On one of my boards there is a list of questions. These questions are designed to clarify our approach to a technical workshop (software training) we are developing. Perhaps you will find them useful as well. Here they are:

The goal can’t be a check mark on a project plan. If it doesn’t teach it has no real value.

Who has problems that this application can solve?

What questions do the learners have? Have them wite them down and share them.

How do I get the software?

Can I install it? Is it difficult?

What problems does this application solve?

What problems does this application cause?

Where is the real world data that I can use?

When I have questions who can help me? Will they help me?

When I have questions where can I go for help?

Where can I learn about the problem domain?

Who has real world experience in this problem domain? Will they help me?

Who has real world experience using this tool? Will they help me?

Is there a way to get on a real project where I can use the tool? Who can make that happen? Will they help me?

Which capabilities of the tool are open to interpretation? How do we learn the techniques required to correctly interpret?

BJ Lawson actually listens to a voter!

BJ Lawson is not like most other politicians. He doesn’t side-step a tough question or a tough crowd. Take a look at this video and see for yourself. Keep in mind he attended this event without a body guard. In fact, he may have gone alone.

The next time you have to speak on a controversial subject to a potentially hostile crowd, remember BJ Lawson.

Take a moment to read BJ’s blog post “ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND AMNESTY: IT’S NOT ABOUT CITIZENSHIP.” It provides some context for the video.

Glimmer by Warren Berger

Glimmer: How design can transform your life, and maybe even the world by Warren Berger.

The presentation world has been focused on slide design for years. While slides may have gotten better (the jury is still out) delivery has not. A couple of weeks ago I began searching for non-presentation books for inspiration and ideas. During this search I discovered Glimmer.

Glimmer is about Design: making things effective and useful and orchestrating great experiences. From OXO kitchen tools to the Segway you will learn from the actually creation of well designed products. Reading this book will make you look at everything from a different perspective. It is worth reading the book to live these stories but that wasn’t what effected me the most. That happened in the last part of the book…

“The older you get, the more you begin to think like a designer.” — Warren Berger

As I get older I find that it is easy to take dissimilar ideas and combine them. In the book this is called smart recombinations. It turns out that getting older actually makes you better at this. Getting older also makes you question things like, “If I were to have the perfect life what would that look like?” The last part of the book is all about applying design principles to your own life. It was a nice surprise to find this topic in the book. I plan to reread this part of the book in the very near future.

Back to presentations. There are many things in the book that apply to field of presentations. The most important one — to me — is that design isn’t just about making something look good. It has to function well and be useful. I wish that the people who equate a great presentation with slides would take this to heart.

You should put Glimmer on your reading list! Highly Recommended!

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.

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.

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.

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

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).