Category Archives: clearing slides

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, metaphors, questions, slide-craft

Presentation Tips From One Of The Masters: Steve Jobs

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I used to love watching Steve Jobs unveil the new Apple products every year. I usually volunteered to cover the story at work, just so I could watch the announcement! He was always so passionate about what he did — and it certainly showed. I hope I can develop my presenting skills enough to convey the same excitement and conviction he did. I thought this article from Forbes was a great summary of his techniques he used: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2012/10/04/11-presentation-lessons-you-can-still-learn-from-steve-jobs/

One thing he always did so well was tell stories. He didn’t just explain why the iPod or iPhone was great; he wove a tale to make you understand why it was so great and want to buy it! You really felt like he was inspired by the product, and that you should be too.

He was also a master at keeping it simple. Jobs always managed to describe these complicated devices with simple, beautiful language that didn’t talk down to the audience. His slides were simple too: never cluttered with too many words or graphics. He let the images speak for themselves.

I also liked the way he stayed focused on his message. He never highlighted more than 3 things at a time. The human brain is only trained to process so much at once, so this enabled viewers to comprehend what he was saying in small, easily remembered parts.

If you have time, watch the video on the website of Jobs’ 2007 Apple talk. It’s worth it!

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, questions, slide-craft, Uncategorized

Most people give bad speeches. But most people can give good speeches

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“Most people give bad speeches. But most people can give good speeches.” These are within the closing statements of Megan Mcardle’s article, “The Fine Art of a Proper Powerpoint”. Throughout our lives, we’ve had to listen to countless presentations and have probably had to give a few ourselves. Among these, there are those that captured our attention while others have lulled us to sleep with no recollection of what the subject of the presentation was. There are plenty of resources online to help guide what a proper presentation should look like, but I don’t intend to bore you with that. Miss Mcardle makes several good points in her article, which I will touch on, but I’ll also describe what experience has taught works best.

The number one mistake that most people can identify as a guaranteed sleeper presentation is when the presenter puts all the material on the slides and then proceeds to read what the audience is looking at. As Ms. Mcardle puts it, “Listening to people read from their notes or their slides is considerably less interesting than listening to a five-year-old read from “My Pet Goat”–at least the five-year old is really trying.” As a presenter, it’s important to remember that you are meant to be the subject matter expert on what you’re presenting, otherwise, why are you the presenter? Being the most knowledgeable on a topic doesn’t come easy, but that’s why you’re given time in advance to prepare (for the most part anyway). In your slide craft, it’s important to know what information the audience needs to visually see versus what they should expect to hear from you. With that in mind, you can begin to prepare your slides.

Avoiding the “reading” method of presentation will help reduce the overall word count that is placed on each slide. It forces you to take on the role of the educator with the material, rather than the messenger. Slide craft focuses on ensuring enough material, mixed with white space, appropriate graphics and visuals, and proper takeaways are present from each slide. Slides with a purpose are the only ones that should fill a presentation. Crafting the look of the slides is often the easiest part, the content chosen needs to be meticulously determined by understanding who the audience is and catering the content specifically for their position. Not all gaps have to be filled within the slide, there’s a Q&A session for a reason. No presentation, however, can ever account for content not prepared for; therefore, the most important part of the presentation is the pre-work of the material you’re presenting on (recall the Delta presentations, without the work we put in before, we would’ve had no material to present).

At this point, the slides are mostly ready and the delivery practice begins. When delivering, remember that you know the content of the presentation and you’re explaining to, expanding on, and educating with the material to the audience. This requires audience engagement. The #1 way to be sure that they’re engaged is to look at them. Eye contact helps not only engage the audience, but it also lets you know when you’re beginning to lose the audience. This awareness helps you change your presentation on the fly. Since you’re familiar with the material, you can determine if you need to expand further on the slide, move on, or ask a pertinent question to determine overall audience engagement. Knowing the material and being passionate about what you’re delivering help this type of presentation style. If you are excited about your subject, the audience will feed off this energy and remain engaged more easily. There are many more nuances to presentation delivery, and the best way to improve is to just give more presentations, which will help you find the style that works best for you. Plenty of resources are available online but if you can keep the presentation clean and focus on the audience, you’re well on your way. Besides, “The slides, after all, have probably already heard this talk before.”

 

07b-Using good information design, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, PowerPoint resources, slide-craft

What Not To Do

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What Not To Do (When Giving a Presentation):

While most of us know what we “should” be doing when it comes to giving presentations, we oftentimes forget what we should NOT be doing. I have realized over time that what we should vs. should not do are not inherently mutually exclusive. You can be doing everything that you are “supposed to” (i.e. following best practices), but simultaneously be making common errors that can limit the effectiveness of your delivery.

I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to checking the boxes for everything that a strong presentation should have, but I’ve started to realize that by diagnosing errors that I am more inclined to make, many of the recommended strategies subsequently fall in line naturally.

To frame this as a metaphor, I’m talking about targeting the disease, not making the anecdote stronger. I’ve found that this starts with getting back to the basics and building from there. So, what are some of the more common pitfalls in presentation delivery? After vetting several resources I’ve consolidated a list of quick anecdotes that I have found to be helpful to keep in mind:

  • Avoid reliance on slides. Slides are there to compliment your presentation and provide a framework, not the other way around.
  • Overload: Less is more. Too much talking and/or too much text will easily disinterest any audience, no matter how rich the content.
  • Avoid Apologies: If something goes wrong, there is a typo, you say something incorrectly, etc… JUST GO WITH IT. Odds are that no one else noticed and by drawing attention to it you are just calling out yourself (and your credibility).
  • Avoid filler words: This is public speaking 101, it sounds easy and we’ve heard it thousands of times, but it is absolutely critical. Unfilled airtime between sentences and ideas is okay. Specifically avoid “um”, “so”, “right”, and “you know” are very common and very distracting!
  • Going over your allotted time: Once you start to go long you begin to lose your audience. And once you even begin to lose your audience, it’s too late. This can cause the audience to miss your “big finish” and really tear down everything you’ve worked so hard to build.

While there are many more, these are just some of the most common problems that can hold you back from delivering the most effective presentation possible. We never get to a point where we are too advanced to worry about the basics. While one of these points are anything that you haven’t heard before, hopefully you will find some of these to be helpful reminders.

 

Helpful Resources:
http://www.inc.com/eric-v-holtzclaw/big-presentation-5-rookie-mistakes-to-avoid.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNG0etmnwuk
http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/12/avoid-these-five-mistakes-in-y/

 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07b-Using good information design, 07d-Delivering a presentation, charts & graphs, clearing slides, PowerPoint resources, PowerPoint tricks, slide-craft, story-boarding, storyline structure, tables

Edward Tufte on PowerPoint

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This is an interesting read on the pitfalls associated with PowerPoint presentations. One of the things that I am focusing on improving this semester is my presentation skills, and I found this article, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward Tufte, to be helpful with regards of how to present data in a meaningful way. While you may find some of his opinions to be extreme, I believe that he still has many valid points and that his arguments are logical.

Even if you do not read this entire article, at least see his demonstration of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address via PowerPoint presentation on page 12 along with the section on improving our Presentations on page 22. I’ve included some highlights of the article below:

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint

PP convenience for the speaker can be costly to both content and
audience. These costs result from the cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP presentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spatial resolution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous decoration and Phruff, a preoccupation with format not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.

Extremely Low Resolution of PowerPoint 

Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when the relevant information is shown adjacent in space within our eyespan. This is especially the case for statistical data, where the fundamental analytical act is to make comparisons.

Bullet Outlines Dilute Thought

By leaving out the narrative between the points, the bullet outline ignores and conceals the causal assumptions and analytic structure of the reasoning.

Bullet outlines might be useful in presentations now and then, but sentences with subjects and verbs are usually better. Instead of this type of soft, generic point found in many business plans.

Improving Our Presentations

Designer formats will not salvage weak content. If your numbers are boring, then you’ve got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won’t make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.

Never use PP templates for arraying words or numbers. Avoid elaborate hierarchies of bullet lists. Never read aloud from slides. Never use PP templates to format paper reports or web screens.

Paper handouts at a talk can effectively show text, numbers, data graphics, images. Printed materials, which should largely replace PP, bring information transfer rates in presentations up to that of everyday material in newspapers, magazines, books, and internet screens.

 

07d-Delivering a presentation, clearing slides, questions

Pre-Speech Rituals from Speaker Camp ATL

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I was asked to serve as a mentor at a workshop this weekend called Speaker Camp ATL. The workshop is designed to prepare attendees for conference submission season. Attendees came prepared with presentation ideas and with the help of mentors they worked through the bios and abstracts they’ll use when they apply at various conferences in the fall. Then, at the end of the workshop, they presented for 5 minutes in front of a video camera (sound familiar anyone?). Following each speech the mentors offered encouragement and feedback to help them continue getting ready for a conference speaking position. For me, helping other people is a really great way for me to learn things myself, so I was super excited to participate.

There was a ton of great information during the workshop including things like setting realistic expectations on prep time for presentations (they suggested that a 45 minute presentation requires around 40 hours of prep and practice), and paying attention to details like arriving early to ‘case the joint’ so you feel comfortable in the space where you’ll speak etc.  The ideas behind the workshop come from a soon-to-be-published book of the same name.

My favorite discussion from the workshop actually centered around pre-speech rituals. I loved hearing what other experienced speakers do to get ready for a keynote presentation. I’d always thought that my pre-speech rituals were signs of inexperience and I was happy to hear that in fact these rituals frequently become more developed and specific as speakers gain more experience.

One ritual that several people shared was something they call “Power Posing.” Power posing essentially involves spending several minutes in a body posture that conveys power, such as standing up straight, feet hip-width apart with shoulders back and hands on your hips. The speakers in today’s workshop assert that they always do this for 2-5 minutes before they go on stage and that the results are transformative for them. They feel calm, confident and ready to share their knowledge and information with the audience. And much to my surprise, there’s some good research that backs this up. Specifically the CNN article above includes the quote,

“[power posers]… experienced significant increases in testosterone — a hormone linked to assertiveness — and significant decreases in cortisol — a hormone linked to stress. In other words — two minutes of preparatory power posing optimizes the brain to function well in high-stakes challenges.”

I’m so interested to try this out. Have you guys every heard of this or done this? Does it work for you? What other pre-speech rituals are helpful for you guys?

My ritual involves writing down my worst fears about what might happen during my presentation until I can’t think of anything else bad that might happen and then tearing up the paper and throwing it away. It seems to help clear all those irrational fears out of my head so I can focus on the speech itself.