Think about the situation. Your boss at work has just asked you to do a presentation at next week’s meeting about a key milestone the company has just achieved. At this stage most people will do one of two things: Instantly open up PowerPoint and start dumping information onto slides Write out a script on paper […]
According to a Business Insider article written by Ira Kalb of USC’s School of Business: “Our brains evolved in a way to protect us from harm. As part of our protection system, we like to have choices. We know that if we don’t have choice in a dangerous situation, we may not find a way out of […]
A coupe of weeks ago, in the ultimate guide to storytelling, I wrote about how stories are easier to recall than facts or figures, because they activate lots of different parts of the human brain – in a sense, listeners experience the story. In this follow-up article I outline a classic storytelling structure that has […]
Communication is supposed to be about the transfer of emotion. Communication is supposed to be about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.) Communication is not supposed to be about Death by PowerPoint! With this blog series my […]
Let’s picture the scene. You are sitting in an audience waiting for the next presentation to begin. For the past hour your time has been consumed by data, bullets and lots of technical information. Now imagine the next speaker takes to the stage and launches into a PowerPoint presentation full of complex text and cluttered […]
Communication is supposed to be about the transfer of emotion. Communication is supposed to be about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.) Communication is not supposed to be about Death by PowerPoint! With this blog series my […]
Still the king when it comes to presentation software, Microsoft PowerPoint was born in 1990 (the same year as me as it happens!). Today an estimated 350 presentations are given each second across the globe, using PowerPoint. Visual aids, such as PowerPoint, are exactly what it says on the tin – something you layer over a message to aid the […]
A couple of weeks ago I sat down for a chat with Eoghan McDermott. Eoghan is a Director of The Communications Clinic and Head of Training. He provides public speaking and presentation advice and training to government departments and agencies, political parties and organisations in industries as varied as banking, accountancy, legal, engineering, sport, media, insurance […]
In today’s world, technical people including scientists, engineers, and programmers are being challenged more and more frequently to give presentations to others. And not just to other techies. Often they are speaking to people with little or no technical expertise. Nothing will bore an audience faster than if you jump into a jargon-filled and overly-technical speech. So […]
A powerful way to help you remember the content of any presentation you’re making is to provide a meaningful structure for your content. In fact research has shown that people retain structured information up to 40% more reliably and accurately than information that is presented in a more freeform manner. There are many presentation structures on which you […]