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! ;)
This is a simple blog with simple ambitions! It exists purely as a place for you, gentle reader, to get hold of all the free material I’ve created so far for the Reluctant Storyteller. Most of them are one-take live … Continue readingReluctant storyteller resources
Intro I did an interview recently with the wonderful (and lovely) Geoff Nicholson for his podcast, talking about the new #ReluctantStoryteller project I’m working on. I’ve popped this into a quick video if you want to watch for three minutes … Continue readingstorytelling – the four steps
There’s a lot of crap presentations training around at the moment saying “tell stories”… just “tell stores”. That’s about as much use as saying “be tall” to someone struggling because they can’t reach the top shelf. I used to have … Continue readingA story matrix and using them one your presentation
Credibility as a presenter comes from how much your audience like you (Warmth) and how much they trust you (Competence). You need both. … Continue readingbeing more charismatic when you present
A while ago, I started to explore some of the reasons for not using not using stories in your presentations (and a few other things). Now I’d like to expand on that. Let’s assume that you’re using them for a … Continue readingwhy telling stories in your presentations isn’t working
What’s an identity variable? I self-identify as male. I self-identify as married. An identity variable is something that is you use to build your self image. If I looked in the mirror and found that instead of a six-feet-tall white … Continue readingpresentations and identity variables
How your room is set up makes a huge difference to how well your presentation is likely to go. Lots of it is obvious but some not… … Continue readinghow to lay out the room for your presentation
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 … 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. … 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 … 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 … 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 … 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 … Continue readingwhy appearances matter in presentations
