Garr Reynolds's Blog, page 19

Presentation Zen Seminar in Paris December 7

On December 7, I will be conducting a 5-hour presentation seminar in Paris, France in English. The Presentation Zen European Seminar 2010 is sponsored by the cool people at Ideas on Stage in association with Pearson and Microsoft. Although I have stops in Milano and London this December, the Paris event is the only public seminar that I am able to do. So far many people have registered from several countries outside of France so this event promises to have a great mix of participants. Wherever you may be in Europe (or even outside of Europe), please consider a trip to the beautiful city of Paris in December. The seminar is the day before the Le Web 2010 Conference, so if you're planning on coming to Paris for that great conference, why not come a bit early? The seminar is on Tuesday the 7th and I am hoping to hold an informal tweet up the night before for seminar attendees. The content of the interactive seminar will include ideas and practices on preparation, design, and delivery for the kinds visual, story-driven presentations that make an impact and create change. If you needed an excuse to get your boss to send you to one of the world's most gorgeous and remarkable cities, here's your chance. I look forward to meeting you in Paris!

Register for the conference on the Ideas on Stage website in English or in French or check out Phil Waknell's blog post on the event.

Recently I have been conducting sold-out seminars in Tokyo in association with Nikkei that have been a lot of fun (and educational) for all involved. See some pics of those seminars. And here are some pics from the last time I presented in Paris this past summer.

Start your presentation with PUNCH

The primacy effect, when applied to presentations, suggests that we remember more strongly what happens at the beginning of a presentation. In order to establish a connection with an audience, we must grab their attention right from the beginning. A punchy opening that gets the audience's attention is paramount. Granville N. Toogood, author of The Articulate Executive also stresses the idea of starting off quickly and beginning with punch. "To make sure you don't get off on the wrong foot, plunge right in," he says. "To galvanize the mind of the audience, you've got to strike quickly." There are many ways to strike quickly and start with punch to make a strong initial connection. Conveniently, at least five proven ways to begin a talk form the acronym PUNCH. Some of the best openings include content which is Personal, Unexpected, Novel, Challenging, or Humorous. Some of the best presentations contain at least one or more of these elements.

PERSONAL


Make it Personal. I once saw an amazing presentation on work-place safety at a company whose employees have dangerous jobs. The presenter started off his presentation with a high resolution image of some cute children. After talking about how import "our children" are (most people in the audience had children), he confessed that the children on screen were his and that his main concern in his life was being around a great long while to take of them. We all have a responsibility, he said, to our families and to each other to make sure we pay careful attention to safety procedures and rules so that no one's children here ever have to be told that their mommy or daddy are not coming home. This opening was emotional, personal, and relevant. It got everyone's attention and set the stage for the presentation. What could have been a presentation simply listing safety rules in bullet points to be scanned now was something far more personal.

There are many ways to make the opening personal, but personal in this case does not mean a long self-introduction about your background complete with org charts or why you are qualified to speak. However, a personal story can be very effective opening so long as it illustrates a key engaging point or sets the theme in a memorable way.

UNEXPECTED


Reveal something unexpected. Doing something or saying something which goes against what people expected gets their attention. Even the very fact that you have chosen to eschew the normal and expected (and boring) formal opening of thanking everyone under the sun and saying how glad you are to be speaking is a happy small surprise. Instead of the normal formal and slow opening, consider opening with a shocking quote or a question with a surprising answer or a revealing statistic that goes against conventional wisdom. Do or say something that taps into the emotion of surprise. This emotion increases alertness and gets people to focus. "There must be surprise...some key facts that are not commonly known or are counter-intuitive," says management guru Tom Peters. "No reason to do the presentation in the first place if there are no surprises."

NOVEL


Show or tell of something novel. Get people's attention by introducing something new. Start with a powerful image that's never been seen, or reveal a relevant short story that's never been heard, or show a statistic from a brand new study that gives new insights into a problem. Chances are that your audience is filled with natural born explorers who crave discovery and are attracted to the new and the unknown. Novelty is threatening for some people, but assuming the environment is safe and there is not an over abundance of novelty in the environment, your audience will be seeking the novel and the new.

CHALLENGING


Challenge conventional wisdom or challenge the audience's assumptions. Consider challenging people's imaginations too: "How would you like to fly from New York to Tokyo in 2 hours? Impossible? Well, some experts think it's possible!" Challenge people intellectually by asking provocative questions that make them think. Many presentations or lectures fail because they simply attempt to transfer information from speaker to listener as if the listeners were not active participants. But audiences pay attention best when you call on them to use their brains — and even their bodies — to do something that taps their natural curiosity and stretches them.

HUMOROUS


Use humor to engage the audience emotionally with a shared laugh. There are many benefits to laughter. Laughter is contagious and an audience that shares a laugh becomes more connected with each other and with you; this creates a positive general vibe in the room. Laughter releases endorphins, relaxes the whole body, and can even change one's perspective just a bit. The old adage is if they are laughing they are listening. This is true, though it does not necessarily mean they are learning, so it is critical that the humor be relevant directly to the topic at hand or otherwise fits harmoniously with the flow of your narrative without being distracting or derailing you from the objective of your talk.

The idea of recommending humor in a presentation gets a bad rap because of the common and tired practice of opening up a speech with a joke, almost always a lame one. Usually such jokes get only polite sympathy laughter at best, and at worst the joke falls completely flat or even offends, either way the presenter is off to a poor start. But, I'm not talking about telling jokes. Forget about jokes. However, an observation of irony, or an anecdote or short humorous story that makes a relevant point or introduces the topic and sets the theme are the kinds of openings that can work.

Take a chance
There are many ways to start a presentation, but how ever you choose to start your talk, do not waste those initial valuable two-three minutes "warming up" the audience with filler material or formalities. Start strong. The five elements comprising PUNCH are not the only things to consider, but if your opening contains 2-3 of these approaches then you are on your way to opening with impact. Of course, it's safer just to do the same old thing, but part of presenting naked means being different and taking a chance to make an impact. Making a difference and influencing a change always has some risk.

Resonate: A fantastic new book on presentation

If you have not heard of Nancy Duarte's new book, then let me turn you on to it. Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, says Nancy, is the prequel to her first book Slide:ology. As Nancy says early on, the problem with most presentations is not simply that the visuals are ineffective; making the visuals look better for content that is not well crafted has little merit. This book takes you back a step and launches you on a journey of discovery and exploration that takes inspiration and insights from myriad sources including the art of story creation and storytelling and film, etc. The lessons in the book will help you create the kinds of presentations that truly engage and transform audiences. Remember that presentation is always about change. By presenting we're necessarily trying to move people and impact them in at least a very small way. Sometimes in very big ways. This book is informative, instructive, and inspirational. The book itself is a presentation of sorts and it is definitely a compelling piece of work that is creating buzz and changing things. I was so inspired by Nancy's wonderful book that I shot this little video below on my iPhone today at the Hamarikyu Gardens near Tokyo Bay this morning.

The Presentation Zen Bento Box

I have always been inspired by the beautiful bento box lunches sold at Shinkansen (bullet train) stations in Japan. This inspired me years ago to start the presentation zen website, which became the books, seminars, DVD, etc. Finally, my concept of presentation-in-a-box or "presentation kit" has been realized. We started this a long time ago, but because we wanted a high-quality product while keeping costs down, it took a lot of creativity behind the scenes and time to bring this to...

Before & After: A valuable resource for presenters

The helpful advice from designer and executive director John McWade from Before & After is one of the most useful websites out there. I'm a huge fan of John's simple, straight forward approach to graphic design and teaching. His advice is always very practical and he has helped thousands and thousands of people over the years communicate more clearly by learning the essentials of graphic design. John even contributed a lovely four-page spread about using images in presentations which...

The power of online video (and presentation) to change the world

This new talk by TED curator Chris Anderson is a great example of a naked talk given with the support of technology. This is one of my favorite talks ever, in part because of the content, and in part because of the way it was delivered. Anderson is not slick or over rehearsed, he speaks in a human voice, imperfections and all. He speaks from the heart. His embedded video and visuals help but do not get in the way. The visual amplifies his narrative and helps him take people on a little...

Presentation (and life) lessons from the dojo

Kyuzo Mifune (1883–1965) is considered one of the great Judo masters of the modern era. Though Mifune was not large physically, even in his old age he could defeat much larger and younger men. According to John Stevens in Budo Secrets, Mifune often used a technique called kuki-nage (air throw) which is based on the principle of a perfect sphere. "A sphere never loses its center, it moves swiftly without strain, and it does not resist force." The meaning of the term Judo (柔道) is...

Create and communicate meaning

What entrepreneurship and the art of presentation have in common is they are both really about creating meaning. This simple fundamental is often forgotten (or was never learned). In business, we need to make money, of course. This is a given. But the focus and the very reason one goes into the business should not be money. This is not because the pursuit of wealth is ignoble, but it may be a signal that one's focus is misplaced. If acquiring wealth is the primary goal of an entrepreneur...

Presentation Zen seminar in Tokyo October 2

If you are in Japan in early October, please consider joining my presentation zen seminar on Saturday, October 2 from 12 noon to 5:00pm. This event is sponsored by Nikkei Business Associé Magazine (pdf of magazine article on this seminar). The cost is ¥29,800 per person and includes the Presentation Zen Design book in Japanese and the pz storyboarding/sketch book plus drinks and a light snack. We held the same seminar in July and it sold out in a few days. I will speak in English while...

Presentation: A few minutes with John Cleese on creativity

Below is an excellent 10-min video clip from a presentation by John Cleese expressing a few of his ideas on creativity. One of the main problems for many of use today is that we are always in a hurry and our minds are a bit scattered juggling many balls in the air. But if we are racing around all day with a busy mind, Cleese says, we are not going to have many creative ideas. We must slow down our minds to see the connections. There is some evidence that insights, for example, are best...