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?
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