Wired Presentations

The Virtual Presentation Handbook by Roger Courville

The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook by Roger Courville is the 4th of 52 books that I will read this year.

How did I find Roger’s book, The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook? I found this book because I am a webinar nerd. I just love delivering them. I think that I enjoy delivering them because it may be the most challenging presentation environment there is. Well, that may be an overstatement. “Do you have any final words before we flip the switch?” would be worse. Oh back to the book…

A few years ago I was a Technical Trainer at SAS. Part of the job was delivering courses over the Web. I had never done this before and it scared the life out of me. I asked for advice and no one had any. I looked for help everywhere. There was very little to be found. I decided that I would have to learn how to do it — on my own. I started by watching hundreds of hours of recorded webinars (virtual presentations). I learned what made one webinar better than another and then I taught myself how to do it.

Periodically, I will search Amazon for books of presenting over the Web. During one of those searches I found Roger’s book.

Why did I read the book? Although I am no longer an instructor I still love learning about virtual presentations. I still deliver them, just not as often. Plus, the skills using in virtual presentations apply to using Camtasia. Finally, I want to see if others concur with some of the things I discovered on my own.

Lessons learned. The insight that Roger provides here is very good. Even though the book doesn’t address teaching, or technical presentations, the topics covered can be applied to those fields. I really enjoyed reading about using the Web for sales and marketing presentations. It is an environment that I don’t encounter very often.

There are no discussions of specific tools in the book. The vendors do a great job of documenting their offerings and how to use them. Their tutorial videos are a great learning tool. There is no reason to waste space in the book for that. One of the things that makes the book great is it’s size. Or lack of size. It is a small book and gets straight to the point.

Roger makes a point of emphasizing practice. This was born out in my learning adventure. You have to know the tool that you are using. There is no time to try to figure-out how to make something work during a real presentation. It is hard to make that case to people and Roger does a great job at it. Every once in a while I teach people how to get started with virtual presentations using WebEx. The only way I have found to hammer this home is to make a “mistake” with the tool. I always use polling. Yes, I have a scripted procedure to intentionally screw it up. It highlights the need to practice very effectively.

The book contains a discussion of PowerPoint as well. The tried and true advice extolling the joy of bullet free slides is covered as is a neat trick for building slides without using animations. You see, many of the tools have issues with animations. I won’t spoil it for you but I can vouch for the technique. I use it all the time and it works very well.

One of the joys of virtual presentations is the unmuted phone. During our training classes we heard lots of interesting things. Most of which were quite funny and just a little embarrassing. I can honestly say that I have never heard a story as good as the one from the book. It is a hoot. Plus, the presenter’s reaction is incredibly funny. Seriously, it is almost worth the price of the book just to read the story.

The book has a wonderful discussion on how to make your webinars interactive. Interactivity is required for a great webcast. The vendors all have a common set of features to support this. Polls, chat and annotation tools that allow you do draw or type on the screen are common to all of them. Roger covers them in the book. We differ in our opinion of the annotation tools but that is probably a function of the subject matter we present.

The book is chock-full of useful tips and tricks. I haven’t scratched the surface. I guess you will just have to read it for yourself;)

The final verdict: Experienced Web presenters and newbies will both benefit from reading this book. I wish it had been around when I started.

Be sure to follow Roger on Twitter. You can also learn more at The Virtual Presenter Web site.

You are never too young to start

Do you remember what it was like to take that speech class in college? At the time, was the thought of standing in front of a classroom full of people enough to make you call in sick?

If you want to relive that experience through the eyes of the current students in the Fundamentals of Effective Speech Class at Southern State Community College (South Campus) you are in luck. They are blogging about their experiences. There are some very interesting posts there.

There is a great quote in one of Shanna’s posts.

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public. – George Jessel

Stop by and offer words of encouragement via the comments.

2009 is about to be history! Thank goodness, it’s been a rough year for many people. On the other hand, It has been a great year for presentations. Here is the best communicator of 2009!

My Favorite Communicator or 2009 … Sir Ken Robinson

Hands down Sir Ken Robinson is the best communicator of 2009.

I first became aware of Sir Ken years ago. I was in San Francisco to do some performance tuning on a SAS environment for a bank. In fact, I had just arrived. I turned on the TV after settling into my hotel room. As I placed my clothes in the closet I heard this mesmerizing English accent. It just so happened that the TV was on a PBS station that was playing a speech by Sir Ken Robinson. I quickly made note of his name name in my notebook and then sat down to listen as he discussed creativity and how our schools kill it.

Take a few minutes and view Sir Ken discuss this very topic at a TED Conference.

What makes Sir Ken so good?

• He is engaging – he brings you into his idea and makes you part of the story. Most of us have been to school so we can identify with many of the points he brings up.
• He is likeable – Sir Ken is a guy who you would love to run into at a dinner party. Yes, even though he is an educator (watch the TED video to hear the joke). Which brings us to …
• He is a great story teller - his presentations are filled with great stories and they are very well told. They enhance his presentations by bringing his ideas to life. You won’t find a better example of story use anywhere else.
• He is very, VERY, funny – his presentations are full of humor. Jokes. Funny stories. Humorous asides. They are all in there.
• He knows when to use visuals - in this case he doesn’t use PowerPoint. You won’t find any Zen-style get-a-photo-and-stick-a-quote-on-it slides in here. During his TED talk he does use a visual but it is subtle. He is the visual. He is speaking about a ballerina and them draws attention to his body. He is a polio survivor and ballett is not something you will see him do.

You get the picture. Sir Ken Robinson is the perfect role model for the modern presentation. Check-out his Web site for more videos.

I recently asked Sir Ken which of his many books is the best one to read first. He said, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. I am going to order it for my Kindle and in hardcopy just as soon as I finish this post.

Dr. Walter E. Willams

My runner-up for the Best Communicator of 2009 is Dr. Walter E. Williams. Dr. Williams is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. In addition, Dr. Williams is a staunch libertarian and often speaks on the topic of personal freedom.

Dr. Williams is a guest host on the Rush Limbaugh radio show. He can explain complex economic topics and make them understandable. Plus, he is funny! When I think back to my Economics professors I feel cheated. Here is an example of his work.

At some point in the future you will be asked to deliver a presentation. Many people will wait until the last minute, throw together a crappy presentation, deliver it in a less than stellar fashion, and believe it when people tell them how great they did. Don’t be one of these poor deluded souls.

You can be a presentation rock star with just a little study and preparation. The time to start is right now!

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that PowerPoint slides are your presentation!

Here is the plan: Read, watch and do!

Step 1: Read

This one is simple. find a couple of great books and study them. Here are the books you need.

Start with these:

Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action by Nick Morgan.

You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard by Bert Decker.

Once you have read those two books you are ready to think about PowerPoint. Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of believing that PowerPoint slides are your presentation. They are there to support what you say.

Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson.

Step 2: Watch

You need to learn to evaluate presentations delivered by others. Start with this presentation delivered by Sir Ken Robinson. I am going to post some thoughts about this presentation soon, but don’t wait for me. Make sure that you have paper and pencil when you watch it. You can use the pause button to stop the video while you jot down your thoughts.

Watch: Schools Kill Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson

Make sure that you read the comments. You can learn a lot from reading the opinions of others.

Write down your opinion of Sir Ken’s presentation. Focus on how he uses the advice given in the Decker and Morgan books. Spend some time on this – it is well worth your time.

Find 3 other presentations and go through the same exercise.

Step 3: Do

Take some time to think. Think about what you have learned and how you can put it into action. Learning something new is meaningless if you can’t use it.

Pick a topic. The trick is to find a topic that you know a lot about and that others are interested in.

Design a presentation. It is best if it is short: 5 – 10 minutes is fine.

Video tape yourself delivering your presentation. You can use a web cam or a camcorder. You don’t need anything fancy. The Flip video camera is fine for this. Buy a tabletop tripod. It will make your life easier. You will be greatly hurting your efforts if you don’t do this.

Watch the video of your presentation. This seems obvious but lots of people don’t ever do this. Suck it up! Watch the video. You will find that it isn’t as bad as you think it is. You will probably be very pleasantly surprised. Once again, you will be greatly hurting your efforts if you don’t do this.

Find people that will help you. This has never been easier. You can use Twitter, Facebook and any other social media site to find people who will help. Here is the trick: Put your videos on YouTube and ask for feedback.

Eventually, you will want to find locals to attend rehearsal sessions. The social media sites will help you with that too.

This is a great exercise that will help you increase the size of your network. It’s a wonderful skill to have.

Be skeptical. Many people will tell you that you did a great job. They won’t discuss areas for improvement. There are at least two reasons for this: 1) they don’t really know what makes a good presentation and/or 2) they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Find people who know about presentations and will be honest with you. It may take some searching but you can find people who are willing and able to help you.

Wow, that’s a short post! It actually represents quite a bit of work. I think that you are up to it. Plus, I promise you that done properly it will change your life.

PS: You can subscribe to this blog’s content. It’s free and easy. You can also subscribe to the comments.

One of the ways that you can improve your presentation skills is to study the work of others. You can find examples of great, and not so great, presentations on the Internet. I like looking at great examples.

It helps if the presenters are good — very good. You want to find people who are passionate and know a lot about their topic. They should also care deeply about their subject. You are looking for people who look natural, not actors. In short, you want them to be genuine.

Dave Ramsey falls into that category. Dave’s mission in life is to bring “financial peace” to the world.

As you watch the video answer these questions:

How does Dave connect with the audience?

How does he use humor during the presentation?

What do you think of the television monitors at the edge of the stage? Does he appear to use them?

What techniques or skills can you learn from Dave that will make you a better presenter?

Watch Dave Ramsey present

It appears that not everyone is a “Jeff Fan.” Take a moment to read how wrong I am.

On the other hand, some find my advice useful.

Fortunately for all of us, everyone is entitled to their opinions!

[Update] It looks like Angela DeFinis is on the side of sometimes you are REQUIRED to read a presentation (or speech).

Three days ago I wrote that there may be a time when you need to read a speech. The response on Twitter indicated that some people were skeptical. Today four candidates for the Wake County (NC) school board proved me right!

I was driving to the grocery store when I heard these folks talking on the radio. I was struck buy 3 things:

Thing 1 – Get coaching: Not a single one of them was good at public speaking. Com’on people. If you are going to run for public office there is a slight possibility that you will need to speak in public. I imagine that these folks are comfortable speaking in public and believe that comfort equals skill. It doesn’t.

Here is a suggestion to anyone in the Triangle area of North Carolina thinking of running for office: Take a communications course. Contact Alan Hoffler at MillsWyck Communications. He can help you stand out from the crowd. Call him or send him e-mail now!

Thing 2 – Practice for the situation you will face by role playing: It didn’t sound like any of them had role-played being on the radio. False starts. Stutters. Dead air. It was all there. I bet they could have made arrangements to visit the radio station and practice using the equipment. At a minimum they could have recorded themselves and figured-out that they were speaking too fast and were not pausing. A great point would be made and then quickly disappear because it was washed away by the next thing that they needed to force in there.

They were so nervous that I felt sorry for some of them. Again, practice is key here. One of them stated that they have a Doctorate. All I could do is wonder why someone so educated was so ill prepared. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Thing 3 – If you are going to read a speech then learn how to do it right: All 4 of these candidates read their closing comments. It was dreadful. The speech feature of my Kindle would have had more nuance and emotion. Good’ole Kindle would have been smoother too. That is just sad. Everyone should practice reading aloud. Everyone.

Bonus Thing – There has to be something that you really care about: Each one of these candidates had lots of things that they were “concerned” about. They were all over the place. I have learned that stuffing more content into the allotted time hurts much more than it helps. Pick 2 or 3 issues and know them inside and out. Care about them. Immerse yourself in them. Hammer them home. Show you have great depth in your issues. In short: Own your issues.

I am not going to cover all of Mehrabian’s Rule here. If you want to read about it Wikipedia has a great page on it. I will cover some misconceptions.

The rule only applies to communication regarding feelings and attitudes.

The research only covers words (7%), tone of voice (38%) and body language (55%). That’s right, body language is the only visual component studied.

You will hear people say, “words only count for 7% of the information delivered during a presentation.” Unfortunately, these folks don’t know what they are talking about. You see, the percentages only come into play when words, voice or body language don’t pass along the same message. They are incongruent.

For example:

If I scream “I love you” at the top of my lungs and hit my wife chances are she won’t believe what I say. She will, because she is smart, choose to believe the non-verbal message.

If I am slumped in a chair in front of an audience and mumble “I am so excited to be here…” then chances are they won’t believe me either. Like my wife, they aren’t stupid. They will believe what they see and the tone I use.

You get the idea. Dr. Mehrabian’s research is applied, incorrectly, to the use of slides as well. One day you will hear someone say, “it doesn’t matter what you say — it is the slides that are important.

When that happens just back away and please don’t believe them!