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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This one is personal. Unusual for me there isn’t a bunch of research papers behind it (as far as I know no one has written any!) but it’s based on ten years of being a presentations trainer – not a speaker trainer. Well yes, I train speakers, but I think of myself as a presentations …
Right then, this one is (partially) personal. I’ve incorporated stuff from other people too – partially to broaden the reach of this blog but also to protect my privacy! 😉 The big question is this: if you’re off to a big event such as a conference, how you handle your nerves? I’m not talking about …
Just like bands that are revolutionary and have breakthrough albums, and for whom the second album is always ‘challenging’ this is a bit of a ‘challenging’ blog. Last week I gave you a pretty thorough chronology (and frankly a bit of a boring one!) of the preparation that went into a big conference presentation …
Part one of a two part set about a huge presentation I did recently 🙂 In this part I’ll take you through the chronology of what I did to prepare and what happened. Part two will look at what I learned 🙂 The picture is me. I’m the one in the dark suit, pointing – …
Note, a version of this article was originally published on the Presentation Guru website. To slide or not to slide? Yes, I know… I’m asking for trouble here, because it’s an area fraught with some very entrenched positions. I’ve recently been reprimanded on a discussion forum for speakers for describing someone’s opinions as bigoted! Harsh …
Read more “Presentation question! To slide or not to slide?”
I love Evernote. It’s one of the must-have apps for all my hardware. If you’re not used to it, you can’t imagine how handy it is. Take a look at their website, but to be honest, it doesn’t begin to cover the range and depth of how handy it is to presenters. I make no …
I’m a bit of a sceptic when it comes to inspirational presentations. All too often just firing people up without giving them the tools they need apply that energy can leave them no better off than when they started. Often, in fact, they’re worse off, because they feel like a failure, for not being able …
Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room first. Sometimes I don’t do anything as well as I could because I’m lazy. That includes making presentations. There, I’ve said it. I like to pretend to myself I’m not actually lazy, just “efficient” – but that’s in much the same way as a friend of mine …
Read more “Why I don’t make my presentations as good as they could be”
Last week, I talked about what presenters could learn from modern art (well, all art, but modern art in particular). I concentrated on the art itself, the bit we look at, but that’s not all there is to a piece of art. The title is also part of it, and so is the setting. I can …
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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