New research: warning about story-telling

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]

How to tell a story like Malcolm Gladwell

I bought Outliers two days ago. And though I’m familiar with many of the stories that Gladwell tells I’m still entranced. They work on the printed page and they’ll also work for you in a presentation. How does he do it?

Here’s my analysis of Gladwell’s storytelling techniques -  illustrated by Chapter Five of the book.

1. He starts with one subject

[Read more]

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. [Read more]

How to establish your credibility without bragging

It’s hard to pull-off establishing your credentials without sounding like you’re bragging. The public speaking blogosphere is alive with stories of presenters who didn’t quite hit the right note. Lisa Braithwaite says in her blog post on establishing your credentials, they haven’t come to the presentation to hear all about you. Dave Paradi also warns against talking about yourself too much.

It’s like we have a braggart alarm bell. We’ve learnt not to trust people who speak too well of themselves. So how can you avoid setting off the braggart alarm bells of your audience while still establishing your authority to speak on the topic?

The secret is to make it look as if it’s not you doing the bragging. [Read more]