using your story in presentations
Presentations that share the presenter’s story are both common and usually pointless. Here’s why and what you to do instead.
Welcome to the better presentations blog!
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. :) )
Also, I have to be honest, this blog only gets updated every month or so. If you want a bit more, consider signing up for the (almost weekly) newsletter instead called "TalkTactics". You can also sign up for a bucketload of freebies too!
This month's most popular (and useful?) blog posts are:
- How to make a cheap studio for better online presentations from your home or home-office... https://presentationgenius.info/online-presentations-with-a-cheap-studio/
- How to use stories in your presentations (not just telling them! ;) )... https://presentationgenius.info/a-story-matrix-and-using-them-one-your-presentation
Or scroll down if you're just browsing!
handling distractions in your presentations
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 …
What are good visuals in your presentation
You might have heard of the VAK model – the idea that people are either Visual Learners, Aural Learners or Kinesthetic Learners. It’s largely tosh and what you should be doing is matching the medium (V, A or K) to the message, of course. I rant about it here when I suggest you don’t need …
How to give feedback about a presentation
As Saturday, June 1st is officially #SaySomethingNiceDay, I thought it might be “interesting” to research (and blog about!) something I’ve personally always found difficult – how to give feedback on a presentation. As that’s a significant part of my work as a presentations trainer, it’s something I’ve done a lot of, but I’m not really …
Presentations – don’t start with why! Simon sinek was sort of wrong!
This post comes in two parts. Part one is about not starting with any “why” at all and the second part is about not starting your presentation with your “why”. The start of your presentation isn’t the right time to tell people ‘why’ they should be interested There’s a whole lot of tosh online about …
Read more “Presentations – don’t start with why! Simon sinek was sort of wrong!”
Make a better conference presentation
It’s nearly conference season, so here we go… I have to confess I’ve been driven to write this so that I can sleep better and let my frustrations somewhere to go. Last year I attended some conferences where I wanted to scream at the presenter “I’m sure what you’re saying would be helpful but I …
Presentations without scripts?
In the previous post in this series, I looked at why presentations without scripts were generally not a such a good thing. This time, I’m looking at what you can do instead. Why do you want a script for your presentation? The main reason – by which I mean the reason almost everyone says they …
Presentations with scripts. Good, bad or ugly?
I’m a member of an online support group, where there’s been a conversation recently about whether or not scripts are a good thing in presentations. Early opinion was divided – some said “scripts are a good thing in presentations” and there was the obviously opposite camp who said “scripts are bad thing”. At one point, …
Proofing (and otherwise checking) your presentation
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”