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.

Social Media Rockstar! Presentation Disaster?

Now, back to this post.

If you are a Social Media guru, then you should adopt Chris Brogan’s presentation philosophy. He gets it. Chris’ attitude regarding presentations is awesome. If everyone adopted it the world would be a better place.

Tighten Up by Chris Brogan.

These people aren’t merely comfortable, they seek out a microphone at any opportunity. I imagine that under the right circumstances they will fight for the mic.

In the universe that I usually orbit, technical presentations, I don’t usually see these folks often. They just don’t inhabit my world. If you take a second and think about where you are most likely to encounter them “Sales” would leap into your mind. Sales is the most obvious home for these folks but that is not what I am talking about here. And that is where the risk comes in.

Social media seems, to me, to be the new home of the narcissistic presenter. These folks have huge Twitter followings. They have fans. Fans who got to know them 140 characters at a time. That is where the problem comes in. Fans will ignore flaws that drive us non-fans up the wall. The crappy presenters in this world are given the exact same feedback as the great presenters. Unfortunately, they believe it. No questions asked.

The members of their cliques gush all over them and tell them how wonderful their presentations are. Meanwhile, I dream of taking hostages just so the ordeal will end. Really, do you need to spend 10 minutes talking about yourself while introducing another speaker? It may be me but I just don’t understand how someone can fool themselves so completely. They must know, deep down in that place where reality lives, that they are a train wreck in the presentation game. I guess I can’t understand how they can fool themselves so completely because I know Coach Jackson.

Most of these folks grew up in a time where everyone on a team got a trophy for showing up. A time where any criticism was withheld in fear of harming little Johnny’s self esteem. Coach Jackson would explain in vivid detail the myriad ways that we sucked. Did he do it in private? Heck no! His philosophy was it might not help the one getting fussed at but it may help someone else. Don’t get me wrong, he also told us when we did things right. With Coach Jackson you always knew where you stood and how to get better. He was right and we all knew it. It was up to us to do the work to make it happen.

The problem is that while your fan base may love you, there are people in your audience who don’t know you from Adam. They will judge you by your presentation. With some work you can impress them with your mad skills. You know for sure that Chris Brogan is going to deliver a strong presentation.

If you eat, sleep and breathe social media and you deliver presentations find someone, a speech coach perhaps, that will tell you like it is. Believe them. Take their suggestions to heart and work hard to become a competent presenter. Fortunately, the bar is low. It isn’t as hard as you think.

Here is one of Jeff’s rules.

Take risks during your presentation!

I am not talking about ridiculous risks. Here is an example of a ridiculous risk that many people don’t mind taking, “I know this pretty well, I am just going to wing-it!” Winging-it, or just going up there and speaking without any preparation, is not the kind of risk I am talking about. When you think about it, it’s more stupid than risky. Actually, it is usually a sign of fear but that is a subject for another day.

Here are some ways to be risky during your next presentation:

1) Make meaningful eye contact. This one is soooooo important. When you are delivering a presentation a second can feel like an eternity. I consider this risky because you, like most people, feel so uncomfortable doing it. Make eye contact often and hold it longer than you think you should. You should practice this, often, during normal conversation with friends and family. Strangers too!

Eating in Asia is risky! But worth it!

2) Tell personal stories. Many people are unwilling to do this. I guess they see it as a sign of weakness. It isn’t. Your audience will find your story (if it is told well) interesting. The trick is to ensure that the story highlights the point you are trying to make. Stories are a great way to connect with your audience. Plus, people will remember you.

3) Don’t be a statue. You are a human, not a statue. Move! Sure, that junction box on the floor may knock you to the ground. No problem. Handle it well and people will talk about how awesome you are under pressure. Move, connect, influence!

4) Show some emotion. President Obama was recently interviewed about the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. He stated that he had to find someones “ass” to kick. The President of the United States shouldn’t use language like that on TV. That being said, he looked strange because he was using a very emotional word but was acting like Spock on Star Trek. No emotion at all.

I know what you are thinking. I give technical presentations. There’s no need for emotion. Nonsense! Technical presentations are all I deliver and I use emotion every single time. Emotion shows you care and you must care to connect and get your message across.

The speaking pros know these things and work on them. Fortunately, you can too. A willingness to take some risks will set you apart from your peers and possibly take your life, and career, in directions you never thought possible.

Well, thank goodness I am not like that. I love learning and I love trying to do the same ole things in different ways. I am always looking for different approaches to the same old things.

When I saw that Decker Communications had developed a course based on Chip and Dan Heath’s great book, Made to Stick, I knew I had to take it. The proof is that I paid for this training on my own!

Register for Decker Made to Stick Messaging — check!

Buy plane ticket to San Francisco — check!

Make a reservation at the Hilton — check!

From the moment that you enter the Decker offices you feel at home. There is food and coffee for the participants (coffee is very important!). Kelly and Karen, the instructors, are there greeting you as you enter the classroom. They direct you to your assigned seat. Assigned seating works for this type of training is good because it enables groups from the same company to spread out and meet new people. I especially like the arrangement of the room. There are 4 pods of tables and you sit facing the other folks at your table. It makes getting to know your group very easy.

Prior to attending the class we were given an assignment: come up with a pitch to use as a project for the course. I chose something work related — a conference paper proposal. On the walk to the class I passed a Borders book store and changed my topic to “we should all read more.”

During the course of the day we used video cameras and peer review to refine and enhance our pitches. Getting to know the other people at the table was a lot of fun. We used 3×5 cards to discuss what worked and what could be improved for each of the pitches.

The Decker Made to Stick Grid and methodology made it easy to refine and improve our projects. The instructors were always available to help. They seemed to know when someone was having a problem and they miraculously appeared. That is one sign of a great teacher.

At the end of the day we videotaped our pitches again. The improvements were very noticeable.

Here is what I find odd. I am still working on the project that I did in class. I am planning some experiments around it. Stay tuned for more details.

Oh, I don’t regret spending the money to attend the course. It is a great value and I cherish the opportunity and experience. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Thanks to Bert Decker, Kelly Decker and Karen Habegger for such a wonderful time and a great learning experience.

For more information check-out Decker Made to Stick Messaging.

What can someone who has never competed in a speech contest teach you, the competitor, about winning? I think that the answer to that question is, “A LOT!”

I have a couple of friends that have entered contests and I helped coach them. As part of this “coaching” I attended every contest I could easily drive to. Here are the lessons that I learned.

Do your homework

You should know how you will be judged. Read the judging sheet (you can find them here). Read the words of those who have gone far (Rich Hopkins). Read  Internet groups.

Your speech has to have a point

This is very important. During the humorous speech season I saw at least 10 presentations. I don’t remember any of them having a point. When a speech has a point you know it. There simply must be a reason that you are telling the story. At the end of your speech I should remember the story and the specific reason that you shared it with me. If your audience doesn’t know why you told it chances are you will lose.

Don’t bury the headline

Your point must be obvious. Many folks in your audience, including some of the judges, won’t “get” that subtle, clever, introduction where you let us in on why you are sharing your speech. You need to have the subtlety of breaking glass. If you don’t tell them EXACTLY why you are sharing your presentation, chances are they won’t get it. Face it, most of us are barely paying attention under the best of circumstances. Make it easy for us.

Have a compelling opening

All of the contest speeches that I saw had very weak openings. I don’t remember one that really reached-out and grabbed me. You need an introduction that says, “what I am about to share with you is going to make your life better — listen to me!”

I think that the compelling opening is the most important part of the speech. If you don’t have them at the start, you won’t have them at the end. I noticed this when teaching. People need a reason to listen. Give them one — be exciting.

Have a gripping end and ask them to do something

If you have them with you at the end congratulations. If you don’t a compelling end isn’t likely to help much.

The end of your speech should include two things:

• an OBVIOUS restatement of the point you are trying to make
• a call to action (something for them to do).

You need to make sure they remember the reason that you shared your speech with them. Restate it in a new, different, way.

You need to have a call to action. It can be something as simple as ask them to consider what you have said (pause for them to do it). It can be as specific as calling a charity and donating money (take their money). It could be that you want them to try a new computer programming technique (not likely to win a contest with that one). Ask them to do something; your speech will stick in their mind.

Here is the quickest way to lose a contest

Don’t practice and don’t rehearse. For heaven’s sake, if you are going to do something gimmicky like use a cute video, or fall down, rehearse it. Hopefully one of you friends will tell you “it sucks, don’t do it?”

On Monday I was milling around a local Barnes and Nobles and wound up in the diet section. Man are there a lot of diet books out there. I just did a search on Amazon and the work “diet” returned 332,271 hits. And that was just for books. 179,000,000 hits for “diet” on Google. It appears that people are hungry to lose weight… I know, that wasn’t funny.

Thinner
What if public speaking were proven to make you thinner? Just think about it. I envision something similar to Dante’s 7th level of Hell. The problem is most people are terrible presenters and the question didn’t ask “what if great public speaking were proven to make you thinner?”

Public speaking and weightloss have something in common. People are seldom honest with you. You can be fat and people will tell you how good you look. You can suck as a presenter and guess what: people will tell you how good your presentation was. Since becoming obsessed with public speaking I notice such things. This applies to the famous as well as the rest of us.

The next time you go to a conference walk to the front of the room after a bad presentation. You will hear nothing but awesome, great, etc. The more well known you are in your field the more difficult it is to get real feedback.

Here is another “truth” that I have learned: public speaking won’t make you thinner but being thinner will make you a better public speaker. It is unfair but true. I am still overweight but I can tell you that losing 30 lbs did wonders for my speaking. I have more energy and am able to do a much more compelling job.

Richer
Sure, there are some people have gotten rich from public speaking — Tony Robbins, Barack Obama (he will cash in once his presidency concludes), and countless others. I think that it is true that developing your public speaking skills can help you in real life. On the other hand, being a crappy presenter doesn’t appear to hurt much. If it did I wouldn’t cringe in fear every time I am asked to attend a presentation.

I want to say the important part again: “being a crappy presenter doesn’t appear to hurt much.” I know one guy who kept his job because he gave a “great” presentation. I don’t know anyone who has been fired because of a terrible presentation.

The problem is that there is no way to tell how being bad hurts you. I would love to see definitive statistics on how much bad presentation costs in a given year. I bet it is almost as much money as the bailout. Give a terrible sales presentation; Walk away talking about the potential customer who just isn’t savvy enough to “get it.” Denial … denial … DENIAL! Most people who present a lot think they are great at it. Unfortunately, they never hear otherwise.

Folks who write books may get a little richer on the speaking circuit — Malcolm Gladwell is doing well. His presentations are interesting but he obviously hasn’t put the same effort into developing his speaking skills as he has his writing skills. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. I would pay to hear him speak.

Better in Bed
I asked my wife about this one. She said that there was no way that this one is true… Sigh… always a comediene.

The Lesson
I think that the lesson here, if there is one, is that you strive for presentation excellence because you strive for excellence. Add to that a little compassion for your audience. Compassion is a wonderful thing. I wish more presenters had it.

Here are the other posts from this group writing project…

Laura Bergells, Lisa Braithwaite, Michael Cortes and Olivia Mitchell.

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.

Fans welcome tired swimmers to the beach

When a guest shows up at your club meeting, how do you treat them? If your organization is like most, one or two of your members will make the cursory introduction while the majority doesn’t make an effort. In fact, most people will not acknowledge that there is a guest even there.

What kind of message does that send to your visitor? The answer to that question is obvious. It sends the wrong message. You are telling the guest that they don’t really matter.

The message that you want to send is, “Hey, we want you to be one of us!”

Here are 5 ways you can make a visitor feel like they belong:

1) Everyone, and I mean everyone, acts excited when a guest takes the risk of attending your meeting. You goal here is to make them feel the love. Done properly there should be no way for the visitor to remember the names of all the people they met. There should be, literally, a line of people waiting to meet the guest.

2) Announce their presence during the meeting. “Let’s welcome Bob to our meeting. Bob is a computer programmer on finance team. Bob, we thank you for taking time to attend our meeting.”

3) After the meeting ask the guest if they have any questions. If they do, answer them. If they don’t, make sure they know what the club is all about. Ask them why they attended and then describe how the club can help them.

Tell them about Web site or give them a flyer. At this point someone in the club should make sure they have the guest’s contact information. Make certain you include the mailing address.

4) Tell the guest how the club can benefit from having them as a member. This is perhaps the most important thing that you can do. People need to feel valued and this is a great way to do it. Do not skip this. Do not be vague about this. “Our club would really benefit from having you join. We currently have no members with your background and we could learn a lot from you.”

5) Follow up with a hand written thank you note. There is nothing, NOTHING, like receiving a hand written note. It just makes you feel great to get one. Here’s a huge secret: as good as it is to get one, it feels even better to write one. Make it a part of your organization’s processes.

If you don’t make an effort to let your guests know that you value them they will leave thinking that you don’t want them in your club. Don’t let that happen. You want them to feel like “one of us.”