How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

One of the best places to get ideas for presentation themes and designs is slideshare.net. It literally has thousands of presentations that you can view and in many cases download.

Many of these presentations have been designed by professional designers and these presentations can give you a lot of inspiration for your next presentation project. Many of the presentations can actually convey a simple message just by the images and few words that are contained in the slides.

So, below I have listed my top five favorite presentations on slideshare.net.

프레젠테이션 테마와 디자인에 대한 아이디어를 얻을 수 있는 최적의 리소스 중 하나가 바로 slideshare.net 입니다. 이 웹싸이트는 글자 그대로 여러분들이 볼 수 있는 프레젠테이션이 수 천개에 달하고 다운로드도 받으실 수 있는 곳입니다.

이 곳의 프레젠테이션들은 전문 디자이너에 의해 제작된 것들이 많아, 다음에 있을 여러분의 프레젠테이션 프로젝트에 많은 영감과 아이디어를 제공해 줄 것입니다. 또, 이 곳에서는 이미지와 몇 몇 단어들로 구성된 슬라이드 만으로 간단한 메시지를 전달해 줄 수 있는 프레젠테이션들이 꽤 많이 있습니다.

이 곳의 프레젠테이션들은 전문 디자이너에 의해 제작된 것들이 많아, 다음에 있을 여러분의 프레젠테이션 프로젝트에 많은 영감과 아이디어를 제공해 줄 것입니다. 또, 이 곳에서는 이미지와 몇 몇 단어들로 구성된 슬라이드 만으로 간단한 메시지를 전달해 줄 수 있는 프레젠테이션들이 꽤 많이 있습니다.

Lead By Example by Ryan Fashing

Next week will see the launch of our book “스토리 프레젠테이션” [Presentation Story In English]

Here’s a link to a video interview I did with Carl Kwon and Liam Lusk over at Presentation Expressions.

You can view the video here

We are pleased to welcome back Carl Pullein, presentations expert and trainer to many large companies here in Korea. We originally were planning to have a 15 minute interview, but Carl was so good that we talked for almost 30 minutes! So we decided to separate his interview into two parts.

The main reason we were going to do this interview was to get Carl’s opinion on the recent presentations given by Korea during the Winter Olympic bidding process. In particular, we wanted Carl’s opinion on Korean President Myung-Bak Lee and Olympic figure skating champion Yuna Kim’s presentations.

Koreans around the world were, I’m sure, very curious how good President Lee would be giving an English presentation and Koreans were likely equally curious how good their favourite daughter, Yuna Kim, would be. It would be one of the first opportunities to hear Yuna speak at length in English, so people were really excited.

Anyway, Carl Pullein gave us some great insights and presentation tips and we’re sure you will find his interview interesting and educational… Maybe even fun, as Liam and I are in this one together. Enjoy and let us know what you think and if you have any questions.

Beyonce is one of the best live entertainers around today. And her performances have given pleasure to thousands of concert goers around the world.

Last July Beyonce performed at the famous British music festival in Glastonbury and the performance received a lot of great reviews from many people in the media as well as from many of the 178,000 people who actually attended the concert.

What made this performance stand out particularly was the way that Beyonce reacted to the crowd. During her performance of Irreplaceable Beyonce gave the crowd an opportunity to join in the singing. Now, this is not unusual in most music concerts, it is actually a way that singers and bands can show the audience that they are not lip-syncing (not actually singing). However, at this concert Beyonce’s professionalism and ability to ‘read’ a crowd showed and she used that ability to give the audience exactly what they wanted.

It will always have been the plan to give the audience an opportunity to sing at this point in the concert, but what Beyonce did was to have the flexibility and courage to change that plan half way through because the audience wanted to sing much more than what had been planned for.

As presenters we need to have that built in flexibility to enable us to give our audiences exactly what they want.

So with this performance in mind – here are four things we can learn from Beyonce’s performance:

What We Can Learn From This As Presenters

1. The audience must always come first. For example, if you are delivering a presentation to a small group of people – less than 20 people – and they want to ask questions during your presentation, then be brave enough and flexible enough to allow them to ask questions.

2. Having a plan is good, but make sure that your plan has the ability to change. There could be technical difficulties with your computer or the sound system etc. Be prepared to change your plan and anticipate these events.

3. While it is good to allow the audience to set some rules, always remember you are in charge, and it is you, the presenter, who must maintain control at all times. In the video of Beyonce, you will notice that she took back control of the singing – she did that because she was always in control.

4. Beyonce’s concert was not just about her music and her performance, it was about the whole experience. The atmosphere, the emotion of the audience and of course the live sound. If you build your presentation around the experience your audience will receive, then your will much more likely perform a more memorable presentation.