Communicating In Person
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Making better, stronger presentations for creative pitching, business, or any other event.
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Communicating In Person
- 2. What we’ll cover The What and the Why The problem with bad presentations The fix A working process Take control of the room Everybody loves dessert…
- 3. The What and the Why
- 5. What is not a presentation?
- 11. "It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.“ - John Sweller
- 13. Why do good people make bad presentations?
- 16. The fix
- 18. Be a storyteller (we all are)
- 19. “To be a person is to have a story to tell.” Isaak Dinesen
- 22. 1x7x7
- 23. 1x7x7
- 24. Guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people
- 25. Emotions, visualizations and data, not bullet points
- 27. Start away from the computer
- 29. Post-Its are your friends!
- 30. Only then should you go to presentationware
- 31. Don’t be a PowerPoint Ninja!
- 32. ”The singer, not the song” - Mick Jagger
- 35. Take control of the room
- 36. Get the gear right
- 37. Know thyself Know thy gear!
- 38. Practice makes…
- 39. Timing is everything (almost)
- 40. Talking turns
- 41. Dynamics
- 43. Don’t hide behind the lectern
- 44. You can leave the light on
- 46. ”Failure is always an option” - Adam Savage
- 47. What if I get nervous?
- 51. Graphs and figures are images, too
Editor's Notes
- Great presentationsare more than just matter of makingpretty slides. In a hyper-communicatingworld, it is a critical business skill.Whydoes it matter? Whyisn’t the message the importantthing, not the format?Answer: Becausewe’rehumans. Weneedthings to appeal to more than just ourreason and logic. A well-designedpresentation and a professional, high-qualitydocument handout speaksvolumesabout the company (or the group) behind it. It’scomparable to bodylanguage. Wedon’t just communicate with ourwords, but with ourbodies as well.And, if the presentation is bad enough, the messagemayget lost.
- A presentation is a situation where you need to get a message or a concept across to a group of people with little or no pretext or detailed insight into the subject matter. It is often a stand-alone thing, where the presentation is not preceded or followed by additional collaboration, and is not part of an ongoing flow of exchange.
- Lectures are not really presentations, and function by other rules and necessities. Speeches are not presentations, either. Workshops and workshop facilitation is something else entirely, too. My focus here is on presentations, the majority of which you’ll be doing for clients, though in your exams, you’ll be doing 5-minute presentations, too. In a work scenario, presentations are often done for clients or internal recipients outside of your immediate colleagues.
- The problem is one of cognitive load. Cognitive load means the strainwe put on ourworkingmemorywhenwe do a task. In addition, attention span is a problem. A slide needs to bedecoded and understood in 3-4 seconds, otherwiseyou end up havingyourmessagecluttered by the competitionbetweenyourwords and your slides.
- John Sweller, one of PowerPoint’sharshestcritics, has done loads of reseachthat point to the factthat the bestway to take in words is through speech. Betterthan by readingwords on a screen. But that the worstthing is a combination of words-as-speech and words-as-text. See Sweller’s research on the cognitive load theory for more on this.
- However, Sweller’s research also points to the solution. Richard Meyer, the developer of the Multimedia Learning concepts, drawsheavily on Sweller’s research, whichalsoprovesthat a combination of stimulating more thanonemodality, such as the visualcortex at the same time as the auditorycortex (by using images and spokenword).Also, the redundancyprinciple points to the factthatwe do not learnwell from the same information presentedsimultaniously in the same way. Swellerconcludedthat students learnbetter from ”animation and speech” than from ”animation, speech and text-on-screen”.
- "It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.“- John Sweller
- One problem is simply the design of PowerPoint. This is a standard master slide, the basis of slides. It is built around text, with headlines and a multitude of bullet point levels. In addition, PowerPoint has a lot of animations, such as blinds, jumping text and many other things, that do nothing but distract.PowerPoint was created by engineers, not designers or experts in teaching and lecturing.The construction of PowerPoint has led to a dogma on how to construct a presentation. We do as the program tells us to.
- Often, presenters willuse PowerPoint as a teleprompter or an AV cuecard. Not a goodidea, as the presentation is meant to assist the audience, not the speaker.Also, you end up reading from the slides, and often end up with your side or even back to the audience, and youeyes on the screen, not on them.
- The problem with manypresentations is that the focus is on delivering data. Data oftenonlymakessense to thosewho have worked with it.The human brain is hardwired to stories, it is howwe have taken in and communicatedknowledge for tens of thousands of years. Data and facts have onlybecome the prominent mode of communicationwithin the pastcouple of hundred years. So a tradition of hundreds of years is fighting a tradition of tens of thousands of years. Its an uneven fight.So takeyouraudience on a journey, takethem from A to B. Tell them a story. About the process, the product, aboutwhatyour solution can do for them, etc.Read fairytales and stories by greatauthors (I recommend Harry Potter), and readbooks on storytelling, like Klaus Fog’s ”Storytelling”.
- Many slides suck. Theyaretextbased, loads of bullet points, and function more as speaking notes for the presenter than as a visualaid for the spectators.The word ”visualaid” indicateswhattheyshould do, but oftendon’t.
- Problem with this is that the braindoesn’t do well with reading and listening at the same time. It willtake in information primarily from one of these, not both.Two solutions: Eithermakeyour slides so comprehensive and text-filledthateverything the audienceneeds to know is down in text, and theydon’tneed to hearwhatyousay. But ifyou do this, the question is: whyareyouthere? Why not just e-mail the slides to people?Or, make the slides somethingthatenhanceswhatyousay, using the brainspreferencetowards viewing and listening, to enhancecommunication and recollection.
- A slide shouldbe the visualaidthattells, through emotions and visual data, the story youraretellingverbally. The combination of visual and oral strengthen and enhancesyourcommunication.
- Note that this is a working process, not the the working process. Ultimately, do what works for you, but give some of this a try.
- Yes. Do. I’mserious.The iPadcanbe fine, but I recommendstartingcompletely analog. Don’t let technologydictateyour story tooearly in the process.Brainstorm youridea and take notes.
- Thesearemy notes for thispresentation.
- Thenuse post-its as representatives for story elements or headlines. Write them all down and stickthem on a wall, a whiteboard or on a table. Movethemaround, remove and add as necessary.Whenyou’rehappy, start drawing (in simply line drawings) whatyouwantyour slides to look like, one slide per post-it. Again, shufflethemaround as needed.
- Onceyou have the story down, the progression is in order, and you’vestoryboardedyourentirepresentation, shouldyou go to yourfavoriteslideware program.But don’trevert to old habits just yet. Here are a few pointers:No bullet pointsA minimum of text on each slide (a goodrule of thumb is to keep it under 6 words per slide)Large, easy-to-readtextUsehighqualitystockphotos or simple, informative graphs – avoid 3D graphs as theyareoftenhard to read, and keepthings as highlevel as possible. The devilmaybe in the detail, but toomuchdetailwillkillyourpresentation.Make sure youruse of graphics and images communicate in an emotionalwaywhatyourpresentationcommunicate in a verbal, logicalway.
- Don’tbuybooks on how to use all the fancy stuff PowerPoint can do.Make greatpresentations, not great PowerPoints. Death to PowerPoint couldbecalledDeath by PowerPoint instead.So don’tfall for the temptation to use sounds, visualtrickery, animations, transistions and what not. Stick to the basics.
- Youtell ‘em, Mick.Therereallyareonlytwofunctions, besides the basics, thatarereally cool in PowerPoint.
- Slide sorter, whichletsyoureview and sort yourpresentation in a storyboard mode.
- And the timing function, whichallowsyou to run throughyourpresentation and practicegetting the timing right.
- Get the right gear and get the gear right. Make sure you have everythingyouneed, don’tassumethat the placeyou’llbeholdingyourpresentationwill have whatyouneed. Check with them or bring it yourself.And for software, don’t go overboard on the techystuff or the more exoticstuff. It may not work for somereason, and thenyou’re up chocolatecreekwithout a popsicklestick.Stuff to consider:Clicker/slidewareremote (a must have)A laser pointerLaptopPower chordExtension chordProjectorchord adapter (especiallyifyou’reusing a MacBook)Extrabatteries for anythingthatrequiresbatteries
- Never bring equipment to a presentationyoudon’tknow. This includesany software youmayuse. Make sure youknow it and have gonethroughyourpresentationbeforeheading in.
- …perfect, that’s right! So practiceyourpresentationmany times.
- Make sure youknowhow long yourpresentation is, and make sure youuse the time you have and no more!Normally, I recommendshooting for finishing a fewminutesearly, up to 10, ratherthanfinishing a fewminuteslate. If youget a lot of questions, you’ll have a buffer, and ifyoudon’t, trust me, noonewillcomplain to youaboutgetting out of there a fewminutesearly. Likemygrandfathersaid ”a good speech is like a youngwoman’s dress: long enough to cover what’simportant, short enough to still keep it interesting”.However, ifyou have a very short time frame, say the 6:40 of PechaKucha, or a 7 or 10 minutepresentation, try to nail it right on the mark. With thatlittle time, you’llwant to use as much as you have (but again, no more).
- Presentations areaboutcommunicating. And ifyoudon’t do any human interaction, youmight as well do it all virtually. If you do a video, don’trecord the voice over, narrate it in person while in the room (but do make a version with a voice over to give to the audience for later viewing). Engage, talk, ask questions, get the audience to ask questions. Don’tbe a presentation robot.
- But what to do ifyou’restuckbehind it?First and foremost, challenge it. Maybethere *is* a lectern, but thatdoesn’tmeanthatyoushoulduse it. If the space and conventionsallow it, movearoundanyway.If space and/or convetions of the site or event do not allow it, fret not. Great presentations have been held by immobile speakers before (thinkKennedy’sinnauguration speech). A few suggestions to what to do couldinclude:Consider not usingvisual elements, or minimizingthem, to keepfocus on you. Make it more of a speech and less of a presentations.Don’t hold on to the lectern (unlessyou’redrunk or dizzy), and keepyoubelly from touching it.Don’tread from notes. And ifyou have notes with you, don’tstaplethemtogether, but have a ”read from” pile and a ”done” pile, and simplymove pages from one pile to the next. See Nethanyahu’sspeeches for examples of this.Establisheyecontactduringyourpresentation.Relax and becareful of not becomingtoo formal in yourmanners. The lecternaddsformality to yourpresence, so don’taddadditionalformality. Also, the lecternmaycauseyou to inadvertentlyact more formal.And finally, ifyoucan, use a wirelessmicrophoneratherthanone of a stand like the onedepicted. Don’t let yourselfgetpinneddown by both the lectern and the microphone.
- Handouts areimportant. Giving the audiencesomethingtakehome with themmakesthemrememberyourkey points.
- But don’t just givethemyour slides. Addgenerous notes, so aid in understanding in your absence, and print them with the speaker notes. Or, make a specifichand out document with yourkey points, illustrations and graphs. Don’t just make it text. Graphs and otherinfographicsconvery information, especiallydense, data-driven information, betterthanwords.
- And the wrappingmatters, as thisquote from Calvin and Hobbes illustrates. Package yourdocumentwell, with a nice design, and make sure it is clear who the sender and whatits relation to the presentation is.