by Oliver Adria on January 22, 2012
I regularly let guest bloggers write an article here. This time it’s Leon from effective-public-speaking-tips.com. If you want to have your article on this blog, just write to mail@rethinkpresentations.com.
My grandma was fond of the radio (called the “wire-less” where I was from), and sitting in her chair by the window in her small beach house, she used to listen to a lot of public speakers in the evening. But often afterwards, she was left fazed: “He was talking all over the place,” she used to say, “I feel like walking up to him and asking exactly WHAT he wanted say and why he didn’t just spit it out…”
I’m pretty sure my grandma wasn’t the only one suffering from acute speech disillusionment, since I I’ve personally left many public speaking venues wondering what exactly the speaker wanted me to take from his haphazard talk.
Novice speakers are especially susceptible to randomized babbling: Getting on stage, zigzagging between ideas, jumping between different shades of the same topics, consistently self-interrupting to share an extra or side-bar, and finishing up without actually having maintained any form of concentrated effort on one single point. This is deadly. It’s not just ineffective, its also leaves the audience frustrated, dazed and more often than not, bored. [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on January 13, 2012
Tools for creating engaging two-way presentations
It’s 2012! The days of presenting on boring graph paper or via a leaf-through booklet are over! Today, you need to engage your audience by creating a two-way method of communication that will keep them invested in what you have to say. Check out my picks for the top 5 effective presentation mediums in 2012:
1. Interactive glass whiteboards: These smooth, durable surfaces are like traditional whiteboards except that they are made with glass. Also, compatible with bright-colored dry erase markers, the glass whiteboard can be used to display data, explain activities, show graphs, business plans and map out marketing campaigns and ideas during a presentation. Glass dry erase boards are effective meeting tools because they encourage interaction from the audience—either via brainstorming or taking turns writing ideas on the board. I call the glass whiteboard the perfect presentation medium for 2012 because it’s Eco-friendly (100% recyclable), it doesn’t wear down over time, it doesn’t emit any toxic fumes (like vinyl covered whiteboards do), and it blends in seamlessly with the office background when not in use. [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on August 21, 2011
This is a guest post By M.S.Ramgopal from www.presentation-process.com
The attention span of your business audience is limited. The success of your presentation depends on how well you channelize this limited attention to the core message of your presentation. There are however, certain elements on your slide that steal your audience attention and reduce the effectiveness of your message. They are called clutter elements.
What is clutter?
Any element on your slide that can be removed without losing information is called clutter.
What causes clutter on a slide?
Unlike what most people think, clutter is not the result of poor PowerPoint skills, it is the result of incorrect thinking. Remember, clutter creeps in long before you create even your first slide.
The primary ‘incorrect’ thinking in creating presentations is ‘self orientation’ instead of ‘audience orientation’.
Take a moment to think about the way you create your slides… You start well by including just the essential elements on your slide. But, soon greed takes over. You suddenly remember the cool chart your colleague showed last week and you want to plug that in your slide. Your boss wants you to add the latest marketing report. Your compliance team wants to add 3 lines of disclaimer at the bottom of the slide. This is after your accounts team adds an ugly box of ‘necessary disclaimers’ for the chart. [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on May 31, 2011
One of the first traps that I have difficulties getting out of (it still happens sometimes), is the slides-first approach.
Though it might seem really effective to start with the introduction slide (”Hey look, slide nr. 1 is done!”) it might cause the presentation to become much less effective - and in many cases it will take you even more time to create the presentation if you start off this way. In some of my best presentations, creating the slides took me less than 25% of the preparation time.
My (ideal) approach: I would first think about what the main message I want to convey in the presentation. Once I know what the point (I call it “one core message”) of the presentation is, I start to create a story and some supporting arguments to develop the presentation. [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on April 6, 2011
This is guest contribution from fellow presenter Tiffany in the United States. I like to get different opinions on presentations and thus also welcome guest bloggers / presenters to tell their story. If you want to write an article, let me know at mail@rethinkpresentations.com. Enjoy reading!
We’ve all sat in those long meetings or had to endure those presentations that seem to go on forever. A lot of people misuse PowerPoint and use it as a way to drone on and on, even though they’ve already put all of their information up for everyone to see. Don’t continue the trend.
Seth Godin, entrepreneur in marketing and more, wrote an article about really bad PowerPoints and how to avoid them. PowerPoint can be an effective tool, but you can’t use it the same way that everyone else is (ab)using it. Pretty much everyone will have to deliver a PowerPoint presentation at some point in their life, whether it’s for a church event, school projects with their kids, career meetings or something else entirely. You want your presentation to stand out, but in a good way, so here are some tips on making that happen: [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on January 23, 2011
This post is written by John at Mastering Technical Sales and with his permission I’ve decided to publish it here as well. It also reinforces the ideas that I have and includes many tips on creating handouts.
A hand-out is one of the most misused tools in the sales arsenal of an SE. Often skimmed through when the audience is bored and often left on the conference table after you finish– the hand-out can be a powerful weapon when used by an expert. That is because it keeps selling for you after you leave.
I’ll suggest some best practices for creating and using the hand-out and answer that age-old question “do I hand out my hand out before or after the presentation?” [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on January 23, 2011
This is part 2 of the post written by John at Mastering Technical Sales and with his permission I’ve decided to publish it here as well. It also reinforces the ideas that I have and includes many tips on creating handouts. Read part 1 here.
Best Practices
- The Experience. Think of the hand-out as part of the entire sales presentation experience. It shouldn’t be an afterthought, hastily prepared in a few minutes. Remember that your hand-out will remain with the customer long after you’ve left so it should reflect your level of professionalism.
[click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on January 5, 2011
This is a question I get asked a lot. And for me it actually has a more deep-rooted answer. Because the number of slides should not really matter or at least it should not be a primary concern. To make the case: There are 10-minute presentations that have anything from zero to 50 slides (or even more). It depends on what’s on them and what you want to convey.
What your main concern should be is what the main message of your presentation will be. [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on October 28, 2010
Slideshare (together with 3M) is hosting another World’s Best Presentation Contest!! 2 Years ago, this was the contest that motivated me to start this blog (a half year later). There are about 2 weeks left to enter. You can win lots of prizes, for example first prize gets a MacBook and a PocketProjector from 3M. You can enter a presentation up to November 8th 2010 in [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on October 5, 2010
If you’ve followed this blog or read the PresentationEssentials eBook, you might have noticed that I put a lot of emphasis that when creating a presentation, you should concentrate on one core message. I recently saw an ad that portrayed just this. It was about the Kindle vs. other tablets (I think the Apple iPad as being the most famous one it is implicitly meant here). [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on October 2, 2010
I knew that if you dive deep enough into the area of fonts, that you will actually see a world of its own. I had not known in how much detail it goes. I recently saw a video that showed me a little on how much care goes into developing a font (it’s at the end of this post).
Often underestimated, font types do have a big impact on your presentation. It can create a mood, from funny to serious, from emotional to neutral.
And I have different fonts that I use for different occasions. For a [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on October 1, 2010
As much as I love doing presentations and creating presentation slides, the first thing I need to ask myself when I’m to create a presentation is: Is a presentation really necessary? It seems like the solution to everything nowadays is to create some PowerPoint slides. But is it really the most effective approach? Is Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote the cure-for-all? No, it’s not.
If you only need to inform a few people about something, maybe a one-page memo is enough? Then [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on August 22, 2010
In order to also to discuss more with you and also in order to connect better, I have decided to expand Rethink Presentations into Facebook! If you’re on Facebook, the Rethink Presentations Page is a great place to get new information in addition to the regular newsletter!
Whilst the regular newsletter will give you regular tips, the Facebook page will give you a platform to discuss and also ask questions. So why wait? Join now and become a Fan of Rethink Presentations on Facebook.
Become a fan today and join in the discussion with fellow presenters and enthusiasts!
Additional Prize for Early Birds!!
For the first two weeks after the launch, I will give away one digital copy of the PresentationEssentials eBook (normal price US$ 19.95!!), once on 30 August 2010, and once on 6 September 2010!! It will be decided by lottery for all Fans of the Rethink Presentations Page on Facebook. [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on August 13, 2010
I’ve recently read the helpful online book from fellow presentation/blogger colleague Ellen Finkelstein entitled 101 Tips Every PowerPoint® User Should Know and I want to share with you one of her tips - Quickly replace one font with another in your PowerPoint slides:
Choose Format> Replace Fonts. In the Replace box, choose the font you want to replace. In the With box, choose the new font that you want to use. Click Replace and then click Close. (In PowerPoint 2007, choose Home tab> Editing group> Replace> Replace Font. You may get a message asking you to select a [click to continue…]
by Oliver Adria on July 29, 2010
Q: As I’m doing a corporate presentation, do you think I should put the logo on each slide?
A: This is a tricky question and not easy to answer. Many times, corporations will have overloaded templates that have colored elements and logos on each slide. And oftentimes you will be obligated to use these templates when creating slides.
But in my opinion, big logos and elements will clutter the slides and might get in the way of content. So for [click to continue…]
