Interviews with speaking icons - New York NSA Chapter

Since Memorial day, some of the best speakers in the Speaking industry have informed, entertained and challenged through telecast interviews with David Goldsmith of the New York chapter of NSA.

I very strongly recommend that you join this incredible chapter of NSA. Even if you are already a member of an NSA chapter, join NYNSA. If you are a Toastmaster and want access to interviews with icons including Larry Winget, Zig Ziglar, Randy Gage, Alan Weiss and Jeffrey Gitomer, then join NYNSA as an associate member.

This is incredible value - for an insignificant membership fee.

Sign up today.

p.s. I have no financial interest in NYNSA - I am merely passing this opportunity along because of the tremendous value I have received from these interviews in the past week.

Memorial Day - 2008

Today is memorial day in the USA. My son and I honored the veterans by marching in the South Windsor memorial day parade with his scout troop.

I fought in the war with the South African Defense Force in 1983 to 1989. My friends here in the USA aren't aware of this regional war and I don't want to recall the details. I spent time on "The Border" of South West Africa and Angola. By grace, I was not physically injured during my tours of duty although sometimes still get chased out of bed in the wee hours by the "demons of the night" born from post traumatic stress.

This is nothing compared to the boys (most soldiers were drafted at 18 and 19 years of age) killed and injured in that war.

Today, in a different continent, we honored the fallen from South Windsor, CT in various wars. My heart goes out to all the injured and their families from all wars, not just our local town. The destruction and heartache is the same, no matter which side is fighting or who wins.

PowerPoint Presenters Mindset

It seems like the dead horse doesn't die, no matter how often we beat it.

Your are the presentation. Your slides are not your presentation. Consequently, if the projector screen is sagging under the weight of your text laden slides, then you need to improve your presentation.

Did you catch the subtlety here? I did not say that you need to indiscriminately rework your slides and replace text with photographs (which may or may not be the correct approach).

Rather, you need to rethink your presentation and determine if you need text or photos or even need slides at all to get your point across. Should you have handouts? Is a flip chart more appropriate? What about an activity for your audience?

You need to go back to the basics and define your core message for this audience. Then determine if you need slides, and then determine the best approach to create slides for your presentation.

Why did I bring this up now? I recently saw two presentations from fellow revolutionaries who also support the revolution from text to visual presentations. In both cases the mantra was "Display visual slides, no matter the audience or topic". Just as a three year old with a hammer sees everything as a nail.

The correct mindset for presenters who use PowerPoint is "Use slides where appropriate, and make them as visual as possible with as little text as possible". This is common sense, no?

And may the dead horse RIP. You are the presentation. Your slides are only one component of your presentation. Don't assume that great slides automatically makes a great presentation.

CIGNA receives Toastmasters Award

Will Ryan - District 53 Governor of Toastmasters International (left) acknowledged CIGNA's continuing support to employee development through Toastmasters on 5/20/200 with the award in the photo above at Bloomfield, Connecticut.

Michael Murphy (right) from CIGNA University accepted the award.

Flickr

Take a tip from someone who knows - visit www.flickr.com right now to browse for photos for your Pow'Rful Presentations.

Living with Gremlins

I operated the slideshow for a speaker at our Toastmasters District Contest last week. We took the expected steps that all prudent presenters take:

1. Rehearse with the slideshow before the live presentation.
2. Check, double check and triple check that the PowerPoint is working correctly, that the laptop is plugged in and not on battery power, that all screensavers are disabled, yada, yada,...
3. Test that the projectors are working.
4. Leave the laptop on a black slide, ready to switch to the next slide when the slide show is advanced.

Murphy says "Something will go wrong at the worst possible moment". I couldn't believe this. The cable to the projectors was laid under the stage. The projectors flickered as speakers used the stage. When my colleague got up to speak and stood on the suspect location on the stage, the cable disconnected from the projectors - resulting in the end of the slide show.

Can you believe it? I don't know if the cable chafed through, merely became loose, or was cut in half by an invisible chainsaw. The net result was the same. All of our preparation was blown in one instant because with the cable running under the stage we could not troubleshoot during the presentation.

You never know what gremlin will creep into your presentation. All that you can do is be prepared to speak-on, sans your slideshow.

Author's forum at District 53 Spring Conference

Just a quick update - Very busy week - and thoroughly enjoyable Toastmasters activities.

I am honored to participate in the Author's forum Panel discussion at District 53 Toastmasters conference on 5/17/2008 at Holyoke, Mass.

Croix Sather, Bo Bennett and Kerri Kannan will join me.

Attend this session if you want to learn how we write our books, get inspiration to write your book, and have a rare opportunity to ask questions directly of four successful authors.

Take my advice

Last week I coached a presenter. He attended a public speaking class where he was told to "not use gestures - keep your hands at your sides".

This baloney makes no sense. Which is why this presenter asked me about it. He said it feels uncomfortable to stand still, and normally uses gestures while talking. I advised him to do what feels natural while gesturing on stage. If you normally gesture while speaking off stage, then do what you normally do on the stage as well.

Our goal is to be authentic on the stage. How can you be authentic if you are trying to stand still while presenting? This advice is nonsense.

We need to filter all the advice we receive. It seems to me that speaking coaches dealing out advice outnumber speakers by a factor of ten. What is a speaker to do? We want feedback on our performances, yet cannot take advice without considering the applicability to our style.

Take my advice on this. When someone gives you advice on how to speak, present or gesture - consider if it helps your audience or not. If it makes you feel uncomfortable and you will be focusing on it instead of conveying your message to the audience, then discard the advice.

The worst of the worst. Introductions

Today I start a new category of blog postings "the worst of the worst". Here you will find the worst abuses of PowerPoint that I have seen from the platform. If you encounter terrible PowerPoint presentations, then email me and I will share them on this blog.

Last week I was exposed to a presentation resembling above slide above. (I have change the presenters name, to protect the guilty). This is only of of three slides telling the audience how great the presenter thinks he is.

Wow!!. Three slides to say "I am the best, I have worked for 35 years with many clients, and I am fantastic. I love myself. You are lucky to be able to view my client list. I love myself. I verbosely profess to know many buzzwords" And on, and on he goes.

I find it particularly amusing that this slide tells us that he is a dynamic speaker. I assume that the audience will not be able to identify his dynamism, which is why he needs to put it on a slide and read it to us?

I could not believe this. Three text-packed slides of the presenter telling the audience what he has done. Not one mention of WIIFM. Not one mention of what the audience will get out of his 50 minute presentation.

Now that we know what a bad introduction is, let's examine the ingredients for a great start to your presentation.

1. Provide a typed introduction in at least 14 point font. Keep it short. You introduction should cover 3 items. a. Why this presenter? (He is expert in field) b. Why this audience? (We have problem that he can help us solve) c. Why now? (Why is this topic relevant today, right now, to us?)

2. When you are introduced, black out the projector (if you don't already have a black slide in your slideshow). Seize the opportunity to start strong and share with your audience what they will learn from your session. Get to the benefits of your presentation, quickly.

3. After building rapport with your audience, start your PowerPoint presentation and deliver your presentation for the benefit of the audience.

Oh yeah, do not, ever, never, have one, two, or yikes! three slides of your past clients or where you have worked in your preceding 35 years. THE AUDIENCE DOESN'T CARE!!!!

Reading slides

Yesterday I attended a workshop on SDI and the Relationship Awareness Theory. With my degree in Psychology, and having taken more personality type tests than I can remember, I found the Relationship Awareness Theory to deliver pragmatic results. The Strength Deployment Inventory impressed me as a valid instrument. I am a Green-Blue which means that I first analyze, then nurture relationships.

We had 100 participants. Slides were up with directions on how to complete the activities. It was impossible to read the slides while the presenter was talking and 99 other people were shuffling papers, mumbling and assisting neighbours. I found that just as Prof. John Sweller confirmed in his study - we cannot focus on interpreting text on slides while someone is telling us the same information. I was reading the text, but could not interpret it with the noise.

This is just a not so gentle reminder. Do not put text on your slides and then read it to the audience. Put photos on your slides and speak your story. If you have an activity, then show the steps on your slides with animated slides so that your participants can see what is expected.

Presentation Excellence

An audience member recently asked me "How do I deliver a perfect, flawless presentation?. The answer of course, is "You don't".

Don't strive to deliver perfect presentations, with every word scripted and each sentence grammatically correct. Instead, you should aim to deliver a presentation that is "excellent" and of high quality. Use your own words and communicate the purpose of your presentation to your audience. Don't worry if you think that the language you use is not sufficiently proper for your audience. Focus on conveying your message to your audience. Try your very best to have them leave with your message in their minds. Use activities, metaphors, and stories to communicate your message.

Trying to deliver the perfect, flawless presentation is dysfunctional. The final 10% of the effort you put into delivering a perfect presentation is wasted, because your audience will understand your message with 90% of your energy. If 90% isn't good enough for your audience, then 10% more won't change the situation. Aim for presentation excellence, and let the chips fall where they may.

***

Have you noticed that most seminar leaders and conference presenters are very bad presenters. Reading their speeches, zero eye-contact, enough PowerPoint slides to sink the QE2 and running over allotted time. Is is small wonder that most presenters in corporate meetings are also bad presenters? We unconsciously follow the example set by the presenters we see at conferences. We have so few good presenters these days that unless you invest time and energy in developing the correct presentation skills, you will also be influenced by watching bad presenters. You will not even realize the low quality of your presentation skills if you compare yourself to presenters at conferences.

Therefore, don't just follow the example of others. Join Toastmasters, take note of good presenters, and set the example for other presenters to follow.

Speaking Highs

After a busy week of spectacular speaking engagements, I am enjoying the "Speaker" high that comes from well executed and well received presentations. You should enjoy the highs in life, and accept the lows in life. Delivering pragmatic skills in an entertaining way to audiences is the "Highest High" for me.

Do you enjoy the "Speaker" highs that you get after a presentation? Do you allow yourself to absorb the high and bask in it while it lasts?

While at the Southern New England Chapter of Project Management Institute Annual (SNEC-PMI) conference yesterday where I presented, I picked up a book by Rita Mulcahy from rmcproject.com.

Delightful and through provoking book. I read it last night. You may think - "What normal person could be so intrigued about any book on Project Management to read the book on a Friday night?". Is this the newest methodology in Earned Value Management? Or "Yet Another Graphical Dashboard Paradigm Shift" special report?

No. This little book is different, and I highly recommend that you get a copy. "100 Things Project Managers Should Do Before They Die" is a must-have for every experienced Project Manager.

Our 3rd annual SNEC-PMI conference was a total blast, well planned and plans flawlessly executed. Kudos to the team of volunteers that made this conference happen. I can't believe that our first conference was already 2 years ago. Time goes by so quickly. And construction is still underway at the adjoining Connecticut Science. Perhaps an invitation to the Project Management team across the way for complimentary tickets to our 2009 annual conference would be in order?