that there are times when it’s the best way) the first time you use it take a few seconds to explain it so that every person in your audience understands you.

5. Increase the percentage of evidence in your presentations

I define evidence as anything that backs-up your points. It includes examples, anecdotes, case studies, statistics, endorsements, testimonials and quotes. I’ve done an analysis of   presentations by Seth Godin, Al Gore, and Malcolm Gladwell : 

Using evidence in your presentations enhances both your credibility and audience engagement. Analyse the percentage of evidence in your presentations - do you reach the level of Gore, Godin and Gladwell?

6. Incorporate dialogue into your stories

Incorporating dialogue into your stories draws the audience in and invites them to identify with the characters in your story. Anytime a story has more than one person you have an opportunity to add dialogue. Steve Boyd has a couple of posts on using dialogue Conversations in Presentations and Add Spice to your Speech with Dialogue. He tells a couple of traditional dialogue-based stories, but then explains how you can add dialogue to spice up any story:

The dialogue could even be a way of giving information, such as relating a case study that involved two or three people. You simply report on what they say. For example, a new employee was part of a question and answer session with the CEO of the company. He asked, “What is the skill you have that has meant the most in getting to be president of this company. His answer was, “I have learned to listen.”

7. Pay attention to staging

Andrew Dlugan says this about staging:

Staging your speech means utilizing the 3-dimensional space around you in the most effective way possible.

• Novice speakers will chain themselves to the lectern or stand in one spot on the middle of the stage.
• Intermediate speakers will meander randomly around the speaking area. Body movement appeals to the audience and keeps attention.
• Great speakers move around the speaking area with purpose. Every time they take a few steps, they are doing so with a distinct purpose in mind.

Are you ready to move to the level of great speakers? Check out my post 9 ways to use space in your presentation.

8. Take questions throughout your presentation

When you’re just starting out presenting, it makes sense to take questions near the end of your presentation. It’s more manageable and there’s less risk that you’ll go off track. But from the audience’s point of view, being able to ask a question at the time that it occurs to them is ideal. So challenge yourself to take questions throughout. A half-way place is to break your presentation into modules - and take questions at the end of each module. Check out my post 8 tips for encouraging questions in your presentation.

9. Refresh your attitude to hostile questioners

It’s easy to get on the defensive when somebody questions you aggressively. Terry Gault of Speak Fearlessly has a great post on dealing calmly with provocative people.

10. Give your slides a facelift

Have you been using the same slides for some time? Chances are they’re looking a bit dated. Give them a face-lift. This will be much easier if you’ve updated to PowerPoint 2007 (see below). Here are some things to do:

• If you’re using a standard PowerPoint template - throw it out. Read Laura Bergell’s post Now entering the Post-template, PowerPoint design era.
• Have any of your stock photos become cliched - see the slideology post series on cliched images. If so, search for new images or take them yourself.
• Update your design - rounded corners, drop-shadows, graduated shades of the same colour for charts - see my post on adding elegance to your PowerPoint slide design.

11. Upgrade to PowerPoint 2007

The drop-shadows in PowerPoint 2003 are so bad, I would be embarrassed to use them. Powerpoint 2007 enables you to go another level in terms of your Powerpoint slide design.  Check out this post from Robert Lane of Aspire Communications reviewing PowerPoint 2007.

12. Add a flipchart to your visual aids

Providing variety is a simple way of keeping an audience engaged. Mixing up your powerPoint with a flipchart does just that.

Hand-drawing on a flipchart is dynamic and real. As I describe in my post The Power of the Flipchart it provides an energy that PowerPoint can’t match.

13. Improve your drawing skills

Yes, I did this and you can too. I can now draw a better stick figure. Check out Dave Gray’s How to draw a Stick Figure to get you started.

14. Think like a designer

You may think that you’re not a designer. But design is no longer just for designers. If you’re presenting with Powerpoint, you need to develop your sensitivity to good and bad designs and what makes them so. Check out Garr Reynolds’ post on design books and listen to his webinar on How to think like a designer (you have to enter your name and e-mail address to listen - but it’s worth it).

15. Rehearse before each presentation

I’ve blogged before on the benefits of rehearsal. So has just about every other public speaking/presentation blogger (see my post on rehearsal for links). It’s probably the single most powerful thing you can do to improve the quality of your presentation.

Hey, that’s it. 15 ways to improve your presentations. What would you add to this list? What do you plan to do to improve your presentations in 2009? Tell us in the Comments.

And don’t forget to bookmark this post so that you can come back to it through the year and choose another aspect of your presenting skills to work on.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

A critique of Malcolm Gladwell

Garr Reynolds from Presentation Zen has highlighted several presentations from Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell is a master storyteller in his books. He carries that through in his presentations. Watch the video - then read my analysis below for what you can learn from Malcolm Gladwell and his presentation style.

What Gladwell did well

So what did you pick up on what he did well. Here’s my list:

1. He had a Key Message

There was one consistent theme or key message in his presentation - and all of his presentation was focused on supporting that key message. I do have a suggestion on how Gladwell could improve how he states the key message. Near the beginning he said:

“Cap rates are really low.”

This is clear and succinct but doesn’t tell us why it matters. An audience appreciates knowing why we should listen near the beginning. The way Gladwell stated his key message near the end of the presentation was much more effective:

“We are squandering our talent.”

That’s when we really get the point and why it matters.

Sometimes people are concerned about repeating their key message in the same way at the beginning and at the end of their presentation - but it works in an oral presentation. Martin Luther King said “I have a dream” eleven times.

2. He cut everything else out

Gladwell has just published a book Outliers. I’m sure he had a ton of material that he could have included in this presentation. But he resisted the temptation. He picked one point to highlight and stuck to that.

3. He had a clear structure

Here’s how I would represent his structure visually:

This is an excellent three-part structure. Gladwell picked the three most important constraints and concentrated on those. There are probably many other constraints, but again he resisted the temptation to overload his audience.

4. He supported each point with concrete evidence

Gladwell is a storyteller in his books, so it’s no surprise that he has excellent examples and statistics throughout his presentation. As I’ve done with other presenters (Al Gore, Seth Godin) I’ve analysed the proportion of evidence (examples and statistics) to points/discussion in his presentation:

In Al Gore’s presentation, 60% of the presentation was evidence, and in Seth Godin’s case 67%. These are all great presenters - take a look at this metric for your own presentations - and benchmark yourself against these guys.

My only quibble around Gladwell’s use of evidence is that on two occasions he used a second example or statistic when we had already got the point. We didn’t need the Czech soccer team example after the Canadian hockey example. That was overkill. Second, he gave us a second set of statistics around the capitalization rate of Chinese Americans which didn’t seem to me to say anything significantly different to the first set of statistics. It confused me. The lesson here is that most points only need one example or set of statistics to back them up. Only use a second piece of evidence if it is appreciably different.

5. He used signposting to make the presentation easy to follow

Signposting is letting your audience know where you’re going, where you’re at and where you’ve been in your presentation. Gladwell told us he was going to look at three constraints and then told us as he moved from one to the next. He could have used signposting even more without overdoing it. When we teach the technique of signposting, the presenter often tells us they feel like they’re overdoing it - but the audience loves it. So don’t be afraid of frequent signposting.

6. He communicated with passion

I love the way Gladwell presents. I love the intensity that he brings to communicating his ideas to an audience. I feel like he really wants his audience to get what he’s saying.

So what could Gladwell improve?

Gladwell volunteered that he was a Powerpoint virgin - and I think he did great for a first timer. Here’s some suggestions that I would make.

1. Use your slides to state a message

The first slide was simply this:

This is a waste of a slide. Instead of a heading, state a message. Gladwell could have had a slide which reinforced his key message:

2. Use Powerpoint to show things visually

Remember the slide which listed all the Canadian hockey players with their birthdates and Gladwell reading them out. He could have added visual impact by first showing them the slide on the left, then saying “look at how many have birthdays in the first half of the year”, and then clicking to reveal the highlighting of those players - as in the slide on the right.

There were a number of concepts later in his talk where visuals would have improved my ability to grasp the point. The statistics that he used in his Chinese American example would have been easier to follow with a visual like this:

When Gladwell explained that Chinese Americans with an IQ of 100 performed as well as White Americans with an IQ of 120, a slide like this could have been helpful:

Note that if I was presenting with this I would show the two trend lines, and then animate in the white dotted lines to show that Chinese Americans with an IQ of 100 perform as well as White Americans with an IQ of 120.

3. Presenting with PowerPoint

Gladwell had some issues with keeping the slides in sync with what he was saying. For example, he showed us the hockey player slide way before he started talking about it. I suspect that Gladwell didn’t rehearse his talk with the Powerpoint slides and so hadn’t worked out when he should click. PowerPoint does add another layer of complexity to presenting - you need to work out the right time to click for each slide and then to rehearse that.

Gladwell then stopped using slides, so it would have been better if he had blanked the screen. You can do this by pressing the ‘B’ key on your keyboard while you’re in slideshow mode, or insert a black slide in your show beforehand.

4. Using notes

There’s nothing wrong with using notes, but Gladwell’s were rather obtrusive. He also only looked at them between sections of his talk - so he could have reduced their size right down. Possibly, Gladwell could have managed with one 3×5 inch card with a visual overview of the structure of this presentation as I showed earlier. That would have been enough to get him from section to section.

In summary, this is a compelling talk from Gladwell with solid content and engaging delivery. He’s great without PowerPoint, but he could also use Powerpoint effectively in his talks to explain his concepts visually.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

How to get the most out of Toastmasters

Toastmasters is a great organisation to join to get lots of speaking practice and increase your confidence. I was in Toastmasters for eight years and it made a huge difference to my life - I became a confident speaker, an effective social networker … and I met my husband there!

It makes a huge difference in many people’s lives. I saw shy, withdrawn people become chatty and confident. I saw unremarkable people transformed into inspiring leaders. If you’re thinking of joining Toastmasters to develop your public speaking and social confidence, I do recommend it. Find a club near you using Toastmasters club locator.

But when it comes to developing presentation skills for the business world, the Toastmasters programme suffers from two flaws:

1. It overemphasises superficial skills - like body language and vocal variety - while ignoring critical skills - like developing a memorable message for your presentation.
2. Once you have developed basic skills, the Toastmasters official programme does not include the learning experiences which can help you develop further.

Despite these flaws, Toastmasters does offer a lot. In this post, I’ll show how to get the most out of Toastmasters - both for new members and for experienced Toastmasters.

For new Toastmasters

1. Take every opportunity to speak

There are two parts to getting better as a speaker - speaking lots and getting feedback. Toastmasters is great for the first. You can speak at every meeting - whether it’s giving a prepared speech, practicing impromptu speaking, or evaluating another member’s speech (for more information see Toastmasters- How does it work).

2. Ignore your assigned evaluator (most of the time)

Virtually every time you give a speech in Toastmasters you are evaluated by another member. There are two reasons why you should take the feedback you’re given by your evaluator with a grain of salt:

1. The beautiful thing about Toastmasters - that you’re all there to improve yourself and help each other - is also one of its flaws. Most Toastmasters are not experts at giving useful feedback.
2. The evaluation of your speech is given within the same meeting. So the evaluator has limited time to consider their remarks and has to do it while the meeting is being conducted.

The result is that most evaluations focus on the superficial and easy-to-see aspects of a speech. They ignore the more important, but difficult to analyse, aspects of the speech.

Toastmasters evaluations overemphasise vocal variety, body language and ums and ahs. Focusing on these aspects of speechmaking leads to people performing - rather than communicating.

That’s what happened to me. When I stood up to speak I switched into performance mode. After I left Toastmasters I needed intensive coaching to let go of performing and instead connect with the audience as individual human beings.

Many evaluations are also far too kind. It takes expertise and courage to give negative personal feedback in a compassionate way. So many Toastmasters avoid it. Toastmasters evaluations are generally positive, supportive and encouraging - it’s one of the great things about Toastmasters which makes it a safe place to learn public speaking. But sometimes we need feedback on the things we don’t do so well. And if you don’t get it, you won’t improve. That’s why there are people who’ve been in Toastmasters for years and are still average speakers.

3. Find a trusted mentor to give you feedback

So you do need feedback. Speaking is not enough. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Honest and constructive feedback is crucial to improving. Within your club find someone whose speaking style and approach you admire. Ask them to be your mentor and to give you honest and analytical feedback. Here are the two things that most Toatmasters evaluations don’t cover that you want them to give you feedback on:

1. The content of your speech - was it tailored to the needs of the audience, did it provide a take home message, what were the benefits of the speech to the audience, did the structure flow, did you back up your points with evidence?
2. Your connection with the audience - did you come across as genuinely communicating with people in the audience, did it feel like you were having a conversation with individuals?

4. Don’t copy the Toastmasters way of using PowerPoint

Toastmasters don’t seem to have caught up with the PowerPoint revolution. Here’s an example of a slide produced by Toastmasters International:

This is slide 2 out of 30 slides. It’s a perfect recipe for death by PowerPoint. Get your inspiration for Powerpoint slides from books like Presentation Zen (blog: PresentationZen) and Slideology (blog: Slideology). Other excellent PowerPoint design blogs are Dave Paradi’s Powerpoint Blog, Slides that Stick from Jan Schultink and PowerPoint Ninja from Brent Dykes.

For experienced Toastmasters

My most useful learning in Toastmasters came when Tony and I decided to present a session called “MindPower in Speechmaking” at the District 72 (New Zealand) Conference. We started preparing months in advance and spent every spare moment working on the session - refining scripts, developing participative exercises, and rehearsing. We delivered the session at several clubs before the Conference, videotaped ourselves and watched it back. I had never put so much work into one presentation.  I learnt a huge amount by working so intensively on one speech.

You can give yourself this learning opportunity too. But it’s not built into the Toastmasters programme - you have to take the initiative. Here are some things you can do to get the most out of Toastmasters.

1. Videotape yourself

Watching yourself present is a powerful way of getting feedback on how you come across. Although you can video yourself at home giving a speech - this gives you limited information. Take your video camera to your Toastmasters meeting and ask someone to video you. That way you can see what you’re like with a real audience.

2. Pretend it’s a different audience

One of the drawbacks of Toastmasters is that you’re generally presenting to the same audience. That means you don’t get any practice at tailoring your speech to a different audience - a core skill of presenting. Decide the type of audience you want to tailor your speech to. Then let your club know what role they’re playing and ask for feedback on the tailoring of the speech to that audience.

3. Repeat a speech several times

Most of the time in Toastmasters you plan a speech, you give it - and then move onto the next one. If you’re always giving a speech for the first time, it’s challenging to be 100% focused on simply communicating your message to the audience.  Once you’ve given the speech several times you can get out of your head and be with the audience.

Repeating a speech also enables you to fine-tune the content and monitor the impact of the changes you make. It’s an excellent learning opportunity.

4. Speak at other clubs and conferences

After a while, the Toastmasters club you belong to becomes your comfort zone. You know everyone there,  they’re all friendly and encouraging. You know they’ll be warm and supportive even when things go wrong. Step out of that comfort zone. Stretch yourself. Contact other clubs and ask to speak at one of their meetings.

5. Enter Toastmaster competitions

Competitions have two great advantages - you get to repeat a speech (point no 3) and you get to give it to different, and often larger, audiences (point no 4). So enter competitions to easily get those opportunities.

6. Offer to give an educational session

One of the drawbacks of Toastmasters is that all the speeches are relatively short. Much shorter than in the business world.

There’s a big difference between delivering a seven minute speech and a 40 minute presentation. With a seven minute speech you can rehearse five times, that’s only 35 minutes - with a 40 minute presentation that would be three hours 20 minutes. On the other hand a 40 minute presentation gives you the time to do things that can’t easily fit into a seven minute speech eg: incorporating audience participation.

So offer to give an educational session - the club members will benefit and you’ll gain from the experience of giving a longer presentation.

Don’t use the educational sessions prepared by Toastmasters. They weren’t any good when I was in Toastmasters and they haven’t improved. Prepare your own educational session based on your own experience.

7. Experiment

Toastmasters is a fantastic place to experiment and play with different speech ideas. You can’t do this in a normal business presentation. But to make this happen in Toastmasters it is up to you to take the initiative. When Tony Burns (my partner) was developing his material for paid conference speaking he used his Toastmasters club as a place for testing and finetuning his stories and his humour. Steve Pavlina, from the Personal Development for Smart People blog says:

I find Toastmasters to be a great environment for making mistakes and taking risks. I’ve done purely humorous speeches, gave a speech in film noir style, opened a speech with juggling, had the audience pretend to be superheroes, and incorporated wacky props like Barbie dolls and a ghost made from Kleenex and cotton balls. The supportive atmosphere of Toastmasters allows me to experiment well beyond the edges of what I’ve had the opportunity to do in front of other audiences. And I find that Toastmaster audiences appreciate a bit of wackiness and creativity, since they’ve already seen “the standard speech” a zillion times before.

In summary, Toastmasters is a great place to develop public speaking confidence - and by grabbing some of the ideas here you can make the most of your membership.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

8 tips for encouraging questions in your presentation

Most of us would like people in the audience to ask questions. A lively Q&A session is stimulating and engaging for the audience. But sometimes you ask for questions, and you’re just met with blank gazes back from your audience. It’s a let-down and your presentation ends on a sour note.

Questions from the audience are like young fragile seedlings - they need nurturing. Consider when you’re in the audience - what stages do you have to mentally go through in order to ask a question? It might go something like this:

So as the presenter, you need to nurture your audience’s questions through these four stages. Here are 8 tips to help make them through:

1. Pitch your presentation at the right level for your audience

The first stage of questions is birth - they have to be born in your audience’s mind. If your presentation is too simple for the level of knowledge in your audience - it’s all material they’ve covered before - they won’t have any questions. Conversly, if it’s too complicated for them, they’ll turn off rather than risk asking a question which might make them look stupid.

2. Don’t cover every aspect of your topic in the presentation

If you cover everything there is to know on the topic - you won’t leave room for questions. So don’t be exhaustive in your coverage.

3. Let your audience know you would like questions and when to ask them

Near the beginning of your presentation let your audience know that you welcome questions. Then let them know when to ask them. There are a number of options:

Take questions throughout your presentation

Tell people they can interrupt you throughout the presentation to ask questions as they come to mind. This has several benefits:

• people won’t have to remember their question till later
• if they’re uncertain about something they can get that clarified at the time
• questions on a particular issue are dealt with at the same time that you’re discussing that issue.

The downside to this strategy is that it can take you off track if people ask irrelevant questions or questions that you’re going to cover later in the presentation. If you find it tricky to get back into the flow of your presentation after an interruption it may not be the best strategy for you. Finally, it can throw the timing of your presentation if people ask a lot of questions on a particular issue. This strategy is best used in longer presentations and training courses where timing is less critical.

Take questions at defined points of your presentation

Tell people you will have an opportunity for questions after you’ve finished each part of your presentation. This option is a useful halfway point between having questions throughout and leaving them till the end of the presentation. You can also decide how long to take questions for during each break in your presentation, and so control the timing better.

4. Let them ask a question as soon as they have one

If you’re serious about ensuring that people get their questions answered, invite people to interrupt you and ask their question. It’s the only way to ensure this. That’s when the question is burning for them. The longer you make people wait, the less likely they are to remember it. Once you’ve moved onto a new topic, their question will seem less relevant. Joey Asher from Talking Points blog says:

Questions aren’t to be feared. They’re to be embraced.  There’s no better way to connect with an audience than to allow them free rein to ask as many questions as they want.

5. Invite people to write down their questions as they think of them

If you don’t want to take questions throughout, you can help people remember their questions by suggesting that they write them down.

6. Validate every question

It takes courage to ask a question. It’s public speaking - just not from the front of the room. People are held back by wondering if their question is stupid or did they miss something and you already answered it. So you need to do your bit to make it a safe environment for people to ask questions. Do that by responding warmly to all questions that are asked - even if the question is stupid or you had already covered it. I don’t recommend saying “Good question”. It’s become a cliche which is often used when the presenter can’t immediately think of the answer.

7. Have people discuss in pairs any questions they may have

If your audience seems a little shy, give them an opportunity to discuss their questions with one other person before they ask them in front of the whole of the audience. Here’s how do do this:

“I’m going to ask for questions in a moment. Please turn to the person next to you and discuss together any questions you have. Then I’ll answer those questions.”

This has several benefits:

• It gives people the opportunity to try out their question in front of one person before risking humiliation in front of the whole audience.
• Any questions that are answered by material you’ve already covered can be answered by their partner.
• It gives people the opportunity to rehearse and fine-tune their question so that it will be shorter and clearer when they ask you.

8. Answer questions clearly and succinctly

If you answer every question with a long-winded and incoherent ramble, people are going to be reluctant to ask you another one. They’ll conclude they’re unlikely to get a useful answer from you. Nor do they want to subject the rest of the audience to another ramble.

More resources on other blogs

Five ways to make presentations Q&A friendly from Joey Asher at Talking Points. He also recommends validating every question:

Smiling at the questioner is like rewarding a dog for sitting on command.  Once rewarded, the chances are the audience will ask more.

John Windsor has a useful post Making the most of a Q&A session. He stresses anticipating the questions that might be asked. And also advises that you recap and conclude your presentation after the Q&A session. That provides a stronger ending to your presentation than just lettting questions peter out.

Andrew Dlugan discusses Leading the perfect Q&A. This covers all elements of the Q&A session from both the audience’s point of view and the presenters.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

5 steps to effective Powerpoint Presentations

Stepcase Lifehack just published a blogpost on tips for more effective PowerPoint presentations. I was surprised to see some outdated and unhelpful advice. Here are my five steps to create an effective PowerPoint presentation. I’ve written about many of these steps before, so I’ve provided links to more detailed posts if you’d like more information.

1. Plan your presentation on paper first.

Keep away from the computer. Garr Reynolds from PresentationZen calls this going analog.

Instead focus on your audience and what you want them to take away from the presentation. What do you want them to do? How do you want them to think differently? What do you want them to remember? This will become your Key Message. See this post for more guidance A Simple and Concrete Key Message.

Then structure the flow of your presentation around what your audience will want to know - see Answer your audience’s questions.

The Lifehack post recommends writing a script. I don’t recommend this. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re a skilled dialogue-writer you’ll find it difficult to write your script in conversational language. And conversational language is what works best in a presentation.
• Once you’ve written a script, you may find it hard to keep from reading it. Reading to your audience is an effective way to put them to sleep.
• You may think that you can memorise it - what that means is that you’ll end up “reading” from the script in your head. You’ll still sound artificial and stilted. And you’ll be focusing on remembering what comes next rather than focusing on getting your ideas across to your audience.

Presenting is about communicating ideas - not exact words and sentences. So instead of a script create a set of notes for yourself. Your notes don’t say what you want to say - they remind you of what you want to say. For more guidance on creating notes, see this post The lost art of notes. Then you can focus on connecting with your audience.

Once you’ve created the structure and flow of your presentation, you can start creating slides. There are many different creative ways of creating slides. In this post, I’ll take you through a quick and easy way to use when you’re short of time.

2. Put one statement on each slide

Take each main point of your presentation and express it as a short and succinct statement. Put each statement on one slide.

That’s the only text you put on the slide. The Lifehack post says ‘No paragraphs’! I go further and say ‘No bullets’! Here’s why:

• Bullets are the speaker’s notes in disguise. Take them off the screen and put them in your hand or on the table/lectern in front of you.
• Having bullets on your slide and talking at the same time harms the ability of your audience to take in your message. See The problem with traditional bullet-point slides and New scientific evidence for banning bullets from your PowerPoint slides.
• Bullet-points are outdated. See 5 ways bullet-point slides damage your brand.

If you run out of time, these simple one-statement slides will work fine. If you’ve got time, go onto the next step.

3. Add a relevant visual to each slide

Now look at how you can add a visual element to each slide which helps back-up the point of the slide. There are four main types of visual:

1. An image or photograph which directly represents or is a metaphor for what you’re talking about.
2. A diagram which helps your audience understand the concept you’re describing.
3. A graph which shows the meaning of your data.
4. A flowchart that demonstrates the process you’re explaining.

For more description of each of these see this post on The application of visual thinking to presentations.

I agree with the Lifehack post that irrelevant, distracting images and cliched clipart shouldn’t be used. Watch out also for cliched images - the Slide:ology blog has lots of examples of these.

4. Pay attention to design

The Lifehacker post says:

Avoid the temptation to dress up your pages with cheesy effects and focus instead on simple design basics.

I agree. The key design principles are:

• Use a simple background - decorative templates add clutter.
• Use a sans serif font such as arial or helvetica.
• Use text which contrasts well with the background.
• If you’re using photos have them fill the whole screen and put your text on top of them. If necessary use a semi-transparent rectangle - a mask - behind the text to ensure that it is readable.

These two posts expand on these points:

• Powerpoint slide design - the basics
• PowerPoint slide design - adding elegance

The Lifehacker post says avoid dark backgrounds if you can to help with readability. This used to be true with older dimmer datashow projectors, but now with brighter projectors it’s not an issue unless you’re in a very light room like a conservatory or direct sunlight is hitting the screen.

5. Dance with your slides

You know not to read from your slides. But don’t go the other extreme of ignoring your slides like a wallflower at a dance. Dance with them. They are your partner in the presentation - sometimes you lead, sometimes the slide will lead. For more ideas on how to do this see my post Are you missing out on half the power of your PowerPoint slides?

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

5 ways bullet-point slides damage your brand

Your presentation style is part of your personal brand. If you’re still clinging to bullet-point slides, it doesn’t matter how dynamic you are as a presenter, your personal brand will be damaged.

That’s because when you use bullet-laden slides in your presentation, your audience will make five decisions about you and your presentation:

1. This is going to be boring

When an audience sees the first slide of your presentation and they see row after row of bullets they’ll sink just a little in their seats. They’ve had to sit though many boring bullet-laden presentations before and they’re thinking “Uh-oh - this is going to be boring.”

Just like Pavlov’s dogs it’s a conditioned response. Paylov’s dogs salivated when Pavlov rang a bell because they anticipated being fed. Audiences deflate when the presenter uses bullets because they anticipate being bored.

2. You don’t know your stuff

If you knew your stuff, why would you need a screen to prompt you every few seconds? One of our course participants summed it up:

“I’ve been burying my expertise in a barrage of bullets.”

When I see someone presenting with bullet-point slides, I often think that I could deliver the presentation better than they can - even though I know nothing about the topic. Bullet-point slides obviate the need for your knowledge.

So take your notes off the screen, and put them in your hand. Now you can show off your knowledge.

3. You’re not up-to-date

The PowerPoint revolution has happened. People have seen PowerPoint used to show images to inspire and amuse, to show diagrams to clarify and explain, and to show charts that make data meaningful rather than deadly.

So when you show slide after slide of bullets, your audience will make that mean that you’re out-of-date and that you and your organisation are stuck in the past.

4. You’re lazy

Bullet-point slides send the message that you’re not prepared to put the work in to transform your presentation. The audience may be thinking “If you’re lazy about preparing your presentation, what else are you lazy about?”

You may be overestimating the time it will take to transform your presentation slides. Many of our course participants are surprised by how quickly they can put together a visually interesting PowerPoint presentation. See this post about The best PowerPoint slide format to see how long it takes compared to the alternatives.

5. You’re wasting my time

When you sit through a lengthy bullet-point presentation, do you think to yourself  “The presenter could have sent me the slides for me to read and that would be a lot quicker!”

Your presentation is part of your personal brand and that of your organisation. If you’re still clinging to bullets, you’re damaging your brand.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

Six lessons in public speaking from Obama

America has elected the greatest political speaker for a generation.

You may think that there’s nothing for you to learn from Barack Obama’s speechmaking skills - that speaking to 200,000 people at Grant Park, Chicago is too far removed from the presentation you might give to your staff, to your management team or to potential clients. Here are six lessons you can learn from Obama’s acceptance speech at Grant Park.

1. Know your audience

It would have been easy for Obama to fall into the trap of talking to the 200,000 people before him in Grant Park. He didn’t. He spoke to Americans in their living rooms, he spoke to those who voted for McCain, he spoke to people watching him across the world - leaders and the poorest of the  poor. He knew who his audience was.

“And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”

2. Envelop your point in a story

The long history of the campaign for civil rights in America made Obama’s election possible. Obama enveloped this point with the story of Anne Dixon Cooper, a 106 year old woman who was born the daughter of slaves, and has lived through the milestons of the civil rights movement.

“She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.”

That’s far more emotionally engaging than giving us a history lesson.

3. Paint pictures on the canvas of your audience’s mind

Obama used specific and concrete words to conjure powerful images in our minds. Here are some examples:

“Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.”

“Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.”

“And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it’s been done in America for 221 years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

4. Get personal

Barack Obama told the whole world that he’s getting his two young daughters a puppy to take with them to the White House. And the world loved it. In his first press conference he remarked that this is the most popular issue on his website.

5. Wait for weight

Obama is not in a hurry when he speaks. He waits for the audience to process and react to what he has just said. And that gives his words weight. You can do the same.

6. Light and shade

Obama’s acceptance speech had different moods - joyful - humorous - serious - intimate - determined. The contrasts keep us engaged - build light and shade into your presentations.

Here’s the full transcript of the speech - it’s worth reading in its entirety.

For more perspectives, here are other posts on Barack Obama’s acceptance speech:

Bert Decker focuses on impressive aspects of Obama’s transformational speech.

Lisa Braithwaite comments on Obama’s speech and McCain’s concession speech.

Nick Morgan praises both Obama and McCain for their speeches.

Max Atkinson analyses Obama’s rhetorical techniques.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

Review of the top 10 methods to overcome fear of public speaking #1

There’s a ton of internet advice on how to overcome the fear of public speaking. Much of the advice is of the “what worked for me” kind. Or the advice is the first stage of trying to sell you a a hypnosis CD. So how do you decide what advice to follow? In this post series, I’ll be reviewing the 10 most recommended methods. Here’s the list (not in any particular order):

1. Affirmations
2. Visualization
3. Hypnosis
4. Relaxation techniques
5. Neuro-Linguistic Programming
6. The Lefkoe method
7. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
8. Medication
9. Just do it
10. Toastmasters

If you think there are others that I should be looking at, let me know. My aim is to look for evidence of effectiveness on a more than anecdotal basis. In this post, I’ll start with affirmations and visualization.

1.  Positive Affirmations

A positive affirmation is a statement stated in the present-tense which describes how you’d like to be. Here’s an example from the ThinkSimpleNow blog on conquering your fear of public speaking.

“I am a fantastic speaker and I deliver engaging presentations.”

You repeat the affirmation to yourself and stick it somewhere where you’ll often be reminded of it. It’s easy to find people who attribute their success to affirmations:

Before a sales meeting once, I was repeating similar affirmations to myself as I got ready in the morning, and in the car as I drove to the meeting. I sold with flying colors. That’s when I really learned the power of affirmation.

An article in Psychology Today ; Self-Help: Shattering the Myths says about affirmations:

Psychologists say this technique may not be very helpful. Changing how we feel about ourselves is a lot more complicated, explains William Swann, Ph.D., of the University of Texas-Austin…Self-affirmations, even when endlessly repeated, don’t make much of a dent — and when they fail to work, they may leave us even more demoralized.

Self-esteem research by Robert Josephs and Chris Jacobs indicates that people with low self-esteem don’t accept positive feedback from themselves - it has to come from someone else. The research is reported in Psychology Today in an article on affirmations:

Jacobs says the study’s results cast doubt on the value of self-affirmations, a self-esteem building technique found in many self-help books and programs. For people with a poor self-image, it seems, repeating the phrase “I am credible” won’t make it so.

This to me, is the critical issue with affirmations. An important component of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - a proven treatment method for depression and anxiety - is the believability of the new thought processes. Can affirmations really have an impact if you don’t believe what you’re saying?

2. Visualizations

There are two distinct types of visualization - one is supported by scientific research and one is not. But they’re often mixed up. The two types are:

a. Positive visualization, and

b. Mental rehearsal.

Positive visualization

In a positive visualization you imagine the results of giving a successful presentation. Here’s an example of a positive visualization:

You see yourself speaking to the audience. You’re doing a great job. The audience is leaning forward - they’re engaged, nodding and smiling at you. At the end of your presentation, they give you a resounding round of applause and people come up to you and complement you on how well you did.

I’ve been unable to find any scientific evidence that backs up the use of this type of visualization for effectively reducing your nerves or improving your performance. Here’s why I think that might be:

1. It’s not realistic - audiences are not always smiling and nodding. They’re not always fascinated by what you’ve got to say. Although this type of visualization may momentarily make you feel good, does it help your confidence when you’re faced with a more normal audience?

2. It has you experience the outcome of the presentation, rather than the process of delivering the presentation. Again that may make you feel good during the visualization, but it doesn’t deliver any other benefits.

Mental rehearsal

When you mentally rehearse your presentation, in contrast to the positive visualization above, you go through the whole process of giving the presentation - not just seeing the outcome. You see the audience reaction as you realistically think it will be. You imagine what might go wrong and rehearse how you will effectively cope with it. There is a large body of evidence that backs up the use of mental rehearsal (also called mental imagery, mental practice and coping rehearsal). Here’s a quote from the wikipedia entry on mental rehearsal:

Educational researchers have examined whether the experience of mental imagery affects the degree of learning. For example, imagining playing a 5-finger piano exercise (mental practice) resulted in a significant improvement in performance over no mental practice — though not as significant as that produced by physical practice and the authors of the study stated that “mental practice alone seems to be sufficient to promote the modulation of neural circuits involved in the early stages of motor skill learning.” (Pascual-Leone et al 1995).

This article on Imagining instructions: Mental practice in highly cognitive domains summarises much of the research. Mental rehearsal  is used widely by top athletes in many sports to improve their performance. It’s most effective at reducing your nerves when you use it to prepare for things not going well. Here’s a report of how Billie Jean King, a former top tennis player, prepares for a speech:

“She drives us crazy, absolutely crazy, planning for everything and anything to go wrong,” Kloss said. “She’ll say, ‘What about this? What about that? What if this happens?’ By the time Billie gets on stage or on the court, she’s laid out every possible scenario in her mind. And at that point, she’s totally calm.”

So using mental rehearsal to reduce your nerves is not about imagining everything going smoothly, it’s about imagining the things that might go wrong, and then visualizing how you will cope with this.

For example, let’s say you’re concerned about your mind going blank during your presentation. Visualize this situation as if it were happening to you right now. Now see yourself staying calm. Pause and take your time to look at your notes. Find your place and work out what what you want to say next. When you’re ready, look up at someone in your audience and start talking.

If you’ve practiced this in your head, should you suffer a mind blank during the real thing, you’ll have conditioned yourself to react in a calm and unruffled way, and you’ll be able to smoothly resume your presentation.

So unlike affirmations and positive visualizations, mental rehearsal is an effective method for reducing your fear of public speaking.

In the next post in this series, I’ll review the effectiveness of hypnosis, relaxation techniques and Neuro Linguistic Programming for reducing your nerves.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

How to project your voice

A reader has asked:

I always feel that I am not able to project my voice and articulate the words properly. Is there any material / information on how I can improve these areas?

Presenters often want advice on projecting their voice. They see voice projection as a solution to not talking loud enough. But when I work with presenters who say they want to project their voice, I hardly ever end up teaching them that - because we solve the problem in other ways.

So I want to backtrack. First, let’s look at whether there is a problem.

Is there a problem?

There’s only a problem if people in your audience either can’t comfortably hear you or can’t understand you.

Maybe you speak quietly. That’s your natural style whether you’re having a conversation with one other person or speaking to a group. As long as people don’t have to strain to hear you, that’s not a problem.

You may have a friend or colleague who has advised you to speak louder or project your voice. This advice is well-intentioned but misguided. They think that a public speaker should speak at a certain volume.

But they forget that it’s more important to be yourself, than to try and aspire to some “model” of how a public speaker should be. When you try and be something other than yourself - you lose something far more important than what you might be gaining. You lose authenticity - that feeling that the audience has that they are seeing the real you.

So get some feedback from a range of people in your audience. Do people have a problem hearing you or understanding you? If they don’t, that’s great. If they do, let’s go onto look at the cause of the problem.

What’s the underlying reason for the problem?

There are three possibilities:

1. You don’t how to use your voice effectively to make it go louder.

2. Nervousness is subduing you, and as a result you’re speaking too quietly.

3. You’re not looking at the people you’re speaking to.

1. Can you use your voice?

Learning how to project your voice is obviously the solution to the first problem. The vast majority of people do know how to increase the volume of their voice. It’s a natural human skill. Sure, to be an opera singer you might need some technical training on voice projection - but not to be a presenter.

Most likely, you already know how to use your voice.

Have a play with your voice

Test this out in a large room with an honest, compassionate and playful friend. Stand at opposite ends of the room. Focus on your friend - can you make yourself heard across the room? Now have a play with your voice. Experiment. How soft can you speak? How loud can you speak? Can you make it boom? Can you make it squeak? Your voice is carried on your breath so experiment with your breathing - breath from your diaphragm (put your hand on your belly to check that you’re doing this) and see how your voice sounds.

Get feedback from your friend on how your voice sounds. In this stress-free environment, you’ll probably find you can use your voice just fine. If you are having problems (and your friend agrees ie: it’s not just your perception) then you might need more help from a voice coach or singing teacher.

2. Nervousness is subduing you

So you know how to use your voice, but when you’re in front of an audience that ability deserts you! Fear and nervousness are a normal part of public speaking for many people. And for you, it makes you go quiet.

Here’s what I speculate might be going on for you.

You might have a thought that goes like this:

“I must be approved by every person in the audience. If they don’t approve of me that would be awful.”

If you believe this thought, you defend yourself against the possiblity of disapproval by speaking quietly. After all, if they can’t hear or understand what you say, they can’t disapprove.

But this thought is untrue and irrational. I recommend using strategies from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to deal with thoughts like this. That means first challenging the thought and then replacing it with a more rational and empowering thought.

Challenge the thought

It’s not true that you must have everyone’s approval. Sure, you’d like it - but it’s not essential to your survival. Part of becoming comfortable with public speaking is becoming comfortable with the idea that you won’t always get approval from every person in your audience. I like this Bill Cosby quote:

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

Replace the thought

Here’s a more rational and empowering thought to replace it with:

“I’d like people in the audience to approve of what I have to say, but I’ll be able to cope if they don’t.”

Note that this isn’t a positive affirmation like “Everyone will approve of me”. That’s not necessarily true - sometimes people don’t like you or what you have to say. And as a result it’s not believable. The replacement thought that I have suggested is truthful and believable. And it will make you feel more confident.

Check out my post on the Seven Thinking Sins of Public Speaking for more examples on replacing unhelpful thoughts.

3. You’re not looking at the people you’re speaking to

There are some people - and maybe you’re one of them - who don’t look at their audience when they’re speaking. Maybe you look at the screen, at the floor, at the ceiling, or into the middle distance.

When we speak one-on-one to someone, we naturally modulate our volume so that they can hear us. If they’re close, we speak softly. If they’re across the room, we up the volume.

This natural ability comes into play when you look at the person you’re speaking to.

I’m not talking fleeting eye contact. Choose one audience-member to talk to and imagine you’re having a one-on-one conversation with them. Speak just to them. Make a connection with them. Look for their reaction as you’re talking. Then choose another person to talk to. When you talk like this - with the intention of connecting with each individual audience member - you will naturally project your voice so that they can hear you.

You may be uncomfortable with this sustained eye connection. But what you’re uncomfortable with may be just right for your audience. You can test this out by gathering together a range of friends or colleagues. Experiment with eye connection. Then ask them to tell you whether it was uncomfortable for them.

Summary

You probably don’t need to learn how to project your voice. You can already do that. But do look at the thoughts that might be making you nervous. And use your natural ability to modulate the volume of your voice by speaking to each person in your audience.

Do you have a question?

This post was written in response to a reader’s question. If you’d like some advice on some aspect of  presenting or public speaking, write your question in the comments or send me an e-mail.

Go well with your next presentation. If you found this post useful, subscribe to my RSS feed.

Next Page »