The Successful Speaker
December 2008
Contents This Month
· Titles are Tired
· “What Makes for an Effective Presentation?”
· Moments Lead to Momentum
· Quotations
·
Update Your
Email Address
· Refer Madness
Titles
are Tired
An integral part of
“Death by PowerPoint” is slide titles. I’ve seen riveting titles such as,
“Market Segmentation Analysis,” “SWOT Analysis,” and ”P&L
by Month and Region.” I can already feel my vital signs dropping!
Can you imagine if
your newspaper headlines were:
·
“
·
“Football Game Results”
·
“Weather Changes”
·
“City Council Casts Votes”
These don’t exactly
excite you to read further do they? Newspapers know the value of a good
headline. So do good presenters. Write headlines for your slides instead of
titles. Just for fun, do the opposite the next time you pick up a newspaper.
Take the intrigue out of the headline and rewrite it like a boring title.
“What
Makes for an Effective Presentation?”
Lately I’ve started workshops and
presentations about presentation skills by asking this question of the
audience. I ask everyone to write down at least three things that make for an
engaging and effective presentation.
You might be surprised to learn that I’ve
never had anyone respond with “Slick slides and awesome animations [in
PowerPoint].” Yet that’s where most presenters spend a large portion of their
preparation time! In other words, we spend most of our time on factors that
don’t impact the audience.
Here are the most popular responses:
·
Eye contact
·
Excited/interested/passionate
in the topic
·
Vocal animation
·
Speaking rate
[easy to listen to and follow]
·
Respond well to
problems (technical or otherwise) in the presentation
This should give you some insight into how
you might allocate your time a little differently the next time you prepare for
a presentation.
Moments
Lead to Momentum
What
are you doing with your body at the moment you say your first words in your
presentation? If you’re like most people, you don’t know the answer to this
question. If you don’t know the answer to this question, make sure you start
paying attention to it because it is a large part of how the audience forms an
opinion of you.
If
you are standing with your hands on your hips, the audience may think that you
are authoritarian or dictatorial. If your arms are folded across your chest,
you may appear closed off or removed. If you stand in the “fig leaf” position
(hands clasped in front of your groin area), you could be seen as guarded or
protective. However, if you start with your arms resting comfortably at your sides,
you are seen as open or even vulnerable (good vulnerable, not bad vulnerable).
Whichever
of these you stances you start with (or any other) you will be more likely to
repeat throughout your presentation, especially with practice. Your opening
moment will help you build momentum.
Quotations
“Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” – Martin Luther
King
“Wise men talk
because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
- Plato
Update
Your Email Address
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