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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“Starting my presentation” is a very common answer to my question “What bugs you most about presenting?”. I mentioned recently that I starting a presentation with ‘a little about me’ is a mistake because it wastes the audience’s attention. I gave a few ideas of what to do instead. It’s probably a good idea to …
Presentations that share the presenter’s story are both common and usually pointless. Here’s why and what you to do instead.
Appearances in presentations matter because of the Oppenheimer Effect. I’ve known of the Oppenheimer Effect for years – partially as a social phenomenon and partially from personal experience. When I was a researcher I was the best there was at what I did. (Don’t get too excited about that: after over two decades as a …
I’m a bit of a fan of the podcast You Are Not So Smart. It’s a classily understated podcast based on interviews and grown up conversations with experts. (Lots of people say they are experts, David McRaney talks to the best, trust me!) One recent episode, on something called “Pluralistic ignorance” really struck home for …
Tips for better presentations are everywhere. What we need is a way to use those tips to make better presentations – a framework for presentations.
Let’s face it, we’ve all been there – we want to make a good impression when we present. Maybe the boss is there, or maybe it’s our first presentation in a new job… perhaps it’s just that you want to give a strong impression to your audience… or whatever… but the need to be seen …
Jargon has a bad press – and in very many ways thats for good reason. We’re constantly told not to use jargon in our presentations but that’s simplistic advice from trainers trying to sound good with cool-sounding-tips. BadVice alert! Let’s look at what jargon actually does first, before we give it a blanket ban in …
This is a bit of a personal-reaction blog, because a lot of people are asking me about how to make presentations or have meetings for that matter in rooms where there are lots of distractions. (Dedicated presentation-spaces are few and far between!) There are lots of things you can do and while some of them …
Let’s talk about your presentation’s impact. (Oh, and if you’d rather watch video than read, skip to the bottom of this blog – I’ve recorded to very short ones for you.) I wanna differentiate between first, second and third-order impacts – so let’s start with some definitions. Stay with me – it gets interesting later! …
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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