Category Archives: 07d-Delivering a presentation

Developing high-quality “stand, speak, explain and/or sell” skills, clearly communicating to a group using a PowerPoint presentation, adroitly handling Q&A, projecting confidence and competence

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07d-Delivering a presentation, PowerPoint resources, PowerPoint tricks, slide-craft

Punt PowerPoint

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Like most people, I have always used Microsoft PowerPoint to create presentations. It’s quick, simple, and accessible by most users. However, it’s also these characteristics that have led to so many horrible presentations. Everyone can make a PowerPoint presentation, but it seems that only a few can make good PowerPoint presentations.

Obviously, the content, arrangement, and delivery of a PowerPoint presentation will ultimately determine whether the presentation is a dud or not. However, with the extremely high use rates of PowerPoint, maybe there are other software applications available that will help make a presentation standout against the crowd.

Here is a list of five alternative presentation applications that I came across in an article by Stu Robarts.

1. Prezi (prezi.com) – Instead of the linear progression of PowerPoint slides, Prezi presentations are designed on a large space (similar to a whiteboard) where the user can decide the path that the material should be presented in. Ultimately, the design is intended to help audiences understand how the ideas in the presentation are related to each other.

2. Keynote (https://www.apple.com/mac/keynote/) – Apple’s version of PowerPoint. In typical Apple style, it’s only compatible with Apple products.

3.  Google Slides (google.com) – A stripped-down version of PowerPoint; only the essential tools for creating a slide deck are available. However, the perk is that Slides are integrated into Google Docs. Changes to the presentations are auto-saved and multiple users can simultaneously edit a Slides presentation. The output can be downloaded into PowerPoint format.

4. ClearSlide (clearslide.com) – Designed for sales teams. The primary purpose is web-based presentations. It can be integrated with CRM systems for ease of data integration.

5. SlideDog (slidedog.com) – Every professor should be forced to use SlideDog. It’s not so much a presentation development software, as it is a presentation organizational software. It allows users to drag-and-drop all of their files that will be a part of their presentation (PowerPoint slides, Prezi presentation, web pages, PDFs, videos, etc.) into the SlideDog application and then arrange them into the desired order. When one file is completed, the subsequent file is launched. No more watching the presenter frantically search their desktop for the shortcut to the next element of their presentation.

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation

The Worst Ways to End a Presentation

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Recently, in reviewing articles on pulse media, I came across this article from Business Insider- Worst Ways to End a Presentation by Jacquelyn Smith. In the article Smith discusses the 6 worst ways to end a presentation from a book written by Darlene Price “Well said! Presentations and Conversations that get results.” While a few of these may be a given, some were a good reminder of tactics to utilize  when giving a presentation to drive results.

1. Not announcing you are wrapping up

Announcing you are wrapping up signals to the audience to pay attention. Phrases like “in conclusion,” “in summary,” or “as I conclude, let me leave you with a brief thought” not only highlight that you are ending finishing, they also heighten the audiences attention level and make the closing more memorable.

While I have always tried to signal a conclusion to a presentation, I never thought of it as heightening the audiences attention. Keeping this is mind, I will be more tactical when concluding a presentation and calling it out to the audience by announcing it before the most important point of the conclusion.

2. Not including a summary

Smith points out that the average adult attention span is 5 minutes. This is a limited time frame, and much shorter than an average presentation. Hence it is important to remind the audience of your key points.

Ending the presentation with a question that leads to your purpose is a great example of how to provide a summary in an interesting way that will grab the audiences attention.

3. Not providing a call to action

This is a point I often forget about and want to work on using more often in a presentation.

Smith notes that the point of the presentation is to persuade your audience. There is an action you are asking for from your audience. Whether it is to buy into your product,  formulate a solution, agree with your position, or any others, it is necessary to use an action verb that denotes what you need to take place.

The article provides some great examples from famous leaders. Below is a link if you would like to read more:

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-ways-to-end-a-presentation-2014-7#ixzz381gp0EIw

4. Leaving the audience with a dud ending

It is important to leave the audience with the most important piece of information at the very end. Smith correlates concluding with “i’m done,” “thats all,” or “any questions?” to a firework with a wet fuse- dull & boring. Instead she suggests leaving the audience with a compelling thought or phrase that drives the purpose home.

Again in the article she provides some great examples of famous speeches that end with a bang not a dud.

5. Failure to tie up loose ends

Smith summarizes Prices point that failing to link the opening of a presentation – whether it is a story, quote, picture, etc- to the purpose leaves a loose end. By linking the opening to your purpose, whether in the middle of the presentation or in the conclusion, it provides significance and leaves a memorable reminder with the audience.

6. Concluding with Q &A

Smith proposes that ending a presentation with Q&A is the wrong way to go. Instead she via Price, suggests opening for questions during the middle. This will leave your ending for you to define the purpose of the presentation and give the ability to end with the summary and call to action that will drive the point home.

Overall, the tips given by Smith & Price are helpful in crafting the end to any presentation. We all should keep these in mind over the next few weeks as we present for MP.  Maybe Brandon & Smith will even allow for Q&A in the middle, instead of at the end 🙂

07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation

The Silent Story: Striking a Power Pose

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Stories, sales pitches, and every other form of communication rely heavily on word selection, but there is another key ingredient in the recipe: body language.  Our subconscious relies on more than just a string of words to interpret the meaning and depth of a story.  We also use body language to determine the credibility of the speaker.  The interesting thing about body language is that it has a similar effect on both the speaker and the audience.  An article published by the Wall Street Journal says that striking a powerful pose actually changes a person’s hormones and behavior, giving the perception of real power.  The power pose can be practiced before a meeting to start elevating the hormones conducive to a better performance and more confidence.

Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard University presented a TED talk  titled “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are” in which she elaborated on her research regarding the impact of the power pose.   In one experiment that she conducted, individuals were asked to assume either a low power pose or a high power pose for 2 minutes.  The results showed that after just 2 minutes, there was a change in the hormones testosterone and cortisol, giving the high power posing individuals a higher tolerance for risk and the low power posing individuals a lower tolerance for risk.

So what exactly is a power pose?  According to Forbes magazine, a power pose can be as simple as standing with arms out, hands on hips, and legs spread open.  The victory arm-pumping in the air is another example.  Although very informal, sitting back in a chair with legs propped on a desk and arms folded behind the shoulders is a classic power pose.  Basically, the act of expanding the body can create a power pose that triggers the brain to think bigger too.

There is a proper time to strike a power pose, whether privately in a bathroom or publicly in front of an audience.  The mindset that is achieved through behavior is one of the most powerful tools that can be utilized in communication.  Your business pitch might just depend on that extra little bump in hormones.

07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, storyline structure

9 Public-Speaking Lessons From The World’s Greatest TED Talks

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When asked what my passions in life are, I often respond the same way – food and public speaking (in no particular order). While one is likely to help me further my career and the other is likely to help me further my waistline, they are both still passions of mine.

Public speaking didn’t come naturally to me at first; in fact, there was a time in life where it terrified me. But through practice, practice, and more practice, I came to not only achieve an acceptable level of competency in the skill, but I started to truly enjoy speaking to large groups.

I, like most, am constantly looking for ways to improve my public speaking skills. Like many, I often watch TED talks to gain ideas, inspiration, and witty one-liners to utilize in my presentations. Carmine Gallow’s article entitled, 9 Public-Speaking Lessons From The World’s Greatest TED Talks, is a great synopsis of how there is a style to TED talks, and how this same style can be incorporated into everyday presentations.

There are two ways to summarize this article. The first, and the conventional way, would be with the nine bullet points below. However, it is more exciting to view the most watched TED talk of all time via this link. This TED talk, like many others, illustrates eight of the nine points below (The presenter does not use any materials, so point #8 does not apply).

  1. Unleash the master within.
  2. Tell three stories.
  3. Practice relentlessly.
  4. Teach your audience something new.
  5. Deliver jaw-dropping moments.
  6. Use humor without telling a joke.
  7. Stick to the 18-minute rule.
  8. Favor pictures over text.
  9. Stay in your lane.

Aside from the list, I would like to add one more bullet point that I see as a theme through most of the great presentations that I have seen, the one you may have just watched included.

  1. Take chances.

I would like to point out one skill in particular that this article highlights and the TED talk illustrates – storytelling. This presenter is a phenomenal storyteller. He paints vivid images for the audience through the use of tales about his family, his friends, or moments in history that help bring his points to life. When this powerful imagery is combined with his vibrant scene of humor that both engages and captivates the audience, his message becomes memorable, and he gains instant credibility based on the audience liking him, not his actual subject knowledge.

The points raised in the article do not differ from the lessons learned in MP over the past year. Style, delivery, and content are at the heart of every presentation. The only way to improve these skills is to practice and learn from mistakes made along the way. For anyone with trepidation about public speaking, weather at school or at work, read this article and watch this TED Talk, you will be glad that you did.

Read more: 9 Public-Speaking Lessons From The World’s Greatest TED Talks

Watch the TED Talk: Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity

 

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, metaphors, Uncategorized

Storytelling: Displaying the Struggle Between Expectation and Reality

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Most of us in the evening MBA program are knowledge workers.  We don’t work with our hands, we don’t physically produce goods, we either create, analyze or transfer knowledge. Transferring knowledge from one person to another is the most challenging, because no two people think in the exact same way, but also the most important, because it is what drives change. Whether its giving a presentation, writing an important email, or having a tough conversation, my instinct is to fall back on my engineering background and rely on data and facts – and more often then not, doing this doesn’t inspire action.

The Harvard Business Review conducted an interview with screenwriting coach Robert McKee called “Storytelling That Moves People.”  In the interview, McKee talks about how storytelling is a crucial skill for business leaders to be able to motivate their coworkers, customers and partners to navigate through business challenges. McKee describes two types of storytelling that business leaders use.  The first uses conventional rhetoric and statistics, which, if successful, persuades people only on an intellectual level, which doesn’t inspire people to act. The second method of storytelling is to unite an idea with an emotion to persuade people on an emotional level and get them to act.

In the conversation, McKee describes the most difficult part of effective emotional persuasion through story-telling:  discussing the struggle. We all have a tendency, especially at work, to paint a rosy picture.  We want to be viewed as always succeeding, always in control, and always right.  McKee argues that story without a struggle doesn’t inspire because it doesn’t connect people on an emotional level about the challenges we all face.  To be a good storyteller,  according to McKee, “you want to display the struggle between expectation and reality in all its nastiness.”  McKee goes further to say that “the energy to live comes from the dark side…as we struggle against these negative powers, we’re forced to live more deeply, more fully.”

As an engineer working for a marketing company, the most difficult part of my job is persuading others to act while not falling back on data and statistics, and not painting a rosy picture.  Even though its challenging, telling stories that include a struggle has a tendency to unite people as they think about adversity in their own jobs, which usually causes them to rally around your goals.

As McKee says in the article, being a great storyteller alone won’t make you a great leader, but it is a skill that will help make you a better leader and help you to inspire action in others.  You can access the article through the Goizueta Business Library website, through the “Business Source Complete” database (search “Storytelling That Moves People”).

Source:

Fryer B. Storytelling That Moves People. Harvard Business Review [serial online]. June 2003;81(6):51-55. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 12, 2014.

01-Structuring a problem, 06-Building a case, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, evaluating evidence, stress-testing recommendations

“Born to Run”

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If you’re like me, you enjoy getting book recommendations, preferably non-fiction about real people, doing real things, in real places.  “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall is just that and also has several parallels to MP concepts that we can learn from.  It begins with a simple subject of running and it’s impact on injuries and transforms into a fascinating story of McDougall’s search for truth and ultimately lead’s to his conclusion that running long distances barefoot is the key to health, happiness, and longevity.  From utlra-marathons to Mexican cartels, this book has a little bit of everything and is highly entertaining.

The MP concepts are evident throughout the book as McDougall starts with a simple problem, gathers information, build’s a case for his hypothesis, and then delivers it in a fun and entertaining story.  Here’s a link to an overview of the book from McDougall’s website if you’re interested in learning more about it:

 

http://www.chrismcdougall.com/book.html

 

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.

 

04-Managing a project team, 07d-Delivering a presentation, feedback

Starting a conversation you are dreading

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In the HBR Blog post by Peter Bregman, “How to start a conversation you are dreading,” Bregman talks about how to best deliver not only disappointing news, but decisions overall.  First.

While many of us may hesitate to deliver the punch line, Bregman provides several examples where delivering the resolution first is key- with a single employee or to a team.

Waiting till the last minute causes one of two situations:

1) It makes the decision seem unclear. Not delivering the outcome first, causes confusion with your team. By delivering the decision first you are defining the outcome and giving clarity so the employee knows where the conversation is going. By doing this, you can follow-up with appropriate evidence to support the news.

2) It allows your team to question factors relating to the decision. Giving the facts before the decision, can side track your team or audience and open the door to debate. Therefore, ending the conversation before you deliver the final outcome.

Lesson learned: if their is a conversation you are dreading, or one resulting an important decision- deliver the resolution first. This will eliminate any confusion with your employee(s).

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/how-to-start-a-conversation-youre-dreading/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, storyline structure

Title Watch

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Interesting titles are paramount for speeches for just as good housekeeping. Starting off on a good foot is paramount and titles are your first contact with your audience.

Avoid Cliches like well.. pretty much every other posts I have made for example. Look for originality and something fresh that will get people curious. Use titles that are active like “A Walk with Giants” or “Jumping into Equities”.   Try something original with humor. For example take a title like “Cars should yield to Joggers” and rename it something like “Don’t Stop for me”. Look for inspirations from recent books movies or even to topics in recent news articles.

Alexandra Watkins, ALB, a member of San Francisco Toastmasters, is founder and chief innovation officer of the naming and branding company Eat My Words. She says, “You have to catch someone’s interest with something unexpected, irresistible, fun or colorful — or with a clever twist on a familiar word or phrase.” She gives two examples on the subject of photography: “How to Shoot People” and “Confessions of a Sharp Shooter.”

 

http://magazines.toastmasters.org/display_article.php?id=1140173

07a-Crafting an effective formal presentation, 07c-Telling stories, 07d-Delivering a presentation, questions, storyline structure

Masters of Storytelling

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Master Storytellers are known to utilize the three I’s of Storytelling: Invitation, Imagination and Impact

Invite people to think outside of the box. Make them curious by asking them a question like “Do you want to make a change ____?”.

Use people’s imagination to paint a picture of a better tomorrow. Guide them to thinking about how this improved future will impact them more specifically.

People desire for impact. Everyone wants to see that their work has a meaning. Every so often during your presentation take a slight pause to see how your presentation is affecting the group.

 

Some more exact pointers for storytelling using the three I’s of storytelling include:

–       Don’t dump facts and numbers on your audience, be investigative of sorts and ask your audience

–       Do not jump from point to point without making sure your audience is absorbing your content

–       Practice timing, do not rush through your presentation

–       Think of certain images for your audience, say things like: “Imagine this…” or “Picture that…” People respond well to imagery.

–       Do not forget to keep a pulse on the people in the room to see how you are effecting them.

 

Anyone out there a good storyteller? Is there anything you consistently do that heightens your ability to tell a story?

The inspiration for this blog post:

http://magazines.toastmasters.org/display_article.php?id=1140160