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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At 05:30 I’m not at my best. Despite that I was up, cleaned, dressed and out in time to be at the Sage, Gateshead by 06:15 and in my seat by 06:30. Yes, really. AM. Errrrr… why? Simple really – my wife and I had been lucky enough to get tickets to sit in as …
Read more “What BBC radio tells us about making better presentations”
Cautionary note – this particular presentations blog is a bit of a personal rant, not the usual fact-based stuff I do. 🙂 I attended a networking/coaching session recently where I was the guest speaker. To save blushes I’ll not name the organisation, but there were a number of things I noted going wrong that the …
Read more “Serious presentation mistakes… aka Presentation unconscious incompetence”
One of the biggest issues I face when I do presentation skills training are ‘the SYDs’. Syd is a nice chap, I’m sure but it stands for Slow You Down. A SYD is anything that gets in the way of you getting better at what you do and making progress. There are lots of SYDs …
Please, forgive me the brag but I’m rather pleased with this bunch of feedback 🙂
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 …
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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