Dr Grace Leo shares her cornerstones for developing a powerful presentation: passion, purpose and practice. This workshop talk from the social media and critical care conference 2014 also includes some of her tips and strategies to turn an average presentation into one with style. This slide deck is best viewed in conjunction with audio which can be found at www.intensivecarenetwork.com/leo-powerful-presentation
29. • 2M, one of 4 children under 5 left under
the care of an 8yo in a house with an
unsecured pool
• Found floating after not seen for 15min
• No signs of trauma
• Asystolic during 20min transfer to hospital
• No BLS at scene
Case 2: Paediatric Drowning
30. • 2M, one of 4 children under 5 left under
the care of an 8yo in a house with an
unsecured pool
• Found floating after not seen for 15min
• No signs of trauma
• Asystolic during 20min transfer to hospital
• No BLS at scene
Case 2: Paediatric Drowning
38. IMAGE CREDITS
I have attempted to credit images where possible. Images
were mostly sourced from flickrcc.net
Flickr cc: Walking [Thomas Leuthard], Globe [Tranbina],
Match [Young_einstein photography], Feet + Jeans [Cayusa],
Running man [Miguel77]
Rich from Beauty and the Geek:
www.popsugar.com.au/photo-gallery/25824078/Rich Beauty
and the Geek
Camp fire
:http://www.flickr.com/photos/38020543@N06/9488099707
Starry night:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24128704@N08/9336658993
Pacpilly Colour Scheme
https://kuler.adobe.com/PacPillyColours-color-theme-
3569356/
[Image flickr creative commons by Tranbina]
I have a confession to make; I am one of those people who may occasionally peek into the last few pages of a book to check out the ending before I decide whether to start it or not.
So here is the end of my presentation for you guys, if you will.
Here is the one message that I want you to take home from this part of the workshop.
Presentations are powerful. And you hold the power.
[Image flickr creative commons by Tranbina]
Every second 350 powerpoints are being presented.
Some people think their great
But the truth is many of them are pretty mediocre.
In fact, I figure that I’ve sat through approximately a thousand powerpoints during the last 5 years of medical school – roughly 90% of which were little more than verbal hand outs.
Let’s take a straw poll right now.
Please stick your hand up if you have sat through a terrible powerpoint presentation before?
How many of you enjoy presenting?
And how many of you find it difficult?
Sometimes recognising a bad presentation is pretty easy. Even though you may have AMAZING content, it can be buried under bad slides.
Google’s director of research, Peter Norving, sums it up correctly when he says that “Powerpoint doesn’t kill meetings. People kill meetings. Powerpoint is like having a loaded Ak-47 on the table. You can do very bad things with it”.
On the 4th of July in 2012; CERN announced their discovery of a particle that would seem to be a Higgs Boson particle.
Can you spot the problems with the powerpoint?
However, not all is lost. One of the most memorable presentations that I’ve ever received came on the first day of medical school.
It was delivered by a semi-retired histology professor at the time whose grand opening was this.
“Today I’ll show you how you are all donuts”.
He went on to explain how because the gastrointestinal tract was really one long tube from mouth to end; we were all Taurus, or donut shaped. With the image and story; we were hooked as he explored the histology of the gastrointenstinal tract like a magician revealing the curtain behind the scenes.
The thing is; whilst many of us might dread powerpoints and presentations -> Presentations are powerful tools to express ideas, educate, and effect change.
When you present you have an invaluable gift – a person’s time and energy. It’s an important opportunity that you need to respect.
Jason Fried speaks about workplace psychology and effectiveness. When you have a one hour meeting; that’s not a one hour meeting. If there’s 10 people in the room; that’s a 10 hour meeting! You’ve got to honour their time.
Visual presentations do work! hear a piece of information, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65%.
[Image: CEB Imagery under flickr creative commons license]
So what is the secret to a great powerpoint?
After all, you are a select group of people; you’re ahead of the pack already. By choosing to enrol – you’ve decided that you care about how you present yourself – and you’ve committed precious time to coming here.
So this is what we’re going to do; in the next half hour we are going to discuss the power of presentations, what makes a powerful presentation and you’re going to have a go at putting all this theory into practice.
In the pre-workshop material I gave you; I ran through 5 basic components in slide design; content, colour, fonts, graphics & layout.
I’m not going to go over them here.
What I am going to spend a couple of minutes chatting about is – the foundations for all good powerpoints. Where it all starts. And it starts with three P’s.
These images represent: Purpose, Passion and Practice.
Repeat that for me:
Purpose
Passion
Practice.
Imagine you’re going camping. It’s a beautiful night, but it’s pretty cold.
So you think you’ll make a campfire. What will you do?
You’ll gather some firewood, pick out the good pieces, put them together and light it up (with a match if you’re lucky).
Any presentation we give is like that camp fire
It’s got to have a purpose – it can’t just look pretty – it’s got to have spark ; it’s got to excite. If you don’t have a clear purpose in mind; you may just end up building a raft, instead of a camp fire!
Is your purpose to educate? To share your research? To make a pitch? When you focus on the Why you’ll start to see What you need to say and How you should present it.
FOCUS ON YOR BIG IDEA; what are you trying to sell?
Handouts are DIFFERENT from slides
Logic is not enough. Emotions are powerful effectors of change.
[Young_einstein photography on flickr creative commons]
Your content is like the firewood. You need good content, of you won’t have any fire. But that’s why you need passion. How can you expect people to find what you have to say interesting, if you’re not even interested in it.
If you’re just going to give them information; you may as well email out the slides and cancel the lecture.
Take the time to figure out what you’re passionate about; why you care about doing what you are doing. It’s the match that will make all the difference.
*Passion example – look crazy labcoat. AMSJ
[Image: Cayusa on flickr creative commons images]
The last P was practice. And it’s a pain, but extremely necessary. By focusing on your purpose and passion, it should make practice less painful.
People often resist practicing because it’s uncomfortable, or not much fun. But it is ok to take baby steps. Just remember Jim Carrey in Yes Man. Be willing to say Yes to opportunities to speak and practice. Join a Toastmasters speaking club, or offer to give a lecture at your university. Practice in front of your friends and family. Prepare and get feedback. When you give a talk, have a listen to it and focus on what you did well and what you could do better.
There’s an old fable; that a group of tourist was once visiting a town and walked by an elderly man sitting on a bench. They stopped to enquire of him “Were there any great men born here?” The man replied; “No, only babies”.
People have different levels of skill but it’s what we do with our talents that matter.
Now we can move onto the fun part of putting some of the pre-workshop ideas about design into practice with…Presentation Makeover!
[Rich from Beauty and the Geek: Yahoo]
“Powerpoint slides are like children, no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they are beautiful because they’re yours” – Scott Adams
Scott Adams says, Powerpoint slides are like children, no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they are beautiful because they’re yours
How can we transform a geeky but nice powerpoint; into a smart, sophisticated looking slides?
Image: popsugar, Rich from Beauty and the Geek: Yahoo
Rich from Beauty and the Geek: Yahoo
First impressions count!
Example slide given by: Steve Korbel
Example Slide Taken from: Tash Burley
U2 1955, 21000m – intelligence gathering
X15 – 1959
Egress from high altitude flights
Effect of cosmic rays
U2 1955, 21000m – intelligence gathering
X15 – 1959
Egress from high altitude flights
Effect of cosmic rays
Case 1: slide by Steve Corbel
Image: flickr cc: Miguel77
Speaking in full sentences, hyperventilating, looks anxious, intermittent chest tightness
Image: Creative commons use of Cayusa’s image on flickr
Flickr cc: Thomas Leuthard
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40522857@N07/11208889503
http://www.popsugar.com.au/photo-gallery/25824078/Rich Beauty and the Geek
Camp fire http://www.flickr.com/photos/38020543@N06/9488099707
Starry night http://www.flickr.com/photos/24128704@N08/9336658993
Stone fire http://www.flickr.com/photos/16215823@N06/5271408562
Match: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25047883@N00/209662750
Pacpilly Colour Scheme https://kuler.adobe.com/PacPillyColours-color-theme-3569356/
If you are interested in completely ditching powerpoint, I recommend you try out some of these alternatives.
Remember to walk differently and enjoy creating!
Flickr cc: Thomas Leuthard