Reviews of presentations or of software or hardware to help you make better presentations. Anything from a big political presentation to a new piece of software.
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:
Or scroll down if you're just browsing!
At 05:30 I’m not at my best. Despite that I was up, cleaned, dressed and out in time to be at the Sage, Gateshead by 06:15 and in my seat by 06:30. Yes, really. AM. Errrrr… why? Simple really – my wife and I had been lucky enough to get tickets to sit in as …
Read more “What BBC radio tells us about making better presentations”
Cautionary note – this particular presentations blog is a bit of a personal rant, not the usual fact-based stuff I do. 🙂 I attended a networking/coaching session recently where I was the guest speaker. To save blushes I’ll not name the organisation, but there were a number of things I noted going wrong that the …
Read more “Serious presentation mistakes… aka Presentation unconscious incompetence”
Please, forgive me the brag but I’m rather pleased with this bunch of feedback 🙂
I like podcasts. I use them a lot to mean that time which would otherwise be dead and unproductive (I have a regular three hour drive to a set of gigs, for example) is now useful. I’m also a fan of Dan Pink. He’s a writer with a sharp, investigative, journalist’s mindset, cutting through the …
Last Friday I ran a half day presentation skills training course, largely as part of our Social Responsibility Programme. I sold enough tickets, commercially, to pay for the venue and so on but the huge majority of attendees were from charities and so on. We believe in putting our skills and expertise to the best …
Here’s a rock ’n’ roll idea, though it’s only my opinion… The days of Death by PowerPoint are over. I’d like to pretend that’s because presentations have got better all over the world and that presenters are no longer attempting to kill their audiences by boring them to death. I’d like to but I can’t. …
Lets play. Let’s play a game of “let’s pretend”. Specifically “let’s pretend you want to hear me instead of reading me”. Well here’s your chance. Here’s a fun chat I did on the Industry Angel podcast with Ian Farrar a little while ago. We cover a lot of ground (some of it …
At the risk of being obvious and boring, I’m going to split this blog into two, big parts.This week it’s why charities need to be particularly good at presenting, and then their particular presentation-problems. Ready? Next week I’ll look at what charities can do about it all… Why charities need to be give presentations and …
“Scars not scabs” is a phrase I picked up of Episode 115 of Beth Below’s “Introvert Entrepreneur” podcast where Beth is chatting to Esther Choy of the Leadership Story Lab. It rang a bell with me because of a couple of things I’ve posted in the last few months. (It’s one of a fistful only …
Read more “Personal stories in your presentations: Scars not scabs”
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:
This will close in 20 seconds