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Speaking & Presentation
Presenting – how to communicate with a group.
How to give great Technical Presentations
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Got Their Attention ?
Check out this great presentation on distraction in the workplace from Harmonie – a company to watch.
David Lavenda, VP Product Strategy at Harmonie
How To: Great Technical Presentation – Text Version
- Remember that “Less is More” for everything -number of presentations, time spent presenting and slides.
- Make sure every slide is really needed or delete it.
- Present an outline.
- Divide your presentation into clear segments.
- Begin each segment with a concise overview.
- End each segment with a summary message statement.
LEARNING POINTS
- For focus remember the guideline of three main points per slide.
- Check for understanding often, remembering that in some cultures people are not happy to say they don’t understand in public. Get used to suggesting that you go over sections again explaining that people usually find this complex, and make sure there are plenty breaks when people can approach you individually.
- Pause: Give people time to think, understand, and write.
- Don’t just rely on PowerPoint for real information transfer.
- Use handouts that you work through together, hands-on sessions, demonstrations, and other training methods to effect learning
- Add as many incidents, personal stories, case studies etc, as you can for interest.
- Do not forget a conclusion.
Great Speakers 1: Steve Jobs
Personality, stories and authenticity. These are some of the watchwords for what works in speaking now.
Gone are the days of corporate blah blah.
Have a look at an early example by the late, great Steve Jobs.
PowerPoint or Prezi
A really good PowerPoint presentation is a hard thing to find.
Doing it the right way is something of an art. See our tips here https://yourfirstclass.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/powerpoint-rules-for-now An interesting alternative is Prezi which is worth looking at for pure creativity. Check it out here http://prezi.com/
PowerPoint Basics
Make sure that your slides are not overloaded with information.
Make sure they are readable – font size and right colour.
Make them simple.
Reduce the amount of text on your slides.
Use images – PowerPoint is a visual medium.
Don’t overuse bullet points slides.
Use animation and sound effects very selectively.
Go for more white space.
Create interesting titles for your slides.
Consider when and if to hand out print-outs of your slides.
Remember in slideshow view you can use the B key to get a black screen
and press it again to bring the slide back. The same thing works with the W key
to get a white screen.
Remember:
1. The 20 second rule.
If an audience have not completely understood what the slide is trying to tell them within 20 seconds the slide may need changing!
2.The Squint Test.
If an audience has to squint to read a slide it needs changing.
How To: Handle Question Time
Handling Difficult Questions
Preparing for questions should be an integral part of preparing the content of your communication preparation. It follows on from the question “What’s on the audience’s minds?”.
In preparing answers for the more difficult questions that you may be asked start from a point of sincerity. In an era of informed audiences only open and honest communication will be successful.
Despite that, some the strategy you choose depends on the situation, the style of questions (friendly, neutral, hostile) and the image you want to convey. You should know all of these techniques so that you can vary your answering style .
- UNDERSTANDING
Show you understand ( friendly and neutral situations)
- ALTERNATIVE VIEW
Introduce an alternative way of looking at things (friendly, neutral & hostile situations)
- LET THE AUDIENCE DECIDE
In meetings, feed back the question to the audience and let them decide amongst themselves.
- ESCALATE
Agree and say that the question will be passed on to the right people.
- TAKE OFFLINE
Say that you will check or get an answer from the right person and do that.
Grabbing Your Audience
GRABBERS & ATTENTION UPPERS
This is a list of techniques so you can add interest to your in your one-to many communication. Try sprinkling them throughout your presentations. You should aim for at least one every 2 – 3 minutes.
- Simple numbers
- Quotations
- An amazing fact or statistic
- A problem or teaser
- One word as a teaser e.g UNCERTAINTY
- Asking the audience to do something
- A gift
- A prop
- Personal Anecdotes
- Stories with a message
- Parables
- Humour
- Word pictures – highly visual description
- A compelling slide
- Metaphors
- Axioms
- A demonstration
- Actual dialog
- Specific examples
- Slogans
- Photographs ( + story )
- A short video or audio clip
Being A Great Presenter
| PROJECTION OF PERSONALITY |
| CREATION OF RAPPORT |
| DYNAMISM |
| NATURALNESS |
| FOCUS |
| BODY LANGUAGE |
| GENERAL |
| FACIAL EXPRESSION |
| POSTURE |
| EYE CONTACT |
| NO DISTRACTIONS |
| GOOD USE OF GESTURE |
| LANGUAGE |
| FLUENCY |
| ACCURACY |
| STYLE |
| SIMPLE TECHNIQUES e.g repetition, rhetorical questions |
| VOICE |
| DICTION |
| VOLUME/PROJECTION |
| SPEED |
| EMPHASIS |
Your First Class 