Meditations on the perils of presenting at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference
The perils are listed in no particular order. Needle in a haystack The audience will be drinking data from a firehose. The savvy presenter recognizes this peril as an opportunity. To capture...
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The forgotten presentation skill: Empathy
Empathy is our ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others. It makes us more successful in our personal lives and in our careers because it makes us able to connect with those around...
View ArticleAn Emerging Problem at Limited Partner Meetings
At the annual LP meetings I’ve been working on, I have noticed that the senior guy wants to give his views on the macro economic picture. He wants to do this for good reasons: To put the results his...
View ArticleHow to work with a speech writer
Senator Howard Baker said that he and his speech writers had a great relationship. “They write what they want me to say, and I say what I think.” They got along just fine. The remark points to the...
View ArticleLet us now praise specifics
We are entitled to our own opinions, but none of us is entitled to our own facts. In fact, most of us hold our opinions with little respect for facts. For instance, when you ask a passionate partisan...
View ArticleThe Bush Doctrine on Speech Writing
The Bush Doctrine on Speech Writing In his entertaining memoir Speech*Less, speech writer Matt Latimer reveals something about the speeches developed for President G.W. Bush. By the way, he was one...
View ArticleFacts Make the Speech Writer
The famed defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, was once asked what the key was to a successful case. People expected him to say a spellbinding closing statement or a good jury selection process or an...
View ArticleYour speechwriter: How to get the most out of him
A good speech has a voice. It sounds like an individual—specifically, the individual who is delivering the speech. It should not sound like the speechwriter. And yet us speechwriters are often given...
View ArticleScientific research on communication
I was steered to a web video the other day by an e-mail from a friend, and found myself in a garden of presentation skills coaches (also on video), many of whom quoted research done by Dr. Albert...
View ArticleTwo kinds of selling
I spent a day working on sales messages and presentation of those messages with a sales force, except the sales force was divided in two—half were an outside field force, and half were inside sales....
View ArticleFierce Conversations
I read the following in The Alternative Board’s newsletter today and want to pass this on to presenters and persuasive speakers. What conversations are you avoiding? Maybe it’s with a good friend you...
View ArticleEmpathy in Action
Years ago I splurged on a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where, among other things, I learned that leadership is a constant tug between assertiveness and empathy. Assertiveness...
View ArticleThe New is hard
On the first day of a workshop, an accomplished client delivered an effective presentation with verve and style. On the second day, I asked him to reorganize his talk to make it more...
View ArticleSims Wyeth announces the re-launch of Presenting for Results
I am thrilled to announce the rebirth of our public seminar, Presenting for Resultssm . It had a glorious life about five years ago, and went to sleep when we got too busy to tend to its needs. Now...
View ArticlePresenting for Results is Reborn
I am excited about the rebranding of our public program, an executive education experience called Presenting for ResultsSM. This is not like other executive education programs. It is creative rather...
View ArticleThe Placebo Effect and Presentation Skill
Take a bunch of old men on a retreat and tell them to act as if they were reliving the 1950s. Give them the clothes, the music, the food, the posters they had in college, and watch them get younger....
View ArticleWelcome to the game
On a train to New York, I saw a man unpack a portable electric guitar, assemble it, plug earphones into it, and begin to play. He was sitting at the window with two people packed next to him. No one...
View ArticleHow to Raise Money from Venture Capitalists and Other Investors
In a recent article in Harvard Magazine, Amy Cuddy, who teaches at Harvard Business School is quoted as saying that the success of venture-capital pitches to investors apparently turns, in fact, on...
View ArticleWhat’s the point you’re trying to prove?
Right now I’m sitting in the back of a hotel meeting room near Washington, DC, where two dozen physicians are rehearsing for a presentation to the regulatory authorities. They are debating what point...
View ArticleHow to Clarify Complexity
Every time I set up my video equipment, I have to untangle the power cord from the AV Out and In cords. They nest together in the carrying case, and find maddening excuses not to straighten out and...
View ArticleHow to clarify complexity – Part Two
As I said in another recent blog on complexity, most knowledge workers have to find the signal within the noise. In other words, we have to gather information, sift through it, and decide what is...
View ArticleInformation Design Disaster
Just this morning, I was rushing to catch the Metro in Washington, DC and found myself staring at a refrigerator-sized ticket machine with buttons, bells, arrows, windows, slots, writing and numbers...
View ArticleGetting permission to coach
A very thoughtful client, and subscriber to our Presentation Pointers, sent me this email: I have a question – Can you offer me 1-2 tips for giving presentation feedback for senior and mid-level...
View ArticleIdeas for better Investigator Meetings
You may be aware that I’ve been going to investigator meetings and finding them kind of out-of-date. We’ve got to get away from what’s easy for the sponsor, and instead move toward what is effective...
View ArticlePresenters should avoid this opening phrase
Many presenters begin their talks like this: “I’d like to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about…” Don’t do this. First of all, what you would like to do at that particular moment is of...
View ArticleCounting the words that count in high stakes presentations
Harvard and Google got married (NY Times article, Fri Dec 17) and have given birth to a database containing all the words in all the books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, German, French,...
View ArticleStoryboarding your presentation
I recently came across Lillipip, a company that creates animated videos about your product, service, or concept. Check them out. They have a simple storyboarding template of four blank squares. In...
View ArticleHow science presentations should work, but don’t
In the idyllic vision of the uninitiated, a scientific presentation tells a story, starting with a clear description of a problem, then outlining a series of steps taken to address that problem, and...
View ArticlePresenting up the chain of command
A bunch of great people (and great presenters) in big pharma told me one of their challenges is re-doing PowerPoint decks for presentations to different levels of management. When they get a...
View ArticleMake your PowerPoint headlines sentences
Michael Alley has investigated an alternative to the default PowerPoint slide layout, which he terms the “assertion-evidence design.” This approach employs succinct sentence headlines (sentences that...
View ArticlePresentation Tips and Tricks: The Power of Metaphor
Psychologists have demonstrated that people approve of differing responses to crime when it is presented as either a ‘beast’ or a ‘virus’ ravaging society. In the case of the ‘beast’ metaphor,...
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Presentation skill #65: Getting attention for the right reasons
Last September, the malevolent toadstool you see in the picture on the left thrust its slimy head out of the familiar soil of my front yard. It got my attention. I have rarely had mushrooms in my...
View ArticlePresentation Skills: Adjust your level of detail
You’re preparing a presentation and the question comes up, “How much detail should I include?” The answer is, “Just enough,” and that’s not a cop out, because there are so many different...
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It’s a Trap: A public speaking mistake
I had a new client to meet in New York City, so to beat traffic, I left home early and arrived by 7AM, which left me three hours until the meeting. To kill time, I went to The Harvard Club for...
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Effective communicating: Not just the facts
Albums on which all songs sound more or less the same are boring. Speaking voices that lack variety in pitch, volume, and rhythm are boring. Watching grass grow and paint dry is boring. And so is...
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Telling your story: Tips for success
Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence comes out today. Its author is Lisa Cron. I have only read the Contents section and a few...
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No goofing around with PowerPoint
America’s favorite highway oasis, South of the Border, is an emporium just inside the northern border of South Carolina on Route 301/501. For 200 miles in either direction, drivers are treated to...
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Improve your presentation skills
When sound is shaped by the narrow chambers of a trumpet, it comes out stronger and clearer. When speech is shaped by good presentation skills, your ideas and personality come out with more punch and...
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How to prepare a presentation
How to prepare a presentation Presentation skill is a broader topic than you might think. It goes beyond content expertise, slide design, stage presence, etc, to include how to prepare an effective...
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Persuasion, Influence and the Fear of Loss
On Thursday night I listened to a show called Radio Lab on National Public Radio. Anyone interested in trying to close the gap between intention and action, whether in yourself or others; anyone who...
View ArticleMake it look simple and easy
I subscribe to Lapham’s Quarterly, a magazine you should get if you have an appetite for a perspective beyond the micro-moments of our digital age. As you know, I’m in the business of helping...
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PowerPoint Slides: A good technique
Sophisticated presenters introduce the next PowerPoint slide before they leave the current one. They do this to orient the audience to what is coming next. For instance, they might say at the end of...
View ArticleHow to project authority
I had the privilege of helping a young man with a sales presentation. He had already been delivering it for several months on behalf of his investment firm, but he thought we could tweak it. The...
View ArticleKnow your audience
I recently spoke at an industry event on the subject of differentiating your message. I was invited to speak by someone who knows my work as a communication coach who told me that there would be a...
View ArticleIntellectual Combat in the Corporate Trenches
In the last few weeks, I’ve been asked by two marketing support functions to help them deal more effectively with the people they serve and support. One is a market research function, the other a...
View ArticleWhat’s the Difference Between a Speech and a Presentation?
With the arrival and success of the TEDTalk, we are losing the distinction between a speech and a presentation. I’m not sure if anyone cares, but I have always felt that each is a separate tool...
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Scientific and technical presentations: Wise Whys
My aunt and uncle just moved into a retirement community in New Hampshire. Going through their books, they found one my grandfather had given to my mother. The book is Just So Stories by Rudyard...
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Build a logical link
One technique for developing a good talk is to know what you’re trying to say, not just for the whole presentation, but for every slide. And once you’ve done that, you have to know how each slide...
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Use the hook and eye technique
To make the complex clear, use the hook and eye technique. The hook and eye technique makes the object of the preceding sentence the subject of the following sentence. Don’t worry, it’s simpler than...
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The Best Way to Lose an Audience
In 80 BC, Cicero, the great Roman orator and statesman, set off for the Eastern Mediterranean on something like a cross between a gap year and oratory boot camp—showing, again, how he regarded oratory...
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