PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques

Presentation Nibblets - PowerPoint and Audience Interaction

In a recent Business Week article "How Your Audience's Brain Works", Carmine Gallo, author of Fire them Up, provides some tips for presenters generated from his discussion with John Medina, a molecular biologist and author of Brain Rules.  In the article he covers three tips:

• the 10 minute zone out when audiences stop listening
• the boredom factor
• the importance of visuals

Meanwhile over at Fast Company, Nov 2008. Dan Heath and Chip Heath cover "How to Avoid Making a Bad Presentation".  Among the tips about presentation killers that they reference are the following:

• While "show don't tell" is important don't go overboard with the clip art or stock photography just for "decoration not communication"
• "Presenters needs to be comprehensive" can lead to too much information or TMI or as the authors say "great presentations are mysteries, not encyclopedia entries"

Just Released! Updated PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques Resource Listing (REV 9)

I've updated the PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques Resource Listing to include several new books, web sites and article links that I've come across or have been submitted to me.  I went through and re-verified all of the links, eliminating those that were no longer active, appropriate or relevant to the guide.  The Resource Listing is now in its ninth revision.  Download PPT-PowerfulPresentationTechniquesResourceGuideRev9

If you have additions or changes that should be made to the listing, please send me an e-mail. 

If I can be of any help in assessing your team's current level of presentation or PowerPoint skills or assist you with your training needs, please let me know.

Paul Gibler
(608) 255 4092

Presentation Techniques - dealing with interruptions

Lily Garcia at The Washington Post had a good article addressing what to do when you are interrupted during a presentation.  The article "When Colleagues Talk Out of Turn" suggests the following for interruptions:

1. Let them finish their thought
2. Repeat it and answer or say you don't know or that you'll address it later one on one
3. Return to your presentation

The author suggests that if someone is whispering and interrupting in this fashion that you stop and pointedly ask do they have a question they'd like to share.  If there is an interruption that is even more disrespectful, a.k.a a heckler, she suggests that you use humor to diffuse the problem.

Today another interruption scenario that presenters often face is the ringing cell phone.  I was giving a presentation to a group of about 40 when someone's cell phone rang, they picked it up and started to talk on the phone as they noisily left the room.  Wouldn't you know it, 20 minutes later they proceeded to do the exact same thing again.  This interruption scuttled my train of thought, disrupted the others listening to my session and was unnecessary on the part of the attendee who could have put the phone on vibrate, quietly left the room and then answered or returned the call.
I've had the pleasure and pain of dealing with each of these scenarios.