Professionally Speaking...

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 5

These lazy, languid, dog days of late summer provide the perfect opportunity to catch up on valuable presentation advice from some of my favorite bloggers. Read on for insights into better PowerPoint, better speaking and better preparation.

• Angela DeFinis has written a great post on The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Design, where she outlines the problems with PowerPoint slides and how to fix them. It fascinates me that in spite of the volume that has been written about bad PowerPoint and all the great suggestions for improvement, so, so many business presenters still refuse to change. An interesting comment on human behavior! Here are some of my suggestions for jump starting better PowerPoint practices.
  
  
• One thing that causes many presenters anxiety is worrying they won't be able to effectively handle audience questions and interruptions, particularly ones that are confrontational or argumentative. Ian Griffin, in How To Deal with a Hostile Audience tells us not to rely solely on logic, but to be conscious of the emotional concerns underlying a question.
  
  
• As only Seth (Godin) could explain: How To Make Graphs That Work. Advice that is simple, easy-to-use, provocative...and right on the money.
  
  
• Learn from the TV newscasters how to handle slips of the tongue in Lisa Braithwaite's Stumbles, Fumbles and Mumbles.
  
  
• You've often heard me extol the benefits of practicing and being prepared in this blog, so I'm happy to pass along a very critical checklist from Nick Morgan: 10 Points To Check Before You Speak.

PREVIOUS "DON'T MISS THIS" LISTS:

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 4

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 3

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 2

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 1

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 4

I haven't published a "Don't Miss This" List for a while...can you tell I'm a little behind on reading my feeds? (maybe too much Twittering??) In catching up on some of my favorite blogs, I found several I wanted to share:

• A clever comparison from Janes-List shows us 5 ways public speaking is like dieting.

• Over at DeFinis Communications, Angela highlights eye contact as a key way to connect with your audience and gives us 5 great tips for talking with your eyes.

• Loraine Antrim at The CXO Mindset encourages us to recognize the strategic value of story telling in a presentation and outlines how to plan a presentation based on story.

• I passionately believe that practice is a key element in creating a great speaker. So I'm delighted to see The Eloquent Woman's 9 not-to-miss reasons for video practice.

• Sims Wyeth at High Stakes Presentations says "...there are all kinds of voices that work for the audience as long as they feel real and communicate enough emotional energy to engage the interest." Wyeth then examines a variety of vocal stumbling blocks that get in the way of that audience engagement.

PREVIOUS "DON'T MISS THIS" LISTS:

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 3

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 2

The Don't Miss This List, Edition 1

                                                                                                    

THE DON'T MISS THIS LIST, EDITION 3

A pot pourri of posts this time ranging from inspiration...to PowerPoint...to advice from Confucius.

• Garr Reynolds offers some interesting thoughts on inspiration, something every presenter should always be on the lookout for. If you need to hear inspiration, one of my previous posts has a video compilation of inspirational speeches of the 20th century.

• The PowerPoint Ninja gives terrific advice in Ten Commandments of PowerPoint, suggesting that one of the biggest problems with bad PowerPoint presentations is lack of good time management. 

• Seth Godin, uber marketing guru, reinforces one of my mantras when he describes the two key elements that are critical to being a great presenter (hint: it's not about you, it's all about them).  

• Speak To Lead's advice from Confucius for presenting in troubled times is worth embracing in any circumstances.

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?

THE DON'T MISS THIS LIST, EDITION 1

As I scamper around cyberspace, I am continually inspired by all the clever, insightful, generous thought leaders out there who regularly contribute to our collective public speaking and communications knowledge base. Their perspectives make us all better presenters.

In an effort to share the wealth, I will be listing here, periodically, a variety of posts that you just don't want to miss. Read them, learn from them and send me your suggestions to incorporate in future editions.

• British author and communications consultant, Max Atkinson, provides an analysis of President-Elect Obama's acceptance speech, with particular emphasis on the rhetorical devices used. Studying famous or acclaimed speeches is a great way of learning new techniques, but even better is having someone like Atkinson point out why the techniques work!

• Speaking of rhetorical devices, here is a post from The Eloquent Woman Blog which cites a great on-line resource for listening to figures of speech.

• Dave Paradi, one of my favorite PowerPoint gurus, offers some very sage advice in this post about not looking at the screen.