Professionally Speaking...

WEB 2.0 PHILOSOPHY FOR YOUR PRESENTATIONS

I attended a presentation recently (at the DC Chapter of ASTD - the American Society of Training and Development) on using Web 2.0 tools to enable social learning. The presenter did a great job on most presentation techniques but one thing really stood out -- his connection with the audience.

He used many presentation best practices to engage his listeners -- eye contact, asking rhetorical questions, having some knowledge about issues important to this audience. But what was particularly impressive was how he modeled the philosophy of Web 2.0 in his presentation.

WEB 2.0 PHILOSOPHY

Web 2.0 is all about collaborating, sharing, facilitating rather than teaching, embracing an abundance mentality. So instead of presenting gems of wisdom from the lofty perch of the expert, accompanied by a multitude of PowerPoint slides, this speaker encouraged a dialogue where audience members interacted with each other, sharing ideas, commenting on others' comments and making discoveries along the way.

Now this was not audience members being put into groups at their tables to discuss a point and then report back. This was real time interaction and sharing, facilitated by the presenter who managed the timing, asked questions, synthesized and added value to the comments.

The audience was energized and very involved. They had contributed to their own experience.

And they had made new networking contacts to follow up with after the presentation.

ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS

What ingredients does a speaker need to create this sort of presentation?

• a clear understanding of the key messages and how to get back to them
• significant comfort level with the material
• willingness to give control to the audience
• ability to get that control back
• lack of heavy reliance on PowerPoint slides
• skill in anticipating questions
• ability to think on one's feet
• ability to let go of one's ego and be OK with not having all the answers

A tall order, you might say. And I agree that it is not the typical presentation style. But the payback in terms of audience response, engagement and value makes it a format worth putting into your tool kit.

What are your thoughts on the benefits and challenges of this type of approach?

PRESENTATION NERVES AT A PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURAL

You may be able to identify with feeling nervous when speaking to a group of people. It's perfectly normal. We all worry, to some degree, about forgetting what we intended to say or stumbling over our words.

Now imagine standing in front of 2 million people (with countless more millions watching on TV and the internet) and blowing your lines.

That is exactly what happened to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and our new President at the swearing-in on Tuesday.

Justice Roberts started to utter the oath that President Obama was supposed to repeat..."I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear..."

But Roberts got only as far as the first four words when the President chimed in and spoke over top of the next three words. This apparently threw the Chief Justice off and he flubbed the following line, getting the next part of the oath woefully confused ("...that I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully..." instead of "...that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States").

And in that moment, President Obama hesitated and waited for the Chief Justice to offer him the correct line. When Roberts didn't, the President quickly repeated the line that Roberts had given him, even though he knew it wasn't correct.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

So what is the point of highlighting this uncomfortable moment in an otherwise flawless ceremony?

It captures three lessons we can all apply:

• It's easy to get nervous in front of an audience...even when we are accustomed to speaking  frequently to large groups.

• It's the sign of a professional to keep calm, even after a mistake. Neither the President nor the Chief Justice appeared shaken or paralyzed by the gaffe (despite the millions of people watching and listening).

• It's helpful to stay focused on what's most comfortable for the audience. Both the President and the Chief Justice realized, in the moment, that the audience would find it awkward for them to belabor the mistake by going back to the beginning and starting again. What their audience wanted was for them to simply keep going.

BLOGGING MAKES THE WORLD (WIDE WEB) GO 'ROUND

My colleague and fellow blogger, Scott Eblin at Next Level, "tagged" me back in December in one of his posts. I certainly appreciate being mentioned in his list of favorite bloggers! It's now my turn to pay it forward.

What a fun way to share the wealth of the blogosphere and some of my own favorites.

In addition to Scott's blog, here are some of the savvy bloggers that I read regularly:

• John Windsor at The You Blog

• Max Atkinson at  Max Atkinson's Blog

• Andrew Dlugan at Six Minutes

• Denise Graveline at The Eloquent Woman

• Olivia Mitchell at Speaking About Presenting

• Dave Paradi at  Dave Paradi's PowerPoint Blog 

• The Henderson Group's Speak Fearlessly

Part of the tagging routine is to share seven fun facts about yourself. As Scott said, I'll keep these brief so I don't lose you.

1. I used to volunteer with a feline rescue and adoption group. Rewarding and heartbreaking at the same time.
2. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a figure skater. Loved those twirls.
3. After college, I moved to Canada where I found out I didn't know much at all about geography.
4. In another life I'd be a horticulturist...I lose my heart to every rosebush I see. 
5. My husband, Sheldon (who draws kitties with attitude in his spare time), lights up my world every single day. 
6. In the last 14 years, I have lived in Toronto, San Diego, San Francisco, St. Augustine and now DC -- who knew I had a gypsy gene.
7. I'm mad about kitties. I share my life with 3 lovely boys...Gilbert, Sullivan and Jake...and learn lessons from them every day about love, grace and sassiness.

Finally, there are some guidelines for those of you who have been tagged by me today to follow if you want to continue the game.  Here they are:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they have been tagged.

The take-away in this bit of fun?? Share knowledge and resources...embrace an abundance mentality...there's more than enough to go around.

Tag...you're it!

ONE SMALL STEP TO PRESENTATION EXCELLENCE

Do you ever get frustrated when, after taking a presentation skills course, you're not immediately much better at giving presentations? I mean, you've learned all those great new techniques...right?

I recently heard an interview on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show that offers an explanation. According to Robert Maurer, Director of Behavioral Sciences at the UCLA Medical Center, in his book One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, you need to break down the overall task you want to accomplish into very small steps. The smaller the step, the easier it is for the brain to learn new behavior.

THE KAIZEN WAY

The basis for this approach is kaizen, the ancient Asian philosophy of "achieving great and lasting success through small, steady steps." Maurer says that these small steps "disarm the brain's fear response." Since fear plays a role in all types of change, both positive and negative, disarming or negating the fear creates room to achieve desired results.

An associated technique Maurer endorses is mind sculpture (I've posted here about visualization) where you "visualize virtual change to effect real change." That is, you imagine, in as small detail as possible, what you want to have happen or how you want things to go. When the brain cells realize that something is important to you, because you've visualized it multiple times, they commit to it.

So what does this mean for presentations?

• Pick one thing to work on that will improve your presentation [such as focusing more on the audience].

• Break that thing down into very small steps [find out 3 issues that are important to this audience; write out 3 questions that you will pose to the audience during your presentation; write into your presentation notes 6 places where you will specifically make eye contact with the audience; videotape yourself to observe the frequency of your eye contact].

• Then visualize, in minute detail, doing these things and include in your visualization the audience responding warmly and being engaged in what you're saying.

Once you see improvement and experience increased comfort with this aspect of your presentation, pick another aspect and repeat.

The brain is a creature of habit. Once it gets in the practice of knowing what you're going to ask of it, it will gladly oblige.

THE DON'T MISS THIS LIST, EDITION 2

What better way to ring in the new year than to make a resolution to improve our presentations! To help with that, here are some thought-provoking posts which explore good (and bad) communicators plus some presentation wish lists for 2009. Happy New Year!

• Bert Decker has provided an entertaining and insightful list of The Top Ten Best (and Worst) Communicators of 2008. This is an annual list drawn from politics, media, business, entertainment and sports (interesting how very few corporate business types are on the lists). You'll definitely find some familiar (and expected) names. But there are a few surprises too. One name is on both the best and worst lists.

• A Wish List for Presentations in 2009 hopes simply for presentations that are less shockingly bad. This post offers a couple humorous, tongue-in-cheek suggestions for improvement and then goes on to dialogue about the balance between information and emotion (which has given me an idea for an upcoming post...ah, isn't that exactly what the blogosphere is all about!)

• A post on PowerPoint advocates NO bullet points (yea!!!). Instead, use the slides to tell a story with pictures and minimum text. If we could all accomplish this, presentations would suddenly be shockingly good!

• To round things out, the Top Ten Speeches List includes some people you might not think would be on such a list...like John Cleese and J.K. Rowling. The best thing is that you can click and listen to each of the speeches. As I've said here before, listening to a great speech is a terrific way to learn how to model good techniques. 

So with all this great input, what are your presentation resolutions for 2009?