, , , , , , , , ,

Combine creativity and the visual to reinforce your speaker memory

creativity_visualNobody likes a mental blank; not the speaker, not the audience.

As a speaker you really would like to remember all of the points that you so carefully researched and constructed and that you designed to work together to get your message across.

We all have our own ways of remembering our presentations and speeches. Some are based on our preferences for sound or images or body language. Some are simply based on what works for us.

I am working, at the moment, with a client who is moving away from a script to presenting in natural, unscripted language. She is a very creative person, especially in visual media – creates amazing paintings, patterns, and rejuvenates a flagging spirit with what she calls “creative time’ which might involve painting, or doodling or setting significant messages in a beautiful surrounding. I made several suggestions based on using visuals so that she could remember her speech and create useful, unobtrusive notes, and it was like watching a light bulb glowing. She is now in her element.

So for those of you looking for ways to remember your speech or presentation and to create prompts for yourself, here are 5 ways that visuals could work for you.

1. I will call the first one “mind mapping”. This involves “mapping” the ideas for your speech. Usually people put the central message in the centre, perhaps surrounded by a circle or border. Then they connect the points of the speech to the main message as one would spokes to a wheel. From those points, then, further connections reach out to the supports for the points. You can use decorations, colours, pictures, whatever most represents the content of each part, and the connections between them and the order in which you will present them. This is a standard mind map.

You might, on the other hand prefer to draw waves that represent the more emotional flow of the speech, somewhat similar to Nancy Duarte’s spark lines, or curves that represent a new point, or a change in direction of the speech. So each wave or curve represents the points to be made, the climax of the point that will really hook audience response, or the points of the presentation that represent, say, problems and solutions. Write the main message beneath the waves, perhaps, and transition techniques between the waves.

I simply use the sort of note-taking skills I learned in uni – main message at the top, then bullet point system for points to be made and further indented bullet points . I don’t use this system to creating slides, incidentally – yuk, how boring that would be, but it’s the way I learned to organise content and it works for me, in conjunction with other memory techniques.

So however you visually represent the flow of your speech or presentation, you can memorise that image, and the connections between its parts and that will be with you when you need to remember what to say next when you actually present. It will also be there with you, should you need to change the flow of the speech in response to the audience or the environment, and the logic will allow you to make the changes in a way that works for you and for the audience.

2. Visualisation. This is a technique used in many areas where performance is focused and adrenalin-driven, particularly in sports. And while it certainly involves the visual and imagery there are so many other aspects involved – training your subconscious to store what I call “muscle memory”, injecting positive emotion to reinforce the memories. For the purposes of this article, though, the visualisation involves using the mind’s eye or imagination to “watch” yourself as you present, your body language, how you appear on the “stage”, how you are interacting with the audience, and what you are saying. It also involves “seeing” how the audience is reacting to what you are saying, how the equipment is functioning, how you are using the particular setup in the room. I used it from the beginning, I think, of my speaking, long before the word became such a large part of our language, “visualising” successful presentation, and visualising overcoming the possible hurdles to successful presentation. It’s a way of committing the presentation to memory, and ensures that much of the presentation can be put into a state similar to auto-pilot while the front of your brain deals with interacting with, and customizing for, this particular audience.

3. For many people the simple act of writing something is a memory aid, but it can be combined with the visual memory. You can commit the look of the writing to memory, having simply written on a normal blank page. Or you can use the ubiquitous, totally indispensable sticky notes. Use colours, create patterns of shapes and colours, use diagrams on the notes, make diagrams with the notes, write a word or words for each point with points in one colour, supports in another, transitions in another. Lay out the whole speech, in point form, and that process alone may just be enough if you have a photographic memory. Or you can then transfer the whole thing onto a sheet or folder or series of cards to use as a prompt. Take a photograph of it, and use that. Your creativity comes into play, here, to learn, by trial and error, just what works best for you.

4. Maybe it is images that work for you. After all, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’, and our minds remember information better if that information is combined with an image. So you could use an image as a prompt. The storyboarding process that can be so useful for creating a PowerPoint presentation would work well here. One idea – one image, with maybe a word or two to reinforce the memory. Again – perhaps the creation of the storyboard will be enough, if the photographic system works for you, or you can use the board as a prompt. Or you can rehearse the presentation and when you know the points that will cause you grief, just use images for those. It’s all a matter of finding, through practice, what works for you.

5. And, of course, the logical extension of this thought is to use the PowerPoint slides themselves as a memory aid. I know people do this and can make it work for them. It takes practice. I watched a speaker use this system recently. She was a dynamic presenter, with a fluent presentation and had the audience captivated. She had no remote for the slides, so had to ask or signal to the computer operator to advance the slides. When that operator made an error, then the whole speech ground down as the speaker had to wait to find out what was supposed to happen next. Her dynamism saved the day, but it was a glitch that could have been avoided.

Each of these 5 is a way of using images to remember your presentation. Each allows you to be creative in producing a visual to memorise and guide your presentation. Each will need your constant creative attention in honing its success, and maybe you will go even further and combine them.

Perhaps you are already using one or more of these or have your own way of using the sense of sight in memorizing your speech, ensuring there are no blank moments and that it progresses as you dreamed it would. I would love you to share them in the comments below.

[Quick Public Speaking Tip] Is your audience illiterate? And does it matter?

You must know your audience. As speakers, we must know our audiences.

It’s key to our success – to design our presentations to their needs, their wants, their physical, energetic and mental presence.

audience_illiterateAnd perhaps design for their literacy level.

Why?

Well – handouts for a start. There’s no point providing written handouts if your audience is illiterate, is there? So what is your design Plan B for that scenario?

Where else would literacy level matter?

Slides. Of course!

Put words on slides and literacy becomes an issue.

If the audience is illiterate, you will need to read out everything you have written on the slides, won’t you? Otherwise it was a waste of time writing words there, wasn’t it?

Obviously …

But seriously, what about some other, different, aspects of literacy?

What about the fact that your audience can read way faster than you can speak?

If you read out what you have written, they will be way ahead of you visually and then there is that awkward lapse while you are still speaking.

And even if you respect their needs in that department, what about your audience’s ability to read and listen at the same time?

It is extremely difficult for people to take in two different streams of words, one from the slides and one from you.

So perhaps it would seem that you really should care about literacy when you design slides.

So what is the Plan B in this case?

You can stop caring about literacy and it really doesn’t matter if you put a power-packed, insidiously subtle or glaringly obvious graphic there, along with a single word, a short phrase or no text at all, all of which support your content. You have covered all of your bases – all of those three permutations of literacy, haven’t you?

— Text is superfluous, though it can add to your speech and the graphic. So everyone who can’t read it is covered.

— People can certainly look at images and listen at the same time – pretty much from infancy.

— And the only reading they are doing while listening is minimal so you have minimised the distraction factor.

Now … about that Plan B for the handouts ….

,

Pimp my PowerPoint – Eight PowerPoint presentation tips!

The lessons you are about to learn can be applied to all of your presentations, from sales, internal or boardroom presentations right through to your keynote speeches. No matter whether you deliver in PowerPoint, Keynote, Google’s presentation app, or any other — the methods revealed in this show will have you delivering killer presentations.

After watching this show, you’ll be armed with eight things that you can do right away to dramatically improve you presentations! => http://bit.ly/11tdh5z

Pimp my powerpoint

, , ,

Quick public speaking tip – Is your audience illiterate?

Well, are they?

Probably not.

If your words are on the screen or sheet of paper, then let the audience read for themselves. This will have enormous impact, especially if your audience is used to presenters slavishly following the test on their visuals.

You are presenting your message verbally, and visuals are just that – images or groups or words that support your message. They are not the message itself. If necessary, you may have to explain this, first, because many audiences have been trained by presenters who cover their inadequacies by using their visuals as the message.

This may just be why you will make an impact if you can present without using this method. You will be different. You will be seen as so much more confident and competent as a person.

But underneath all of that is the fact that your audience is not illiterate. Don’t annoy them by reading to them what they can read themselves.

, , , ,

Is your audience switching off when you present data? – Part Two

Presenting data is a very difficult challenge. The first step is engaging the audience with a strong emphasis on why it is important for them to understand what is being presented. Nevertheless they do need to be able to understand the data you present. While ensuring its relevance is understood is vital, so is it vital that your audience understand each and every piece of data that you present, or they will just as surely switch off, and your outcome is lost.  

Visuals are very useful here. Use pie graphs and bar charts; insert them into your slides if you are using slides. If you are using a whiteboard, draw as you tell the story or make the point. If you are using PREZi you can let the audience look at the data from different angles. The visual representation will reinforce your explanation and the point you are making.

If it is necessary to use graphs, diagrams and charts, make sure they are as simple as possible. While you probably want to impress with your understanding of complicated data, being able to simplify it will have far more of an impact, particularly in terms of getting your message across.

And make sure that everything about those visuals is clear. Sometimes it’s necessary to explain so that all the implications are clear as well. There may have been a very good reason for choosing the axes in the graph. There may have been a very good reason for choosing the increments that are used. While it may seem obvious to you, it may not be to the audience, and it may make the data relationships clearer.   
You can also add to the impact of the visuals. There may be a story behind the points on a graph. It is the intersection of two values and maybe the relationship is reasonably clear. But if you can give the reason why this relationship exists or maybe the history behind it, then it will be so much clearer.  And if you can put a human face on it, with a human story then the relationship and the point you are using it for will have so much more impact. If wages are going down and costs of living rising, for example,  then a story about a family forced to live in a car will make the impact so much more real. Another way to add a human face, or a realistic face, is to use a graphic representing the actual item being quantified. This can be particularly useful in a bar graph. If the bar consists of pictures of dollar coins to represent money, or of groups of people to represent populations or groups, for example, again the impact is multiplied.  

In the midst of all this, it is important to remember, still, that you are presenting points towards a persuasion of some kind. It can be useful to have the point you are making as the heading for the slide that contains the visuals.

And while the visuals should be as detailed as is necessary to make them understandable, too much detail will overwhelm. Remember the visuals only need to make a point, not necessarily present all the data. If all the data is necessary for later inspection and verification, put it in a handout, and leave the slides as simple as they can be.

Visuals are your greatest ally in presenting data. They can add impact and keep your audience engaged with the thread of your message. Your simplification and design of the material to support that message and the thoughtful explanation you add to it, will support the success of your data presentation.

©2012 Bronwyn Ritchie
Please feel free to reproduce this article, but please ensure it is accompanied by this resource box.

Bronwyn Ritchie has 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking – from those too nervous to say their own name in front of an audience to community groups to corporate executives. To receive her fortnightly free tips, articles, quotations and resources, subscribe now, it’s free!. Visit http://www.pivotalpublicspeaking.com/ps_ezine.htm

, , , ,

The New Rules of Persuasive Speaking

Carmine spoke to an audience of grad students at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. His topic: The New Rules of Persuasive Presentations pulled from his best-selling book The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Here’s an excerpt.

the New Rules of Persuasive speaking

=> http://bit.ly/YNd0Je

, , ,

Prepare and choose your visuals so they work for and not against you

Visuals can provide you with powerful support in your speeches and presentations … if you let them.

If you allow it, visuals are a wonderful way of keeping attention, because they add another element of variety and change.

If that attention, however, is aimed more at how you are dealing with an object or if it is more on the object itself than on your message, then it has failed in its duty. If the PowerPoint slides are more interesting in themselves than what you are saying about them, then they have failed in their duty.

These visuals have to be used to support, not detract from, you and what you are saying.

You need to prepare, for this to happen. Think about how you will use them in terms of your own physical presence and stage design. It is you and your message that the attention needs to be aimed at.

Practise how you will handle your objects, how you will display them so that the process is seamless and amplifies your message – at all times. Turn off the screen if you want the attention to be on you. Keep the slides simple if you want people to listen to what you say rather then read what is written. Design your presentation so that the visual aids are just that – aids – and they can be a powerful source of attention and engagement.

If you allow it, visuals can also work as a powerful multiplier of the impact of the words you use. Your audience’s brains are tuned in to pictures and images. So an image will multiply the point and the message that the words deliver (“a picture paints a thousand words”), and will reinforce what your audience is hearing as they look.  

Keep the slides simple with as little text as possible to allow the images to do their work.

You will certainly lose engagement if your audience thinks you are treating them as stupid – needing you to read to them something they can read for themselves.  

You just need to remember that the image needs to support the message of your words, so choose it wisely. 

Choose, too, where and when in your presentation to use visuals so they will create their most impact and support.

Choose them, too, so that your audience relates to them, so that they support your credibility and support your authenticity and support your brand.

Visuals really can do all of that – build credibility, authenticity and brand, build engagement and maintain audience attention. If you plan, prepare and strategize their use they are powerful allies in your presentations.

© Bronwyn Ritchie … If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it: Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. Get her 30 speaking tips FREE and boost your public speaking mastery over 30 weeks. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com

, ,

One Point per Slide

Are you still creating PowerPoint slides with lots of bullets and text? This 4-min. video will revolutionize how you create presentations. You’ll see a makeover, step-by-step, that gets rid of a distracting background and turns a boring, bulleted slide into a clear, image-rich presentation. 

=> http://bit.ly/12Dg4WN

,

Steve Ballmer – About PowerPoint …

An Open Letter to Steve Ballmer

Dear Steve,

How are things..? It looks to have been a bumpy few months for you but it all seems to be coming together for you now. Nicely played…

We wanted to drop you a line to firstly commend you, secondly to point out some “opportunities for improvement” and lastly to suggest something a little “out there”. Bear with us…we think you’ll like it.

So firstly, the commendation – PowerPoint 2010 is really very very good…. => http://bit.ly/i9cBRH

, , ,

Visual communication – how to create and use charts for successful executive presentations

Say It With Charts: The Executive’s Guide to Visual Communication

Gene Zelazny

Look to this comprehensive presentation encyclopedia for information on: how to prepare different types of charts – pie, bar, column, line, or dot – and when to use each; hands-on recommendations on lettering size, color choice, appropriate chart types, and more; and, techniques for producing dramatic e-Visuals using animation, scanned images, sound, video, and links to pertinent websites.

‘Say It With Charts, 4th Edition”, shows you how to put your message in visual form and translate information and ideas into persuasive, powerful charts, visuals, and multimedia presentations – holding your audience’s attention as you communicate exactly what you want, with no confusion.

http://bit.ly/UUyGxS
.

, ,

Bring In Some Quiet Achievers To Ensure Your Presentation Is A Success

Quiet achievers. Unobtrusive. Professional. There to make sure your presentation gets the results you want. These are your visual supports. They support your presentation, underscore its impact, give power to your points.

It may be that in the culture of your organisation or of your audience, impact will be created by your visuals. If the message of your speech means nothing, your speech means nothing, and your image beyond the ability to create those visuals means nothing, then you will need to develop a high level of competency in creating those visuals and in presenting them. Invest in courses in construction and invest time in becoming competent with their operation.

If, on the other hand, your results will come from your message, or from your presentation skills, then the visual supports need to be just that – supports – unobtrusive in themselves. They need to be professional, yes, excellent, yes, to support your credibility and image, but they should be seamlessly supporting your message, not announcing their presence.

And if you want them to be excellent, work on your design skills. Try to be unique if you can, especially where you want to make an impact. Using the same old clip art and graphics that everyone uses will not be noticed, but originality will.
In creating visual supports, be sure that your material can be seen by everyone in the room. Make your words large and uncluttered. Five or six lines on a slide, flip chart page or transparency is adequate, and they will create far more impact that a mass of written material. The same applies to images.

Objects should be large enough to be seen, too. You can pass the smaller ones around, but know that while people are looking at the objects, they are not looking at you, and you have lost their attention. It may be better to have a display that people can look at after the presentation.

Using the “equipment” has to be as unobtrusive as possible. The first step here is being prepared. If you can practice beforehand, do so. Organise all the physical objects so that you can reach them when they are needed, without having to search, and without having to fumble. This may mean arranging them in the order in which they will be presented. It may mean practising the presentation so that you know automatically where to reach for something. This can apply to objects you want to display, the remote control for projecting equipment, the pens for flip charts or overhead projectors or a whiteboard, or to slides or overhead transparencies.

During these practice sessions, work out how you will move around the visual supports and equipment. Where will you place the objects you want to pick up – on a table, or another piece of furniture? Where will this, or the equipment, be so that you can move around it and communicate most easily with your audience – in front of you, beside or behind you? Always consider the least distracting way of accessing your material and the greatest ease of movement.

If you are using projection equipment, visualise its placement. Think about how you will work with the laptop or the overhead projector – standing beside, or behind? Do you want your silhouette projected on the screen as well as your visuals? Walking in front of the screen will also obscure them.

If you cannot organise the positioning of your equipment, then try to become familiar with it before the presentation and then visualise how you will use it best.

Plan to use visuals so that they support your message and do not detract from it, or overtake the attention. You need to be able to use the visuals easily. Turn the pages of a flip chart from the bottom corner. If you can find the remote control for your PowerPoint, use it, or be familiar with the keyboard shortcuts to use. Practice the way you will pick up, place and put down your OHP transparencies. These operations are all meant to be as unobtrusive as possible, not part of the message.
Please do not treat your audience as illiterate. If your words are on the screen or sheet of paper, then let the audience read for themselves. This will have enormous impact, especially if your audience is used to presenters slavishly following the test on their visuals.

You are presenting your message verbally, and visuals are just that – images or groups or words that support your message They are the quiet achievers, and are certainly not the message itself. If necessary, you may have to explain this, first, because many audiences have been trained by presenters who cover their inadequacies by using their visuals as the message. And this is why you will make an impact if you can present without using this method. You will be different. You will be seen as so much more confident and competent as a person. And this confidence and competence will be the underlying basis of the power of your presentation.

…………………………………………………..
© Bronwyn Ritchie If you want to include this article in your publication, please do, but please include the following information with it:
Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years’ experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being admired, rehired as a speaker, confident and sucessful, with the 30 speaking tips. Click here for 30 speaking tips for FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com

,

Be confident in becoming a Speaker, not a PowerPointer

So much is written about the problems of PowerPoint. There are so many lists of dos and don’ts for PowerPoint presentations. But in the end, the answer to producing an engaging, successful presentation actually does not originate in the use of PowerPoint itself. It originates in the speaking skills. Good PowerPoint presentations are presented by people who are good speakers first, and who apply those skills to their PowerPoint as well.

A good speaker does not allow PowerPoint to be a wall to put between themselves and the audience. She uses it as a visual aid to the words and the presentation style of the speech. It is not the dominating feature of her presentation. It has to be the speaker, who leaves the impact and the memories with the audience, not the PowerPoint slides, excellent though they may be. Her speaking skills will make the difference. PowerPoint simply supplements them.

With or without PowerPoint, a good speaker will respect his audience. He will prepare the speech so that he can give full attention to the audience and engage fully with them. If he is reading his slides, or using them as a memory prompt, then that respect is obviously diminished. Did he care so little for this audience and this occasion that he could not be bothered to fix his material in his head so that he could engage with them?

With or without PowerPoint, a good speaker will be able to engage with her audience using many techniques. Speaking is so much more than the words used. If it were not, then those words could be put on the slides and emailed or printed and posted. Making a presentation in person gives you a vastly increased chance of persuading, inspiring or affecting your audience with all sorts of vocal, content and presentation techniques that are completely impossible with words alone. So if you put all of the words on the slides, or many of the words, then the attention of the audience is focussed on those words and you waste the power of your presentation techniques.

With or without PowerPoint, a good speaker has the skills to maintain attention and engagement. This negates the need for flashy, distracting animation. It negates the need for multiple slides for each point. The slides should be unobtrusive and supportive of the spoken word, not the focal point of engagement and attention.

With or without PowerPoint, a good speaker is prepared. In PowerPoint, this means having words in a font size suitable to the room so that they can be read easily by anyone in the audience.
She knows how to use the equipment and has set it up and tested it, if at all possible before the presentation begins.
She can adapt her presentation to allow for audience interaction. The presentation is flexible so that she can respond to questions and obvious needs specific to this audience.

She has spent the time necessary to make the slides as effective as possible. This means giving time to design, ensuring all backgrounds, layouts and font are consistent. It means ensuring that the backgrounds are simple and do not create distraction from the main point and image. It means choosing images and words that support the message and no more. It also means choosing images that will appeal to this particular audience as well as establishing the brand and personal image that she chooses to represent. None of this can be done successfully by either putting the presentation together at the last minute or chopping pieces from other presentations that were not designed for this audience or situation.

All of these attributes of a good speaker – respect for an audience, being able to engage an audience, and being prepared – are also what make a PowerPoint presentation successful.
……………………………………………

(c) Bronwyn Ritchie
If you want to include this article in your publication. please do. but please include the following information with it:

Bronwyn Ritchie is a professional librarian, writer, award-winning speaker and trainer. She is a certified corporate trainer and speech contest judge with POWERtalk, a certified World Class Speaking coach, and has had 30 years experience speaking to audiences and training in public speaking. In just 6 months time, you could be well on the way to being confident, admired, successful, rehired. Click here for her 30 speaking tips FREE. Join now or go to http://www.30speakingtips.com 

, ,

Quotation about public speaking

“No more than six words on a slide. Ever. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.”

– Seth Godin

,

This week’s “What do you think?” … PowerPoint

We all need to simplify our PowerPoint slides.

What do you think … for this week’s discussion ….

One word … One image/graphic/data representation … Per slide … All slides >>>>?

Would you? Could you? Should you?

I would love to hear your response in the comments below ….

, ,

Design simplicity

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add,
but when there is nothing left to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

, ,

Audio Visual Presentations

Even the best messages can be ruined by a bad presentation. To get your information across effectively and to generate the right response from your audience, you need to know how to use audiovisual technology to your advantage.

Interested in how to improve your presentation? Read on for some audiovisual presentation dos and don’ts. => http://bit.ly/x1XXQu

,

Designing Effective PowerPoint Slides

, , ,

Is your audience switching off when you present data? – Part Two

Presenting data is a very difficult challenge. The first step is engaging the audience with a strong emphasis on why it is important for them to understand what is being presented. Nevertheless they do need to understand the data you present. While ensuring its relevance is understood is vital, so is it vital that your audience understand each and every piece of data that you present, or they will just as surely switch off, and your outcome is lost.

Visuals are very useful here. Use pie graphs and bar charts; insert them into your slides if you are using slides. If you are using a whiteboard, draw as you tell the story or make the point. If you are using PREZi you can let the audience look at the data from different angles. The visual representation will reinforce your explanation and the point you are making.

If it is necessary to use graphs, diagrams and charts, make sure they are as simple as possible. While you probably want to impress with your understanding of complicated data, being able to simplify it will have far more of an impact, particularly in terms of getting your message across.

And make sure that everything about them is clear. Sometimes it’s necessary to explain so that all the implications are clear as well. There may have been a very good reason for choosing the axes in the graph. There may have been a very good reason for choosing the increments that are used. While it may seem obvious to you, it may not be to the audience, and it may make the data relationships clearer.

You can also add to the impact of the visuals. There may be a story behind the points on a graph. It is the intersection of two values and maybe the relationship is reasonably clear. But if you can give the reason why this relationship exists or maybe the history behind it, then it will be so much clearer. And if you can put a human face on it, with a human story then the relationship and the point you are using it for will have so much more impact. If wages are going down and costs of living rising, for example, then a story about a family forced to live in a car will make the impact so much more real. Another way to add a human face, or a realistic face, is to use a graphic representing the actual item being quantified. This can be particularly useful in a bar graph. If the bar consists of pictures of dollar coins to represent money, or of groups of people to represent populations or groups, for example, again the impact is multiplied.

In the midst of all this, it is important to remember, still, that you are presenting points towards a persuasion of some kind. It can be useful to have the point you are making as the heading for the slide that contains the visuals. And while the visuals should be as detailed as is necessary to make them understandable, too much detail will overwhelm. Remember the visuals only need to make a point, not necessarily present all the data. If all the data is necessary for later inspection and verification, put it in a handout, and leave the slides as simple as they can be.

Visuals are your greatest ally in presenting data. They can add impact and keep your audience engaged with the thread of your message. Your simplification and design of the material to support that message and the thoughtful explanation you add to it, will support the success of your data presentation.

,

Creating visual aids that really work: Designing effective slides using PowerPoint

Used wisely, PowerPoint® and similar programs can be an effective tool to help audiences remember your message, while allowing you to prove, reinforce, and support your claims.

Used unwisely, PowerPoint becomes a distraction that upstages the presenter and buries the message. With its tumbling, whooshing, flying, singing and screeching graphics, PowerPoint can take on a life of its own.

All these bells and whistles can disconnect the slides from the presenter and destroy the reason for using them in the first place–to provide an audience with at-a-glance comprehension to support the presentation.
PowerPoint can represent essential data to support points in a way that boosts clarity, credibility, and retention. PowerPoint incorporates a wide variety of tools for selecting colors, fonts, formats and styles.
You can import content from word processing programs or charts from spreadsheet applications.

PowerPoint also lets you create your own graphics and tailor the data to meet your own special needs.

PowerPoint has a range and flexibility that allow you to quickly pull together some great visuals or to invest hours simmering a cauldron of confusion stew. The key is to know how to use it wisely. => http://bit.ly/nNv8as

, ,

PowerPoint Lesson on video

,

PowerPoint Therapist

Excellent video from the master Power pointer and comedian, Don Macmillan

, , ,

Tell Powerful Stories with Pictures: A National Geographic Photographer Shares Tips for Speakers (WEBINAR)

with Dick Durrance

A speech or presentation is in part a visual experience for the audience. Some speakers avoid using A/V equipment, but many others find that adding a visual component helps their audience focus and learn.
It’s common advice today, for those who use media like PowerPoint or slides, that visuals should be *visual*—use more images on screen and fewer words.
But how do you select—or create—the best images? If you want to use photos, come learn from Dick Durrance, one of the world’s top photographers who now uses that background to add impact as a professional speaker.
Dick will show us what to look for in a picture—and how to take our own—to add power and depth to our message.

To illustrate his points, Dick will use more than 75 pictures created for National Geographic assignments, global advertising campaigns, the world’s great golf courses, and the national parks. He’ll show you how to better create or select photographs for your use.

The old adage is true: the right image instantly communicates much more than 1000 words. As a wordsmith, you carefully choose the right word to express your thoughts. In the same way, you want the images you use in your presentations, blogs, websites, ezines and other materials to perfectly complement your words.
The photos need to be *great* to accompany your stories and points—not just snapshots. You want images that enthrall your audience. Pictures you take yourself can be exactly what helps express your unique point or story, if they are done well.
However, you’re not a professional photographer. You need simple techniques to take excellent photos, without lugging around a heavy, expensive camera, full-sized tripod, and other burdensome equipment. You need to know how to take a great picture that doesn’t involve endless messing with F-stops and other technical issues. Fortunately, today’s digital cameras now take care of what used to be technical challenges.
Dick Durrance, professional speaker and former National Geographic staff photographer, will show you how to harness the power of the graphic elements in your pictures—light, line, shape, color, and texture—to better tell the story you are trying to share with your audiences without having to rely on sophisticated technical skills.

Hall of Fame speaker Ian Percy once wrote, “When your life flashes before your eyes, it’s pictures not words that flash by. Our life stories are always told in pictures.”
In this webinar, you will learn how to:
• Be clear in your mind on the story you’re trying to tell in the picture. You will see how to frame, crop, and use the basic graphic elements in the picture to lead the viewer’s eye to the most important point you are trying to make with the picture.
• Select the light (sunrise, bright midday, foggy, dusk, shadows) you need to set the tone for your picture
• Use color to evoke emotion and texture to add depth to a picture
• Shift the angle or perspective to create a much more dramatic and intriguing image
• Compose pictures that contain all of the elements that are essential to your story
• Be aware of what shapes draw one’s eye into the image

More information => http://bit.ly/j9Xa5R

,

Creative Presentation Agenda Examples

Is your audience getting lost during your big presentation? The issue might be in the clarity of your presentation agenda. Learn 5 creative ways to provide a clear and memorable agenda to your presentation. =>http://bit.ly/m0qjjN

,

Design help for your PowerPoint slides

Are you looking for a pick-me-up fr your latest PowerPoint presentation? Looking for some design ideas that you haven’t seen before on everyone else’s presentations?

I find that looking at other original designs sparks my own creativity. And oftentimes that has a flow on effect on my presentation. If there is a different way of looking at the slide, then there may be a different way of looking at the point I’m making. Or maybe it just fires up the neurones in my brain and they produce new thoughts. I’m not sure how it works, but it does.

So go check out The PowerPoint Templates (ppt). They have downloadable templates. And yes this is an affilaite link so I will make a few cents if you buy a template. But you can choose the low cost ones, or even scrounge through the sidebar and find the free templates. Or maybe, like me, you will just get some creative inspiration from looking at the products. These are graphics designers working here, so the creativity should be evident!

And while you are prowling round the site, look into the articles and tutorials. There is some useful information there.

Have fun!

, , ,

How to present data with visuals

Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before – using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of ‘The Joy of Stats’ he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers – in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.

,

Let’s make a PowerPoint – Oh no!

“Let’s Make a Powerpoint”
At University, students get the opportunity to practice their presentation skills. I’ve been a part of these groups. The Professor announces, “Next week, each group will present their proposals”. And without fail, one of the team members will immediately turn to the rest of the group and say, “Great, let’s make our Powerpoint!”

What’s Wrong with this? => http://bit.ly/mxllVh

, ,

Don’t Just Present: Inspire!

Everyone uses PowerPoint, but how effective is your presentation at meeting the goals you’ve outlined? A great presentation is more than just a slideshow–it’s about using PowerPoint to its maximum potential to get your message across to your audience. That’s the PowerPoint Predicament. Tom Bunzel reveals how to conceive, plan, develop, and deliver truly effective business, academic, and inspirational communications, not just PowerPoint slideshows.

Solving the PowerPoint Predicament: Using Digital Media for Effective Communication
by Tom Bunzel

=> http://bit.ly/hbkjFO

,

Presentations – The Single Most Powerful PowerPoint Slide You Can Use

 PowerPoint problems run rampant in presentations, from busy, overdone slides that are impossible to read to poor usage where the speaker talks
 
 to the slide or blocks the screen. While there are lots of ways to improve slide quality and enhance PowerPoint usage, there is one little known, but powerful, strategy that can improve any PowerPoint presentation and put the focus more on the speaker, where it belongs. 

=> http://bit.ly/eRhWK3

, ,

The 2010 Slideshare Competition Winner – best slideshow!

The winning entry was created by Empowered Presentations

SMOKE – The Convenient Truth

View more presentations from Empowered Presentations, Honolulu, HI.

I love Slideshare – it is always an inspiration. But I am left so dissatisfied, because what I want to see is the speech that went with the visuals.

Still there is always lots to learn about design. What did you think of this one?

, ,

Using PowerPoint to time your presentations?

Zainul at How-to Geek writes …

Delivering a presentation is not just about giving good slides, it is also about making sure that our presentation finishes by the time our audience wants to have their tea break—so practicing how long to speak for each slide is essential for a proper presentation.

and goes on to explain how to rehearse the timing of the presentation, even how to set up the slide show to run by itself.

Useful information for when you have a presentation that needs no flexibility. Thank you How-to Geek!

,

3 Presentation mistakes you have to avoid

Love this, Tim …

I’m sorry but I’m starting to get frustrated. And I’m due for a rant anyway.

If you are making these mistakes in your presentations then you’d better stop. Or I’m going to walk out. Quietly so you won’t see me.

Or I’ll just slowly stop listening.

Until all I hear is a soft buzzing of the audio equipment in the back. And the sound of a few chairs squeaking due to other uneasy victims being sucked into the vortex.

I do a lot of presentations and I’m not here to say that I am a big-time speaker. With the best slides and the A-list type content.

Someday Perhaps.

But I am watching you. To see what I can learn from you.

And lately I have been watching a lot of presentations. Great for me actually. To compare the good, the bad and the ugly. And to push myself to get better.

So I’ve picked three mistakes that I’ve seen over the past weeks. Some at a few big events (hint, I am writing from Las Vegas. Attending the Blog World Expo). As they happen, these mistakes feel like a slowly building stomach sickness. But more than that? I feel really frustrated. That quality speakers would make these mistakes:

http://bit.ly/aSc1Sn

,

Learn from the Top Presentation Experts in the World

From Ellen Finkelstein
(in case you’ve been living under a rock and missed it!!)

This has got to be good!!

Would you like to ask questions and get answers from top presentation, PowerPoint, and speaking experts?

Join my new Outstanding Presentations Workshop webinars, for free! Learn how to eliminate Death by PowerPoint and make your presentations come to life as you listen to guest experts share their best techniques and answer your questions!

Get all the details here => http://bit.ly/cgOd32

, ,

Today’s read – was (almost) the Bible of PowerPoint

Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate and Inspire  
C. Atkinson

Atkinson shares his innovative three-step system for increasing the impact of your communications with Microsoft PowerPoint. He guides you, step by step, as you discover how to combine the tenets of classic storytelling with the power of the projected media to create a rich, engaging experience. He walks you through his easy-to-use templates, plus 50 advanced tips, to help build your confidence and effectiveness—and quickly bring your ideas to life!

FOCUS
Learn how to distill your best ideas into a crisp and compelling narrative.

CLARIFY
Use a storyboard to clarify and visualize your ideas, creating the right blend of message and media.

ENGAGE
Move from merely reading your slides to creating a rich, connected experience with your audience—and increase your impact!

Beyond Bullet Points takes a new approach based on telling a story with structure. But it also learns from other media – Newspapers – make your headlines meaningful. Movies, use a storyboard to plan your story before you think about visuals.

The book is available from Amazon

, ,

5 Ways to Make Your PowerPoint Presentation Stand Out

When making a presentation, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of relying on your PowerPoint slides to help get your message across. Although PowerPoint may be a great tool to help you present your information in a creative and interesting way, it’s dangerous to rely on it fully as this will just turn your audience off from what you’re saying.

Here are 5 tips to help make your presentation stand out from the crowd.

1. Be Compelling

PowerPoint is a great tool to put together eye-catching presentations, but remember that your audience has come to hear you, not look at a slide. So by all means make your PowerPoint presentation look professional and engaging but don’t forget that your speech needs to be compelling too. Remember, your slides are there to support your spoken presentation, not the other way round!

2. Keep it simple

Don’t overwhelm your audience with a mass of data, graphics and animations. The most effective PowerPoint presentations are simple – charts that are easy to understand, and graphics that reflect what the speaker is saying. It’s been suggested that there should be no more than five words per line and no more than five lines per individual slide. Any images, graphs and animations need to back up the information, not confuse the audience.

3. Be Engaging

Many of us have sat through a presentation where we have spent the whole time looking at the back of the speaker’s head! They have spent so much time reading off the slides, they don’t engage with the audience. PowerPoint works best with a speech that augments what’s on the screen rather than just reading off the slide. Remember, you need to interact with the audience in order for them to engage and listen to you.

4. Don’t use PowerPoint!

There’s a time and place for PowerPoint. It should only be used as an accompaniment to the presenter’s script so let the screen go blank if you need to. This gives your audience a break, but also helps to focus their attention on what the presenter is saying, especially during the question and answer session.

5. Rehearse and edit

Once you’ve drafted your speech and slides then rehearse your presentation. Do this preferably in front of someone else to ensure that what you are saying and presenting can be easily understood. If something comes across as distracting or confusing then get rid of it. Remember to keep the needs of the audience in your mind at all times as they are the ones who will be the ultimate judge of how successful your presentation has been.

Valerie Eaton is the owner of Smart VA Ltd, providers of virtual assistant support to small businesses and self-employed professionals. They specialise in providing a wide range of general administration support, as well as email marketing, website updates, document and presentation design and event administration. Find more information about our services on our website http://www.smartva.co.uk, and if you want to discover some great tips for small businesses then check out our free guides on the Free Resources page.
,

Learn lessons from an academy-award winning slide strategist

(WEBINAR)
with Nancy Duarte

Why did Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” win an Academy Award? It was, in large part, how the information was illustrated that made it impactful. Nancy Duarte’s firm created those visuals. She’ll share how to adapt what worked for an Oscar-winning documentary to your presentations.

You have worked hard to prepare for your next presentation. You’re well-rehearsed and your concepts are brilliant. But maybe you should step back and take one last long look at your slides, because an audience can either listen to what you’re saying or read your slides — not both. Do you know if your visuals are overwhelming with too much information or do they help cement your concepts? Do you know the signal-to-noise ratio of your slides? Slides are supposed to clarify or amplify the message. Instead, they’re often a crutch for the presenter to remember what to say. Learn how to break that behavior and create slides that bring meaning instead of distraction.

In this webinar you will learn:

• How to create visuals that support your brilliance, not detract
• Why you have to understand the difference between a document and a slide
• How thinking like a designer will make your presentation memorable
• How to determine your signal-to-noise ratio and reduce the noise
• How to get your ideas to stand out!

Special note: To view this webinar, you’ll need to be in front of an Internet-connected computer.
________________________________________

More information => http://bit.ly/d8IQX3

Note: Everyone who registers for the teleseminar will get the MP3 recording of the session for free. Those who register or order the recording will get a link to a recording of the webinar.

http://bit.ly/d8IQX3

, , ,

Top Ten Mistakes – Visual Aids

Love this article.

If you are up against entrenched insistence on death by PowerPoint, this could be a good place to start the conversion.  (Especially if the insistence is your own!!)

, , ,

How to include pictures in presentations

I’ve just discovered this article at Microsoft Office. What a treasure trove they have there.

This one, by Robert Lane and Andre Vlcek is called Speaking Visually: Eight Roles Pictures Play in Presentation.

Including pictures in presentations is a simple and powerful way of expanding your expressive potential as a speaker. Pictures communicate at levels beyond the descriptive possibilities of words and bathe the brain in much desired visual stimulation. At the same time, not all pictures are created equally. Choosing the right images, and using them in the right ways, can greatly impact your effectiveness.

… and there are some powerful examples.  This one under the heading “Getting Attention”.

Eight Roles Pictures Play in Presentation

, , ,

Unforgettable Presentations: Using Prezi to Create Stand-Out Speeches

with Angelie Agarwal

At conferences, conventions and management/sales meetings, speaker after speaker shows PowerPoint or Keynote slides to illustrate their points. No matter how beautiful the backgrounds or images, they are pretty much same old/same old. Even the professional speakers’ visuals don’t stand out that much from the rest.

But there’s a new presentation tool in town and it’s blowing away the tried-and-true old slides. In fact, it’s a favorite tool of TED presenters who have entranced their audiences.

What is it? It’s Prezi — a new tool for creating presentation visuals that can lead you to a whole new way of thinking about your talks. It can help create better narratives and more persuasive presentations — what every professional presenter craves.

Angelie Agarwal, chief evangelist for Prezi, will show us how to integrate this new tool into our presentations to stand out among the other speakers on the program — or our competition. This special webinar will discuss how professional speakers, trainers and consultants can use this tool to create truly unforgettable presentations.

You’ll learn:
• how Prezi is very different from digital slide programs
• how you can use this tool to cement your uniqueness
• how Prezi helps you become a more persuasive presenter
• how to get started with the basics
• tips and tricks for advanced speakers on presenting in Prezi

Get more information here …

, ,

Putting the Power in your PowerPoint

This is a 13-Page eBook

The use of PowerPoint as a presentation tool is well acknowledged and accepted. However, Fripp and Prost believe it is frequently used as a crutch that often distracts your audience from the main messages of your presentation. If you are using PowerPoint®, why not learn the “inside secrets” of doing it the right way?

Get the eBook here

, , ,

What not to do with your PowerPoint

the team at m62 make some good points …

Presenters are beginning to realise that their presentations don’t have to be boring, and it is inspiring to see that people are moving away from bullet points to more engaging visuals. Audiences are now demanding more, and presenters are rising to meet this.

Unfortunately however, a large number of presenters feel that the small improvements they have made to their slides are sufficient, failing to realise that there is so much more that can be done with them. And so we see the same mistakes made time and time again – without the presenters realising that they’re doing wrong.

and the article goes on to list 7 major mistakes made in powerpoint presentations and how to avoid them.

, , ,

What now … Death by Flickr Musak?

This great post from Olivia Mitchell

Are your slides ‘Visual Musak’?

I saw very few bullet-point presentations at the SXSW conference. Yay! But I did see a disturbing trend – the overuse of flickr photos and other interesting images. These photos sometimes feature stunning photography, they’re quirky and interesting. The problem is …

…. http://bit.ly/beAIHa

, ,

Good content/Bad presentation?

From a Commentary post at Meetingsnet …

Don’t Let a Speaker’s Style Defeat Substance

A keynote speaker at Meeting Professionals International’s MeetDifferent 2010 has been generating sparks from bloggers who followed the conference, not because of his message, but for the way he delivered it.

The speaker was branding specialist Marty Neumeier, who preached a philosophy of radical simplicity for organizations in search of products that are both good and different. The message was strong, but for much of the audience, Neumeier’s style was his undoing.

Read the rest of the post … and what do you think… should a speaker be hired if his/her material is outstanding, but presentation woeful?

,

Presenting to Teach and Inform — PowerPoint for Education & Training

You are invited to a training webinar.
Training webinar: Presenting to Teach and Inform….   presented by Ellen Finkelstein.

….Wednesday, February 24th at 11am PT, 12n MT, 1pm CT, 2pm ET

Ellen Finkelstein delivers high content in everything she does. She explains her material simply, demonstrates and provides follow-up support after the event.

At the end of this webinar, you’ll know how to:

  • Present so your students understand and remember
  • Avoid the common, deadly mistake that ensures that your students won’t hear what you’re saying
  • Avoid the ineffective way of putting images on a slide and use the effective way
  • Use animation in a way that’s helpful, not harmful to learning
  • Apply simple principles for maximizing educational results

Here’s what you’ll learn about:

  1. How to design slides for best comprehension
  2. Images: The good, the bad, and the ugly
  3. How to combine verbal and visual information
  4. Charts: An easy, step-by-step approach
  5. Why business presentations are different from educational ones
  6. How to encourage effective note taking
  7. Dealing with daydreaming
  8. Simple legibility principles
  9. Research that backs up the principles in this webinar
Click here for more details and to register
, , ,

Using Computer Presentation Programs effectively

People are tired of worn-out power point presentations!

Does this mean we should jettison the technology and go back to the “stone age”, as one person put it, in giving our presentations?

No more than we should ban television because of the likes of Jerry Springer and Temptation Island.

The medium itself is not to blame, it is how that medium is used that falls short. Too often, presenters rely solely on their software to provide every bit of their presentation’s creativity. The problem with this approach is that the entertainment value of PowerPoint and other programs, leaves a lot to be desired.

When a speaker decides to use it as a crutch, instead of as an enhancement tool, it can give a presenter a false sense of security about a bad presentation. I’ve sat through many a bad presentation where the insecure presenter just hides behind a barrage of screen activity as a gratuitous gimmick rather than having good illustrations and attention-getting visual element to add in making their points. So how should this medium be best used?

Obviously, there are millions of reasons for a presentation, and therefore, millions of effective and creative ways to deliver it. Creativity can take several forms, from the spontaneous quip to the extravagant special effects of a Hollywood blockbuster. Keep in mind, though, that a crummy movie with very impressive special effects is still a crummy movie, and the same rule applies to presentations. Things that may work well in some presentations will not do so in others, but here are some general guidelines for successful use of electronic slides.

, , ,

Free PowerPoint Twitter tools

Here is a site where you can download tools to add twitter to your presentations …

Ever wanted to make presentations a more interactive, Web 2.0 experience?
The PowerPoint Twitter Tools prototypes are now available.
Get ahead of the backchannel! Put in feedback slides at regular intervals throughout your presentation, so you’re not the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on!
Tempted, but worried about what people might say? No problem – the tools include the ability to include a moderated feed

,

Five Rules for Better Presentations

From Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson …

I often think the presenter would be more compelling if he would ditch the presentation software and just speak. Because of this, I’ve even thought of outlawing presentation software in our company. But alas, It has become a staple of corporate life. It is the ubiquitous prop that attends every presentation.

So if we can’t outlaw presentation software, at least we can regulate it and, hopefully, try to improve it. Here are my five rules for making more effective presentations.

, ,

Don’t give out your slides when speaking

Mitch Joel makes a great case against something that has irked me for a long time – handing out nothing but the slides from your presentation….

“Can I have your slides?” is probably the most common question a presenter gets asked. Here’s why you should never give them out…

If there is one rule of presenting that I constantly see broken, it’s the one where a presenter gives out their slides whenever they are asked. There are two very valid reasons why this is a bad idea:

,

Reducing the Pain of PowerPoint

Most everybody would agree that working with Microsoft PowerPoint software probably ranks as one of the most frustrating things anybody encounters on a daily basis. There are, of course, masters of PowerPoint in just about every organization, but for most people, working in PowerPoint is after all these years still a painstaking experience.

The only thing more painful than a person working in PowerPoint is two people trying to work on the same PowerPoint presentation. And the only thing more painful than that is three people, and so on and so on.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/vizard/reducing-the-pain-of-powerpoint/?cs=37212#cf