Professionally Speaking...

Presentation Thanks

Throughout the year in this blog I focus on techniques and strategies we can implement to improve our presentations. As we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving this week in the U.S., I wanted to pause a moment to look beyond the "how" and reflect on the "what" -- specifically, on the many things in the world of presenting that I am thankful for:

• I'm thankful for having the freedom to speak and share my ideas.

• I'm thankful for the opportunity to make a difference in people's lives by helping them find the confidence and skills to speak more effectively in public.

• I'm thankful for all the really bad PowerPoint presentations made every day in business meetings around the globe because it means I'll never run out of work.

• I'm thankful for the insightful thought leaders in our industry who continually push the envelope and guide us to better ways of communicating and displaying our messages.

• I'm thankful for my audiences and workshop participants who give me their time because they care about communicating powerfully and engagingly and being the best presenters they can be.

• I'm thankful for my many colleagues in the presentation training industry who offer me new perspectives, insightful comments and their friendship, even from thousands of miles away.

And most especially, I'm thankful for you, dear readers, who subscribe to and read this blog. Happy Thanksgiving!

What are some of the things you are thankful for in the world of presentations?

Photo Credit:
Flickr/riptheskull's photostream  C.C. 2.0

Presentation Tip: Reaching Hearts

In most business presentations, the focus is on data, logic and proof. And while these elements are definitely important, the savvy presenter knows that reaching the hearts of the audience will be a more effective way to create buy-in and action.

Every presentation we give asks an audience to change in some way. It may be embracing the new information you're providing; it may be doing something differently as a result of your presentation; or it may be adopting a new perspective/attitude. As Chip and Dan Heath state in their book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, people generally don't refuse to change because of lack of information but rather because of lack of motivation. Motivation provides the energy to act. Simply knowing something is not enough to create change; you must feel something.

So touching the hearts or emotions of your audience is a much surer and more lasting way to engage their minds. [This wonderful quote -- Touch the Heart to Teach the Mind -- is attributed to Jeff Swanagan, the former executive director of the Columbus Zoo.] Here are some presentation behaviors that speak to the emotions of your audience:

• Connect with your audience on a human level. Think of them as fellow human beings, not just as one-dimensional business colleagues or nameless strangers. Be genuine and sincere. As the speaker, assume the role of host at your own party, working to make your guests comfortable. Smile.

• Tell stories. Stories engage the audience and move them to relate to the subject matter on an emotional level. A well placed and well told story can also make the subject more memorable and understandable by creating context and helping the audience discover relevancy.

• Engage your audience by understanding what's important to them and weaving relevant references, anecdotes and examples into your presentation. Do your homework to find out how they feel about your topic and what bothers them. To make people care, you've got to tap into the things they care about.

• Closely related to the above point, understand and clearly communicate the WIIFM -- the "what's in it for me" -- for your audience. What about your presentation will make their life better? Don't assume the benefits of what you're speaking about are crystal clear to the audience and their situation. Spell it out. Use powerful language, stories, examples and analogies that leave no doubt about how they will benefit.

Incorporating these behaviors into your presentations will set you apart in the world of impersonal, fact-laden presentations which appeal only to an audience's intellect. For more lasting impact, reach their hearts.

Photo Credit:
Flickr/427's photostream  C.C. 2.0

How to Deliver a First-Rate Online Presentation

Increasingly public speakers and presenters are finding themselves presenting to online audiences...audiences they can't see or make eye contact with. In this guest post, Darlene Christopher, Learning Officer at the World Bank Group, offers us some tips for presenting online.

If you’ve made a presentation to an online audience you’ve no doubt noticed that connecting with and engaging that audience can be challenging.  Speakers who rely on their techniques for engaging and interacting with an in-person audience, without making any adjustments for an online audience, will soon become frustrated and frustrate their audience as well.

In the work that I do at the World Bank Group, I work with presenters and facilitators who are making the leap from in-person presentations to presentations delivered to a live audience using web conferencing technology.  These types of presentations are referred to by a variety of terms including webinars, web conferences, online meetings or online synchronous training*.  Regardless of the name you use, if you are speaking to online audiences there are a few things you need to do differently to ensure success:

Use Polls, Chat and Instant Feedback: Let’s face it, there are far too many online presentations where the speaker lectures to the audience for what seems like an eternity.  This type of presentation is boring in person and almost deadly online. The beauty of an online presentation is that it’s built for two-way communication to allow you to easily interact with your audience.  Integrate questions where the audience responds by "raising their hand," chat questions, polls or other types of instant feedback into your presentation. It’s good to set the tone for an interactive session by engaging your audience early. Weave early interaction into the first few minutes of your session by asking participants to type their location into chat, respond to a poll about their background, and “raise” their hand if they can hear the audio clearly, for example. 

Focus on your Voice: We can learn from the pros at NPR [National Public Radio] how to maximize the use of voice to improve the delivery of a web conference. Since the audience won't see the speaker, the speaker’s voice carries additional importance in an online presentation. So think of yourself as a radio talk show host.  These professionals use clear and precise language that is free from slang, umms and other ‘fillers.’  Keep your voice interesting by using a variety of tones and pacing.

Annotate While You Speak: Most web conferencing tools include a pointer device as well as annotation tools like a highlighter and writing instrument. As you speak use these annotation tools generously but wisely to emphasize key information. Here’s how it works: as you display a slide, underline or circle key words as you speak or point to a specific part of a graph that you are describing.  Annotating the screen helps the audience know where to focus their attention and it helps you simulate the gesturing you may be used to in an in-person presentation.

Rehearse your Session: Practice your session with a mock audience to fine tune the timing and flow of your material. Rehearsing will also help you get used to the lack of body language and visual cues.  Ask your mock audience participants to give you feedback on their level of engagement, your voice and use of annotation tools.  If you cannot rehearse with others, use the recording feature of your web conferencing tool, then listen to yourself. 

Presenters who are skilled in online presentation techniques can expand the range of delivery channels they offer to clients or employers, reach wider and more global audiences and have fun while doing it. By interacting with your online audience, using clear language, annotating the screen and rehearsing all of these techniques, you’ll be on your way to delivering first-rate online presentations.

*A webcast, on the other hand, is typically one-way communication and not the focus of this blog post.

Photo Credit:
Flickr/Travelin' Librarian's Photostream  C.C. 2.0


Darlene Christopher is a Learning Officer at the World Bank Group. She has been designing and delivering online training programs for global audiences for over nine years and is a frequent presenter at ASTD and E-Learning Guild conferences.  She blogs regularly on this topic at www.webconferenceguru.com

Presentation Handouts: Are They Useful for Your Audience?

Most presenters at most presentations give handouts to the audience. Most audiences either throw them away or file them in an obscure location where they couldn't find them even if they wanted to...which they generally don't.

So why are we, as presenters, so committed to sending our audiences home, laden with paper?

I think it's just become a habit. Somewhere in the foggy past, some audience somewhere asked a presenter if she had any of her presentation written down so they didn't have to take notes. And the presentation handout was born.

Now I'm not suggesting that every handout is a useless piece of stuff. But I am suggesting that, somewhere along the way, we've lost our common sense about when a handout is helpful and what makes it helpful. We copy our slides in all their bullet point glory, several to a page to save paper and time, resulting in type so small no ordinary human can read it. Or we reproduce our entire presentation, leaving the audience to sort out the salient bits they might want to keep.

Before you fall into these habits, ask yourself whether the audience even needs a handout. Depending on the subject matter and the make-up of the audience, a handout may be wasted time, energy and trees. For example, if you're giving an inspirational presentation, you want the audience to connect with you and absorb what you're saying at an emotional level. If you're successful, handouts may not be necessary to help people remember what you said. Or if everyone in your audience has laptops and takes notes during the presentation, there may be no real value in providing a handout. Just emphasize your key points as you make them so the note-takers are sure to capture them.

So do handouts have any value?

For sure.

Designed thoughtfully, with the audience's perspective in mind, handouts can help make your presentation more memorable, more focused and more useful. Here are some suggestions:

1. Be clear on what key points from your presentation you want your audience to remember. Since determining this is part of initially scoping out your presentation, you should already have these points firmly in mind.

2. Use a Word document to capture the key points, adding any relevant supporting data, resources and references. Create this information in a way that stands on its own, so if the handout gets passed around to someone who wasn't at your presentation, it will still make sense.

3. Avoid having copies of your slides stand in for handouts. If your slides are good -- visually impactful and designed to further explain your verbal points -- they won't make any sense in isolation. If they're not good -- text-heavy with bullet point after bullet point -- no one will be able to read them.

4. Keep the handout to 3-5 pages to force yourself to be clear and concise and to make it more likely the audience will read it.

5. Depending on the information you're providing, consider using a non-standard size/format for easier accessibility and memorability -- for example, a laminated bookmark, colored paper or a comb-bound booklet.

Yes, this approach is a bit more work than simply copying your slides and it requires that you allocate some time during your preparation phase to do a professional job on the handout. So if you're tempted to say, "But I don't have time to do anything extra," stop and ask yourself what is the purpose of your presentation.

Is it to minimize the work you need to do or is it to move your audience to agreement and action? I'm guessing it's the latter.

Here are some additional tips for creating effective handouts from Olivia Mitchell, plus some excellent points about why handouts can be an integral part of any presentation. Also, Phil Waknell at the blog PhilPresents has a brilliant post on Handouts 101.

Photo Credit:
Flickr/libraryman  C.C. 2.0