How many of you consider yourselves to be good at presentations? I know I am not the best, but hopefully by the end of this post you will learn a few ways to improve and what makes a presentation good. I watched a Ted Talk, about being “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator” by Tim Urban. I will dissect the following presentation and what he did that made it successful.
Strong introduction
He started off with a story
You could start off with a quote or a story to grab the audience’s attention.
Talked to the Audience
Urban prepared a presentation that addressed the targeted audience, people who do and don’t procrastinate
He maintained eye contact with as many people as he could
The Floor was his Stage
The speaker used body movements to emphasis on his points
The speaker was entertaining and humorous
Used Visuals but didn’t overdo it
The speaker used pictures to demonstrate how the mind of a procrastinator works, this included funny graphics.
He did not read from his visuals
The visuals went along with what he was talking about at the moment
Keep it simple
Focus on the main message
Don’t use complex vocabulary that well confuse the audience. Urban used simple words.
I hope today you learned a few things that make a presentation good and that you use these for future presentations. We are not all great at presenting, but we can most definitely improve.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a media expert. Vaynerchuk recently said in a Facebook video that he does not want to make a conventional video. He would rather make something people enjoy watching with cues, such as logos and objects or merchandise within those commercials. All forms of advertising have a place, but newspapers and inkblots, alone, will not cut it in our technology-driven society. Advertising styles have changed dramatically.
Black Rifle Coffee Company does an amazing job at selling products without directly advertising them. The veteran-owned and operated company makes funny and outrageous videos on YouTube and Facebook. The videos depict attractive women (hot chicks), guns, extreme sports, nice cars and everything else guys, like me, can’t get enough of. Below are three videos from BRCC.
John Willis, the owner of Special Operations Equipment (SOE) and James Yeager, the “MFCEO” of Tactical Response, have gotten famous by being unapologetic business owners. SOE makes gear like gun belts, chest rigs, rifle slings, etc. Tactical Response is a firearms-fighting school. Both Yeager and Willis speak their mind. When someone doesn’t agree with them, they will fan the flames. This gets the customer fired up. That customer then runs to forums and social media outlets to complain about either businessman. This draws supporters, like myself, to defend Willis and/or Yeager. Willis says that this model works because it is like a traffic jam. Everyone stops to look at the car with a flat tire. This slows down traffic, and more people see the flat tire (his name). The people then flock to his page by the hundreds to buy products. Yeager uses this model to get new students to sign up for classes at Tactical Response. They call this firing customers. By not wasting time on one bad customer, they can help two or three good ones. Both can be seen on YouTube and Facebook doing this very well.
Times have changes, and so have advertising styles. Rather than try to convince you why their product is better or tell you all about their products/services, they give you entertaining content that has subtle hints towards their business.
How well can you kick butt at presenting? I have videos and quizzes below; let us find out how much you know presentations and what belt you rank. Take notes while watching the videos to see what the mistakes or improvements are then take the quizzes to test your knowledge. Please leave comments on the page to let me know what you think!
Did you cringe as much as I did watching that video? Did you see any mistakes that were happening with this presentation? If so, then take this quiz and see where you rank in kicking presentation butt.
How well did you do? If you scored as a Black belt, then you are on the right track of kicking presentation butt, if you scored Blue belt then that just means you have a couple more things to learn!, if you scored White belt then my friend this blog is here for you. Take these skills and learn how to make yourself a Black belt when it comes to presentations! Here is a video of what a good presentation looks like. Take notes and see what you notice the differences are.
Delivering a good presentation – identify the good techniques. Youtube.com. University of Bedfordshire, 6 Jan. 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5utoLhjUuAI>.
If you are still not sure you got everything, check your notes with the cheat sheet below mark off what you got right. If you have the information down, try retaking the quizzes again!
Presenter Mistakes:
Does not have the technology prepared or know how to use the equipment when it is their turn to present.
Did not introduce herself
Was playing on her phone and taking a drink at the beginning of the presentation.
Presenter is facing the presentation screen and not the audience.
Presenter is reading from the slides instead of using it as reminder points.
Presenter has her arms crossed while talking.
Volume is too low or too fast.
No eye contact or scanning of the room to keep connected to the audience.
Audience did not have time to ask questions or receive answers.
Power Point Mistakes:
Bad choice of background color, and font color.
Inconsistency of images, spacing and fonts. (not professional or uniform throughout)
Overcrowded slides
Irrelevant & unprofessional pictures along with unnecessary and unprofessional animations/transitions.
No reference list at end for her citations.
Presenter Improvements:
Presenter introduces herself and her topic
Faces the audience instead of the board
Uses good volume and speed throughout the presentation
Moves hands but in a non-distracting way.
Does not read every point off the slides, only looks at slide to read the examples.
Breaks away from looking at the slide to make eye contact.
Gives the audience time to answer her questions before giving the answer.
Gives more time for audience to ask questions before ending presentation
Ends presentation with a positive attitude and conclusion.
Presentation is engaging the audience
Power point improvements:
Uniform slide colors (not too dark or too light)
Uniform font size and colors (does not blend into the background, easy to read from a distance)
Examples in presentation are a different color to highlight the point. (does not distract or blend with the background color)
Slides are not overcrowded
Great use of bullet points
Did not use unnecessary or unprofessional images
Did not use unnecessary or unprofessional animations/transitions.
Moved through slides at an even pace
Did you score better this time? If so then great! You are on the right track to being a Black belt at presentations! Take this information with you to help determine between good and bad presentations from here on out.
There is no doubt that we are globalizing ourselves and that we are more diverse than before. The United States has become a land of many cultures. Communication has become better through technology and the socialization of the human species. Yet, how can we prepare employees for an overseas assignment? This is something that can be seen in two ways, a structured plan for the assignment itself and the in-depth cultural communication factor.
In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Andy Molinsky and Melissa Hahn write that there are five ways one can succeed on an overseas assignment in a structured way.
Have a purpose and a person who can promote that purpose. Having the right person to make this assignment work is quite important, especially in cultural understanding and understanding of the project.
Having a close connection to home works well, that way the person overseas doesn’t lose touch with what he or she is doing for the company. A good mentor would work.
Communication between the worker and employer needs to be constant for best results.
Before leaving, it is ideal to start on talks of how the assignment was beneficial and what was learned.
The company can distribute what it learned from that experience.
We often forget that to have a successful assignment overseas, the communication between the employee and the foreign team is crucial. We need to consider cultural, social, and language barriers amongst diversity and work. There is no denying that “…English is now the global language of business.” as mentioned by Tsedel Neeley in her article Global Business Speaks English. But this doesn’t really help many. My interview with Dr. Joann Jones, Executive Director – Leadership Development for Cummins, led to these tips.
Prepare the assignment ahead of time so that everyone working on the assignment can understand the assignment.
Know that there will be a need for clarification as language and cultural barriers are present.
If possible, know the language and culture of where one may stay can improve results.
An ending follow-up on the assignment will be helpful, especially a written documentation of the progress and results. This may help clarify any miscommunications.
Making sure an overseas assignment is completely worked out is the main goal, but knowing the cultural factor and having a structured plan can lead to a successful assignment.
If you are a young person sitting at a family event and happen to be texting your best friend about the next time you want to hang out, you may have been told by your grandmother to get off your phone and that you are becoming antisocial. It may not have happened to you, but it sure has happened to me.
What I do not think the generations before us understand is that communication is evolving with society. They see our ways of communicating with each other as unnecessary or inefficient. However, I feel that our generations have similar ways of communicating. Past generations would write letters to friends that lived farther away because they had no way of communicating with them otherwise. Heck, they would even use telephones to call them. The combination of these sound fairly familiar to me. I see the combination as a cell phone. The letters are the equivalent to texts, and the calls are pretty obvious. A major difference between the two generations would be having a landline vs. having a cell phone. I know my grandmother has a landline, but I do not.
Also, each generation has their own lingo. With each generation comes new words. For our generation words like “swag” and “twerk” have formed, but the older generations look down on us for them. I am not saying I myself am proud of these words, but they also formed words like “hickey” and “fuzz”, which means police. These words are also not the most intelligent, and I bet the generation before the baby boomers found this lingo unnecessary. It is like a never ending cycle.
x204project
X204 Project 