Will Smith’s keys to a great presentation

Leo Babauta from the blog Zen Habits recently posted his Top 5 most inspirational videos on YouTube. I hadn’t come across this remix of a speech by Will Smith (the remix is by TeamJonny5 – I’ve edited it slightly). It’s only 1 min 19 sec so take the time to watch it because in this short snippet Will Smith showcases the elements of great speech design :

OK, it’s not a corporate or business presentation. But I bet if I asked you in 6 months time “What are Will Smith’s keys to life?” – you could tell me.  That’s because it’s got great design for stickability. What makes this speech so memorable that you can use when you plan your next business presentation? [Read more]

Lessons from Cialdini: what can we learn from hotel towels?

Robert Cialdini is recognised as an authority on persuasion. His latest book Yes: 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion co-authored with Noah Goldstein and Steve Martin has many nuggets for presenters. I’ll be reviewing these in a series of posts. Here’s the first one:

We are strongly persuaded by what people like us do.

In the book Cialdini and his co-authors outline a series of experiments on the cards in hotel bathrooms attempting to persuade us to reuse the towels. The standard appeal on these cards is to our concern for the environment. The authors experimented with changes to the wording on these cards. Here’s what they found: [Read more]