How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

Recently I have seen a few presentations that do not appear to have a point. The purpose was missing and I felt that I had learned nothing new and that I had completely wasted my time.

The problem was caused by the presenter putting in far too much information, which caused the audience to become confused and the whole presentation feel long, boring and pointless.

Very few presentations require a lot of detail. For example, if you are introducing your company to a potential new client you do not need to go into fine detail about each individual product your sell, how they are made and what the statistics are. These details can be given when you sit down with the client to discuss the details later. All you need to do is to give a brief history (when the company was established, how many employees you have and where you have offices etc), what your product or service can do to help your potential customer and where you company plans to go in the future. All in all if you are just introducing your company, then a 10 to 20 minute presentation should be sufficient.

Sadly, a lot of of these company introduction presentations last for an hour! Trust me when I tell you this. If your company introduction presentation lasts for one hour, your potential customers are going to be bored rigid. There really is no need for it. So please, I beg you do not do it.

When you plan your presentation find the main point. What do you want your audience to learn? Once you have established that, build you presentation around that main point. Answer that question in your presentation – do it simply and without too much technical detail.

If you feel the need to include a lot of data and technical detail, consider using a handout sheet that you can give you audience at the end of your presentation. Never give a hand out at the beginning. Your audience will appreciate your kind consideration.

Steve Jobs this morning gathered interested media organisations together and held a press conference about the iPhone 4′s antenna problems.

The presentation lasted around 30 minutes and these are some lessons all presenters can learn about having to give difficult and sometimes unpleasant news about a product or a business:

1. Admit there is a problem.

Steve Jobs came clean. He admitted straight away there was a problem. He said “We’re not perfect. We know that, you know that”. He explained the problem, showed the date of the tests that Apple had carried out and admitted that Apple knew that there was a problem before the launch.

2. Accept responsibility

Unlike BP, who refused to accept blame, Steve Jobs accepted blame immediately. By admitting the blame he was able to stop the ‘rumourmongering’ essentially with one sentence.

3. Show the data – in a simple way

By showing simple data, Steve Jobs was able to communicate to all customers, not just the tech savvy customers. Too often companies try to hide behind complex data that nobody but PH.D scientists can understand. This does not clear up the problem, it adds to the problem. Focus on simple data that explains the problem.

4. Say what you are going to do about it

This is perhaps the most important part. You must state very clearly what you will do about the problem and, more importantly, when. When you come up with a solution to the problem, the solution must be customer centred and not damage limitation centred – which sadly is what most companies try to do.

5. Make it Personal

Throughout the whole presentation, there was a deep feeling that Steve Jobs was taking this issue personally. Not in the BP CEO’s “personal way” (“I just want my life back”) but in a way that it hurt him personally that his customers were not happy and that he, and his engineers, were working round the clock to solve the problem. This kind of personalisation of the problem give your customers a feeling that you are with them and on their side.

There are hundreds of examples of successes and failures when it comes to companies and problems. Two of the most recent PR disasters are Toyota and BP, but this one, in my humble opinion, will go down as a successfully handled problem.

Remember, giving bad news is something that most companies will have to do at some point or another. Being able to present bad news in a clear and understandable way is the first step. Accept responsibility and tell everyone what you are going to do about it. And above all else – tell your customers you love them.

You can view the whole presentation here

Too often presenters present their presentations in a formal, wooden way. This way of presenting is boring, uninteresting and shows little or no passion in the subject of the presentation.

The best presentations are ones where the presenter is having a conversation with their audience. Where the presenter has a real passion for what they are talking about and are not just doing their job because their boss told them to do it.

The above picture is taken from Bill Strickland’s talk at TED in 2002. He began his presentation by telling his audience that he had no notes, no script and that he just wanted to talk with them for a few minutes.

It’s a great honor to be here with you. The good news is I’m very aware of my responsibilities to get you out of here because I’m the only thing standing between you and the bar. (Laughter) And the good news is I don’t have a prepared speech, but I have a box of slides. I have some pictures that represent my life and what I do for a living. I’ve learned through experience that people remember pictures long after they’ve forgotten words. And so I hope you’ll remember some of the pictures I’m going to share with you for just a few minutes.

This is a fantastic opening. The audience can tell immediately that this is not going to be a poorly scripted talk about a subject the speaker is not really interested in. Just from this simple opening, the audience can that the speaker has something interesting to say, and more importantly, something worth listening to.

One of the other unique things about Bill Strickland’s talk is that not only does he have a conversation with the audience, he also employs the services of a pianist, Herbie Hancock, to play soft music throughout his talk. The atmosphere is like having a conversation in a really relaxing jazz bar. But the wonderful twist to this story is that Herbie is a part of the story

It is quite often difficult to control the atmosphere in a room. Most rooms where presentations take place are cold, boring grey rooms with bright lights and poor ventilation. But here, Bill Strickland has dim lighting, a pianist and the atmosphere perfectly creates that conversation feel.

So, the real secret to a great presentation is not great PowerPoint slides, a wonderfully memorised script, but a real passion for what you are talking about and stories told in a conversational way – oh and of course a pianist!

You can watch the video below, and if you would like to follow the script you can watch the video on the main TED website here.

프레젠테이션이란, 우리가 현재 진행하고 있는 것이나, 출시될 것 혹은 기획하고 있는 것들을 청중에게 보여줄 수 있는, 우리 또는 우리 회사를 위한 기회라고 모두가 생각합니다. 그래서 우리는 청중들에게 우리가 진행하고 있는 것들을 잘 이야기 할 수 있도록 눈에 띄는 색색의 테이블과 그래프들. 그리고 신중하게 쓴 문장들로 이루어진 프레젠테이션을 작성하기 위해 정말 많은 시간을 투자합니다.

하지만 우리는 현재 21세기에 살고 있습니다. 오늘날 우리에게는 유용한 툴들을 가지고 있습니다. 즉, 우리는 더이상 우리가 무엇을 하고 있는지 청중에게 전달하기 위해 단어나 말에 의존할 필요가 없다는 뜻입니다. 우리가 진행하고 있고, 기획하고 출시하게 될 것을 청중에게 실제 보여줄 수 있는 파워를, 현재 우리가 가지고 있기 때문입니다.

그러므로,

제품 시연이나 동영상은 여러분의 제품이나 서비스가 얼마나 좋은지 청중에게 보여줄 수 있는 좋은 방법이 될 수 있으니, 이제라도 말 대신 보여주기 위해 시도해 보시기 바랍니다.

Yesterday, I did a presentation training course with a large company here in Korea. After dinner, I did an exercise inspired by Garr Reynolds’ Google presentation where he asks the audience to talk about the best and worst presentations they had attended.

The Results:

The most striking think about the results was that both the good things and the bad things about the presentations my students had attended in the past, were pretty much the same as any western audience would say.

The interesting thing here is that many people think that there is a difference between western and eastern audiences and what they want. Clearly, from this rather unscientific experiment, that thinking is not true. Audiences around the world appear to want the same thing. I found particularly interesting the fact that my students want humour, simple and short presentations with a presenter who is confident and not afraid of eye contact. My students do not want a presenter who is always looking at a script with too much content in their slides and using too much jargon.

Pretty much want any western audience would say.

Next time you are presenting to an international audience, keep in mind that had I done this experiment with almost any audience in almost any country, I would most likely to have got the same result.