When you can make presentations without your audience die-ing of boredom but you want to make better presentations to be different from the rest and to have more impact.
Slightly trickier tools that assume you’re okay with the basics like facing the audience and not reading your slides! ;)
So you’ve heard of “death by powerpoint” and you’ve all be shot at by the screen-full of bullet points on a slide. And you promised not to do it to your audiences – but you did. Why? Because knowing how to replace … Continue readinghow do I replace bullet points in my presentation?
This one has been nagging at the back of my head for a long time and I might piss a few slick, professional presenters off. I’m braced… but it needs to be said for the sake of audiences and presenters. Here’s the … Continue readingwhy journalism has no place in presentations
I’ve talked before about one of the best ways to start your presentation, so here’s the other bookend – the close of a presentation. Let’s talk about questions and let’s talk about applause. Your audience expects one of these at the end … Continue readingHow to end your presentation
Great delivery can’t save rubbish content. We often forget that there are three key parts to an outstanding presentation… it’s not just (or even mainly) about how well you present in the room … Continue readingpresentation delivery vs content vs structure
We’re all told to tell stories when we present – but that’s lazy advice. Presentations aren’t about the stories… it’s how you USE the stories that takes a presentation into the ‘wowzone’ … Continue readingtell stories in your presentations (nope!)
Confession time: I’m an introvert. You’d not know it if you saw me on stage, of course, and I’ve recently been described as “a very social chatterbox, like me” but that misses the point of the real me… the me that my … Continue readingfive tactics for introvert presenters
“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 … Continue readinghow do i start my presentation
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 … Continue readingwhy appearances matter in presentations
Tips for better presentations are everywhere. What we need is a way to use those tips to make better presentations – a framework for presentations. … Continue readingMAT model
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 … Continue readingHow to sound smart in presentations
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 … Continue readingWhen to use jargon in your presentations
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 … Continue readingYour presentation’s three levels of impact
Let’s be clear, there’s no silver bullet. If fantastic presentations were as easy as we hope, I’d be out of a job… but while the how you do things is more complicated, the what you should should do to get better presentations … Continue readingBetter presentations – the simple three part model to make them
There’s something about being perfect that set’s people’s teeth on edge. Perhaps it’s the idea that if something is perfect it must be artificial – not authentic. It’s true both in presentation in real life. Let me give you a couple of … Continue readingImperfections in your presentations
I’m not a huge fan of “the X secrets to…” for anything. Inevitably the real world is more complicated than the blog post with that kind of title has suggested. Maybe it’s me, but it seems that posts like that always finish … Continue readingThe four Ts of top presentations