I do my best to make this blog a resource for presenters - not pro-speakers, but real people who need to make presentations as part of their 'day job'. If there's something you really want to know about, just email me and I'll see what I can do (no promises except that I'll read your email - use simon@ and you can guess the rest of my address. :) )
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This month's most popular (and useful?) blog posts are:
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I like podcasts. I use them a lot to mean that time which would otherwise be dead and unproductive (I have a regular three hour drive to a set of gigs, for example) is now useful. I’m also a fan of Dan Pink. He’s a writer with a sharp, investigative, journalist’s mindset, cutting through the …
I love the TES – the articles are an easy read but written by people who know what they’re doing. Admittedly a lot of it isn’t relevant to making presentations (because it’s a magazine for teachers!) but they do cover a lot of stuff on how to get information from one place to another – …
I’ve just spent some time working with some ‘early years’ researchers. Given that a research career last for a very long time (mine was quite short at 24 years!) in part because it takes a looooong time to get going (ten years in and you’re still just starting!). We were working on presentations to get …
Read more “Presentations for academics (and other hard core experts!)”
Creating a presentation is one thing – checking it is another. (Notice that I don’t say ‘writing’ your presentation, because you shouldn’t be thinking that way.) The painful fact is, however, that mistakes on your slides can give people who don’t want to listen or change their ways an excuse not to do so undermine …
Read more “Proofing (and otherwise checking) your presentation”
Last Friday I ran a half day presentation skills training course, largely as part of our Social Responsibility Programme. I sold enough tickets, commercially, to pay for the venue and so on but the huge majority of attendees were from charities and so on. We believe in putting our skills and expertise to the best …
Here’s a rock ’n’ roll idea, though it’s only my opinion… The days of Death by PowerPoint are over. I’d like to pretend that’s because presentations have got better all over the world and that presenters are no longer attempting to kill their audiences by boring them to death. I’d like to but I can’t. …
I believe presentations should change something – otherwise they’re just a pastime. So, things that improve the likelihood of change are good (all other things being equal 😉 ). And targeting your presentation makes it more likely to do that. After all, shooing an arrow is more likely to hit the target if you aim, …
Lets play. Let’s play a game of “let’s pretend”. Specifically “let’s pretend you want to hear me instead of reading me”. Well here’s your chance. Here’s a fun chat I did on the Industry Angel podcast with Ian Farrar a little while ago. We cover a lot of ground (some of it …
My voice went lower in Spain. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not ‘cos it was Spain, specifically, just that I was there for a week to do nothing. Just recharge. The toughest decision I’d have to make was either red wine or white? shall I do another few lengths of the pool to cool down? …
Leading a team or doing your own marketing? Awesome! But not having the impact on the world you think you should? Less Awesome.
StoryMaking is my new book that looks at how to tactically use stories in your presentations, your marketing and your sales. It's my usual light-weight style over heavy-weight research!
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The StoryMaking System is the result of reading (in mind-numbing detail) over 400 peer-reviewed research papers, dozens of books, thousands of ours of observational research and blood sweat and tears!
It's the framework for designing a presentation which gives you the fastest way to getting something is (almost) guaranteed to work. It gives your audience what they need - and only what they need - to be impacted.
The key elements are:
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