1. Lights Up Avoid turning the lights down during a presentation. If your visual support requires a darkened room, ensure it’s not long enough for them to take a nap! 2. ‘Be’ the visual… Use your arms and eyes and expression to show us the size of the fish you caught or how quickly your…
I recently attended a conference where two of the speakers raced through their talk without pausing. It was so exhausting. And their ideas seemed less important with the speaker racing through them. We all crave a START and/or an END: The human mind responds instinctively to the start or the end of anything so when…
I’m a fan of Janine Allis. A recent article in The Age outlines her story and secret to success with Boost Juice (250 stores, $130 million turnover). In a nutshell: ”What I’m good at is solving problems and keeping things simple.” One of the great things about Janine’s story is that her formal qualifications from Knox Tech (which she…
Media training should start with an understanding of what every journalist wants: a good story. Let’s take a look at an example from Apple – who are masters at providing a catchy ‘story’ and having the media promote it exactly as Apple intended. It’s about the new MacBook Laptop released last October. The basic story…
Nicholas Carr has written a book called ‘The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains‘ where he argues that our dependence on the internet may have a dark side. I saw him speak recently and asked him a few questions. He tells the story of losing his own capacity for concentration and contemplation. Even when…
An interesting article in The Age newspaper about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s speeches and public speaking which echos what I’ve been saying for some time. While message management and media management are important skills for those in the public eye, you need to throw us some scraps of authentic and natural. The key skill is…
The view from this year’s Christmas present…
Have you been given any useless advice about public speaking and presentations skills? Check out this discussion between ‘Mr Rules’ and Jennifer as she prepares for a big Presentation in the boardroom… Feel free to comment.
When preparing for important communication, most people miss the crucial step – the speech outline. They start thinking about what their speech, document or PowerPoint slides should look like and try to sort their thoughts from there. But the most valuable thing you can do to prepare is create an outline. A speech outline… A…
Example 1: Albert Einstein Albert Einstein worked with three different collaborators to be able to describe his theories in clear terms with everyday examples. He understood that a theory only five geniuses could understand is far less valuable than one that can be understood by millions. For example: Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a…