Posts Tagged "presentation"

How To Use Presentation Tools To Your Advantage

Poor Slide Presentation

A poor slide presentation will do more harm than good.

For many years I’ve used presentation tools to help with presentations.

Handouts, slides, props and more have made appearances with me in front of audiences.

There were tons of little devices I used to make the presentation more effective. I, like many others, have even used the overhead projector that beamed images onto a screen from those plastic pieces of paper-looking sheets.

On some levels it seems silly to use presentation tools. After all, if you’re confident in yourself as a leader and speaker you shouldn’t need tools to help you speak in front of people.

In my years of experience I’ve learned that presentation tools not only help the person in front of the audience. When used properly, presentation tools can help those in the audience comprehend what is being presented.

Since that’s the goal of a presentation it makes sense to use tools whenever appropriate. 

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Environmental Manipulation: A Secret Of The Most Influential Influencers

Environmental Manipulation

In one example of environmental manipulation, real estate agents bake bread for open houses.

You’re in a comfortable, chic executive boardroom. You’re sitting at a polished hardwood table, enjoying the smell of fresh brewed coffee. You’ve gathered a few colleagues this morning to discuss an idea you’ve worked on for months. How do you use your environment to make sure your audience is receptive, relaxed and motivated to listen?

If you want to be an effective speaker, you’ll need to recognise that the environment matters. Whether we notice it or not, little changes to sensory perception have a big influence on your listeners’ perception of message value.

This is environmental psychology.

When you want to influence someone consider these concepts of environmental manipulation.

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Jokes and Presentations – Don’t do it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Op6pmwOHE]

Real Leaders know how to uncover the humour in their message to make their audience laugh.

When speaking to any audience, it is important to build a rapport with them as quickly as possible—and humour can be a great way to make this connection. However, it’s often best to leave the punch-line jokes aside and focus on more subtle types of humour.

It’s a misconception that beginning a presentation with a joke will get the audience on your side. In fact, jokes will fail far more often than they will succeed. There are several reasons for this unfortunate outcome:
• The funniest jokes are usually not appropriate for the work environment.
• Most jokes rely on a victim—and chances are that someone will identify more with the victim than with you. If the audience identifies with you more than the victim they will find the joke funny.  However, there will be people in the audience who identify with the victim and will think your joke is in poor taste.  If there are too many of these people in the audience, the joke will fail.
• Jokes require exact wording, good delivery, and perfect timing.  If you don’t carry off all three of these things, your joke will fall flat and leave you struggling.
• If you are constantly opening with jokes, you will get a reputation for it. You would be better off building a reputation as someone who has something important to say than as someone who cracks jokes.
• If you do happen to find the right joke and deliver it properly and everyone thinks it’s funny, they will probably remember the joke more than what you had to say.  If your joke overshadows your content, it will  prevent you from delivering your message.

Although structured jokes with punch lines are almost always a poor choice for your a presentations, humour is an important aspect of all public speaking presentations.

One type of humour that works well when applied to speeches is situational humour. Situational humour can involve making observations on what is going on around you at that moment. Chances are good that if you find something in your immediate environment is funny, others will too. Situational humour can also be used in the stories that you tell.

Another type of humour that works well in a speech or presentation is self-deprecating humour. In this case, you are the only victim of the joke and no one else is hurt or offended. More than that, self-deprecation shows the audience that you are not taking yourself too seriously and helps them build a fondness and respect for you.

Remember: even though humour can be a useful and fun tool to utilise, it is not required to successfully communicate with your audience. If you know that you are lacking a sense of humour, don’t try and force humour into your presentations—focus on your strengths instead. If you are unsure of whether or not a line is funny, try dropping it into a casual conversation and gauge the reactions—even if it doesn’t meet with laughter, it’s a better option than having a bit of humour flop in the midst of a speech.


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