Guy Kawasaki is a dynamic presenter and public speaker not to mention evangelist. He has established what he calles his 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint - "a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points."
10 Slides (or less)
20 Minutes
30 Font Size (or bigger)
Simple... and brillant!
This is a very cool video of the masterful Doug Jefferys on public speaking and killer presentation skills. He's right on the money and entertaining too!
Notice his 'pointing' technique (and the story about Bill Clinton) - this has been adopted by many speakers (British PM Tony Blair used this too). It's a compromise between a (finger) point to add emphasis and the thumbs-up gesture. Enjoy.
Here's a great article with some simple tips to making better presentations and more being more effective in your public speaking...
Better Public Speaking & Presentation- Ensure Your Words Are Always Understood
Think of the last really memorable talk or presentation that you attended. Now, was that easy to do, or did you really have to rack your brains to remember one?Sadly, too many presentations are easy to forget. And that's a big problem because the only reason the presenter gave the talk was to communicate something to you!
However, there are three basic things that you can do to ensure that your verbal messages are understood - and remembered - time and time again.
Although somewhat obvious and deceptively simple, these are:
*Understand the purpose of the presentation
*Keep the message clear and concise
*Be prepared
*Be vivid when delivering the message
*Understand what you want to achieve:
*Before you start working on your talk or presentation, it's vital that you really understand what you want to say, who you want to tell and why they might want to hear it. To do this, ask yourself: Who? What? How? When? Where? Why?
Who are you speaking to? What are their interests, presuppositions and values? What do they share in common with others; how are they unique?
What do you wish to communicate? One way of answering this question is to ask yourself about the ‘success criteria’. How do you know if and when you have successfully communicated what you have in mind?
How can you best convey your message? Language is important here, as are the nonverbal cues discussed earlier. Choose your words and your nonverbal cues with your audience in mind. Plan a beginning, middle and end. If time and place allow, consider and prepare audio-visual aids.
When? Timing is important here. Develop a sense of timing, so that your contributions are seen and heard as relevant to the issue or matter at hand. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. ‘It’s better to be silent than sing a bad tune.’
Where? What is the physical context of the communication in mind? You may have time to visit the room, for example, and rearrange the furniture. Check for availability and visibility if you are using audio or visual aids.
Why? In order to convert hearers into listeners, you need to know why they should listen to you – and tell them if necessary. What disposes them to listen? That implies that you know yourself why you are seeking to communicate – the value or worth or interest of what you are going to say.
Keep it Simple:
When it comes to wording your message, less is more. You're giving your audience headlines. They don't need to and are usually not expecting to become experts on the subject as a result of hearing your talk.
If you're using slides, limit the content of each one to a few bullet points, or one statement or a very simple diagram.
Be Prepared:
Preparation is underrated. In fact, it is one of the most important factors in determining your communication successes. When possible, set meeting times and speaking and presentation times well in advance, thus allowing yourself the time you need to prepare your communications, mindful of the entire communication process (sender, message, channel, receiver, feedback and context). By paying close attention to each of these stages and preparing accordingly, you ensure your communications will be more effective and better understood.
Of course, not all communications can be scheduled. In this case, preparation may mean having a good, thorough understanding of the office going-ons, enabling you to communicate with the knowledge you need to be effective, both through verbal and written communications.
Unforgettable Delivery:
Your delivery of your speech or presentation will make or break it, no matter how well you've prepared and crafted your clear, concise message. Some useful tips for keeping your presentation vivid include:
Use examples to bring your points to life
Keep your body language up-beat - don't stay stuck behind a rostrum
Don't talk to fast. Less is more here too. Pauses are effective.
Use a variety of tones of voice
Use visual aids.
http://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/PublicSpeaking.htm
Summary:
Be prepared! According to Mark Twain "It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."
Understand the role and makeup of each of the following elements:
Who? - Audience
What? -Message
How? - Context
When? - Timing
Where? - Setting
Why? - Purpose
Sex 'cuts public speaking stress'
Forget learning lines or polishing jokes - having sex may be the best way to prepare for giving a speech.
New Scientist magazine reports that Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley, found having sex can help keep stress at bay.
However, only penetrative intercourse did the trick - other forms of sex had no impact on stress levels at all. Professor Brody monitored how various forms of sex affected blood pressure levels in a stressful situation.
For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in various forms of sex.
Then they underwent a stress test involving public speaking and performing mental arithmetic out loud.
Volunteers who had had penetrative intercourse were found to be the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had engaged in other forms of sexual activity such as masturbation.
Those who abstained from any form of sexual activity at all had the highest blood pressure response to stress.
Dr Brody found that the effect remained even after taking differences in personality and other health-related factors into account.
Nerves stimulated
He told the BBC News website it was possible the calming effect was linked to the stimulation of a wide variety of nerves which takes place during heterosexual intercourse, but not other forms of sex.
In particular, the vagal nerve plays a role in controlling some psychological processes. In addition, the release of the hormone oxytocin during sex might have a calming effect.
Professor Brody said it made sense in evolutionary terms for standard heterosexual sexual intercourse to be associated with a wide range of positive effects on behaviour.
He said: "A growing body of research shows that it is specifically intercourse, and not other sexual behaviours, whether alone or with a partner, that is associated with a broad range of psychological and physiological benefits. "And greater frequency of intercourse is associated with greater benefits."
But Dr Peter Bull, a social and political psychologist at the University of York, said there were other ways to prepare for a speech that were more likely to reduce stress.
He said: "You are probably better off thinking about what you are going to say, and preparing thoroughly, rather than having sex the previous night."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4646010.stm
Now maybe I'm misreading this, but could this signal that Public Speaking is the new Rock 'n Roll? - I knew 2007 was going to be a good year...
Don
The magnificant marketing egg-headed Seth Godin published these 10 steps to being remarkable in the Guardian. There is a lot here for public speakers to consider...
You're either boring or you stand out. You're either invisible or remarkable. And, all your life, everyone has been pushing you to fit in. All your life you're told to keep your head down, work hard, don't make waves and get it done. What rubbish. Here, in 10 easy steps, is how to grow. How to stand out. How to get noticed, make a difference and have a shot at the big time.
1. Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won't do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit.
2. Remarkable doesn't mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you're average, and average is for losers.
3. Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won't accomplish much. It's easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.
4. Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it's practically a requirement. People in first place, those considered the best in the world, these are the folks that get what they want. Rock stars have groupies because they're stars, not because they're good looking.
5. Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn't always matter which edge, more that you're at (or beyond) the edge.
6. Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don't. So what? Most people are ostriches, heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway. Your goal isn't to please everyone. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.
7. If it's in a manual, if it's the accepted wisdom, if you can find it in a Dummies book, then guess what? It's boring, not remarkable. Part of what it takes to do something remarkable is to do something first and best. Roger Bannister was remarkable. The next guy, the guy who broke Bannister's record wasn't. He was just faster ... but it doesn't matter.
8. It's not really as frightening as it seems. They keep the masses in line by threatening them (us) with all manner of horrible outcomes if we dare to step out of line. But who loses their jobs at the mass layoffs? Who has trouble finding a new gig? Not the remarkable minority, that's for sure.
9. If you put it on a T-shirt, would people wear it? No use being remarkable at something that people don't care about. Not ALL people, mind you, just a few. A few people insanely focused on what you do is far far better than thousands of people who might be mildly interested, right?
10. What's fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. While you might be remarkable for a time, if you don't reinvest and reinvent, you won't be for long. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/workweekly/story/0,,1983601,00.html#article_continue
A remarkable speach is really the only kind worth making!
Don
We're already into the second week of 2007 and for many of us we have much to accomplish over the next 12 months or so. However, it can seem that some things will forever be outside our reach if we don't first conquer that which holds us back. It is said that public speaking is the single biggest fear that people have - death usually being quoted as being the second!
Personally I'm not sure where these 'facts' come from or just how accurate they might be. What I do know is that for many people fear of speaking in public is paralyzing and highly costly (something we'll look at a bit more closley in future posts).
For now think about this - if you had the skills and knowledge to make simply Awesome Speeches that were highly persuasive and brimming with confidence when called upon, how would your life differ for the better now???
Don Callaghan
