One of the most common presentations people do is presenting their company. Like most things there are some guidelines you should follow. Sadly, most companies prepare a 40 to 60 minute presentation detailing things such as company management structure, financial growth over the last few years and a detailed explanation of each individual factory and office. This is simply far too much information.

A company introduction should last between ten and fifteen minutes. Anything longer is too much detail. It should include four things. These are:

Brief history

What you make or do

Who are your customers

What makes you unique and or different

When you are talking about your company’s history, rather than put a bullet pointed list of important dates on a slide, your audience is far more interested in the stories. For example introducing Hyundai would be a dream because there are so many stories around the founding of Hyundai. For example selling rice on the streets of Seoul in the 1920′s and repairing cars in the 1930′s and 40′s.

By telling stories of your company’s foundation you immediately create an interest in the company. Apple and the early days in Steve Wozniak’s parent’s garage, Microsoft’s first meeting with IBM and Richard Branson selling second-hand records from the basement of his parent’s house. All these stories are fascinating and audiences love them.

When you come to talk about what you do and who you sell to, don’t go into detail about contract sizes or individual components. Talk about unique technology in your products, give a couple of examples of your customers and how they feel about you.

Finally, telling your audience what makes you unique and different from your competitors sets you apart from your competition. Remember, your audience might not be attending your presentation only, they may be going to see your competitor tomorrow. So you need to stand out and impress now.

Short, simple, story filled introductions will always beat long, detailed factually based introductions.

There is one exception to this rule.

If you are introducing your company to new employees – then you can put in more detail, but personally, I would stick to the simple version and create an interest and a pride in the new employee.

Well, I may have told all those of you who read this blog regularly that you should always back up your presentations – just in case things go wrong, I discovered something else you should also do. Check your back up copy!

Yesterday, I was doing a class. I had prepared my presentation file the night before. I saved it and went to bed. I did not check that the file had saved correctly, because I had never had a problem with a backup file.

When I tried to open the file I got an error message “The file you are trying to open is not in a recognised format”

No matter what I did I could not open the file. I had to do the class without my presentation file. Not a complete disaster, but certainly an inconvenience.

Remember!!!! Always check that your back up file works. Do not make my mistake.

무대 공포 혹 연단 공포는 사람들이 프레젠테이션 진행을 두려워 하는 이유중의 하나일 것입니다. 이런 무대공포증으로 인해 어떤 사람들은 잠을 이루지 못하거나 식욕을 잃어버리기도 하고 때때로 자신의 상사나 일을 원망하게 만들기도 합니다. 무대 공포는 발표자 뿐 아니라 배우나 연예인, 음악가들도 항시 직면합니다. 즉 여러분 혼자만이 경험하는 특별한 상황이 아니라는 것이죠. 그러나 이런 공포는 여러분의 프레젠테이션을 더욱 더 훌륭하게 만들어 줄 수 있는 힘의 원천이 되기도 합니다. 그러므로 여러분들은 이런 공포를 자연스럽게 받아들이고 다룰 줄 알아야 합니다.

극심한 무대 공포는 강단에 선 여러분을 완전히 얼어붙게 만들어 버릴 수도 있습니다. 이런 일이 발생한다면 정말 끔직할테죠. 그렇다면 이런 끔찍한 무대공포증은 어떻게 극복할 수 있을까요?  여기 아래에, 제가 무대 공포증을 없앨 수 있도록 도와주었던 전략들을 나열해 보고자 합니다. 물론 이 전략들이 여러분들께 조금이나마 도움이 되길 바라면서 말이죠.

1. 강연장에 일찍 도착해, 그 곳을 여러분 자신의 공간으로 만들어 보시기 바랍니다.

강연장에 일찍 도착해, 여러분의 컴퓨터 (혹 화이트 보드나 OHP 등등) 를 미리 미리 설치하시고 실내 공간에 익숙해져 보도록 합니다. 컴퓨터 설치가 끝나면 강연장 안을 걸어다니며 실내의 크기나 주변기기, 장치들의 배치를 몸소 느껴보시기 바랍니다. 프레젠테이션을 하면서 겪게 되는 문제점 중 일부는 우리가 그 공간에 익숙해 있지 않아 자연스레 마음이 편치 못하게 되어 발생하는 것입니다. 그러므로 청중이 입장하시기 훨씬 전, 일찍 강연장에 도착해 그 공간과 친숙해지고 자신의 것으로 만드는 시간을 가지시기 바랍니다. 그 곳을 자신의 것으로 만들고 나면, 이제 강연장은 여러분의 공간이 되어 훨씬 더 편안한 느낌을 가지게 되실 겁니다. 여러분이 일하는 사무실이나 책상으로 모르는 분을 모시고 온다고 생각해 보십시오. 긴장되십니까?. 자신의 공간이니 물론 전혀 긴장되지 않으실 겁니다. 그러니, 강연장을 자신의 사무실처럼, 혹은 일하는 공간처럼 친숙해지도록 그곳에 일찍 도착하시기 바랍니다.

2. 준비하시고 연습하셔야 합니다.

이건 지극히 당연한 사실이지만, 사전에 미리 준비하고 연습하지 않으시면 매우 긴장하게 됩니다. 충분한 연습을 거침으로써, 발표자는 점차적으로 자신감을 가지게 되는 것입니다. 하지만 단순히 준비한 스크립트만 계속 읽으시라는 이야기는 아닙니다. 스크립트와 함께 슬라이드 처음부터 끝까지 찬찬히 살펴보시며 연습하셔야 합니다. 슬라이드를 함께 보면서 연습하고 시연해봄으로써, 실제 프레젠테이션에 좀 더 가까운 느낌을 갖게 해 주고 프레젠테이션 중간 슬라이드와 스크립트 내용이 맞지 않아 어느 부분을 하는지 모르는 사태를 미연에 방지할 수 있게 해줍니다.

3. 청중분들이 도착하시면 그들에게 인사하시기 바랍니다.

강연장 문 앞에 서서 도착하는 청중들에게 인사를 하는 것은, 무의식적으로 여러분 자신이 그 강연장의 주인임을 인식하게끔 작용하는 요소입니다 (마치 우리집에 온 손님에게 인사하듯이 말이죠). 이렇게 함으로써 발표자가 프레젠테이션 분위기를 주도하고 통제할 수 있도록 힘을 실어주게 되는 것이죠. 또 청중 한분 한분에게 눈을 맞추고 인사함으로써, 그분들은, 여러분이 하고자 하는 말에 관심을 가지고 참석해 주신 따뜻하고 좋으신 분들이라는 것을 느끼게 될 것입니다. ( 발표자 너 오늘 한번 죽어봐라 ! 라는 마음가짐으로 오시는 분들이 아니라는 거죠 ^^). 강연장 뒤 쪽에 숨어 청중들이 다 도착할때까지 기다리는 것은 여러분의 긴장감을 증가시킬 뿐입니다. 문 앞으로 나와 청중에게 인사를 하다 보면, 여러분 자신이 긴장한 것도 잊어버리게 됩니다. – 사람이 살면서 사람을 만나는 것 만큼 자연스러운 일이 어디 또 있을까요? 이런 자연스러운 행동을 하다보면, 여러분이 느끼시는 공포감도 훨씬 줄어들게 될 것입니다. (단, 대규모 인원이 참석하는 컨퍼런스는 예외입니다. 그 많은 분들에게 일일이 인사하시다, 프레젠테이션 진행도 하시기도 전에 진이 다 빠지실 겁니다. ㅎㅎ)

4. 시작 바로 전에 프레젠테이션 내용을 바꾸지 마세요!

대규모의 프레젠테이션을 몇 주에 걸쳐 준비하고 정말 많은 시간을 연습해 놓으시고는, 프레젠테이션 당일 아침이나 하루전에 내용을 바꾸어 버리는 분들이 아직까지 있다는 것이.. 정말 믿기지가 않습니다. 제발!!!! 이런 행동은 삼가해 주시기 바랍니다. 프레젠테이션 진행 몇 시간 전에 내용을 바꾸는 것은 긴장감을 백배 더 증가시키게 됩니다. 그러므로 프레젠테이션 일주일 전에 모든 내용을 결정하시고, 그 이후에는 절대 바꾸지 마시기 바랍니다. 간혹 정말 바꾸고 싶은 충동을 느끼게 되시더라도, 절대 바꾸지 마십시요. 일단 상사가 결제한 내용이라면, 그 내용을 고수하시어 연습하시기 바랍니다. 내용을 변경하지 않으신 상태로 충분히 연습을 하시면, 자신감도 생기고 무대에 대한 두려움도 줄어들게 될 것입니다.

성공적인 프레젠테이션 무대를 상상해 보시기 바랍니다.

올림픽 선수나 연극 배우, 그리고 음악가들 모두가 자신의 퍼포먼스를 향상시키기 위해 모두 이 방법을 사용합니다. 이들 모두가 환상적인 퍼포먼스로 금메달을 따거나 우뢰와 같은 박수갈채를 받는 상상을 합니다. 프레젠테이션을 연습하시면서 모든게 완벽하게 잘 진행되는 장면을 상상해 보시기 바랍니다. – 청중들을 바라보고, 슬라이드를 거침없이 클릭하면서 모든 질문에 훌륭하게 답변하는 모습을 상상해 보십시요. 대다수의 사람들은 이런 상상이 정말 효과적일까?라고 반신반의 합니다. 하지만 저를 믿어보시기 바랍니다. 정말 효과가 있다는 것을 말이죠. 이런 상상은 프레젠테이션에 있어 여러분의 몸과 마음을 준비하게끔 해주고 환상적으로 진행할 수 있도록 정말 도움을 줍니다.

위의 5가지 팁들이 향후 여러분들의 프레젠테이션에 도움이 되길 바랍니다. – 위 팁들은 수년 간 유명한 연설가분들을 통해 효과가 입증된 것들이오니, 꼭 한번 시도해 보시기 바랍니다.

Stage fright or “podium fear” is probably the one reason people hate doing presentations. It is the reason for all those sleepless nights, loss of appetite and hatred for your boss and or job. But stage fright is nothing new, you are not alone when you experience it. Every presenter, actor, TV star and musician face it every day. Stage fright is what makes your performance brilliant. Stage fright should be embraced and worked with.

However, stage fright in its extreme form can cause you to ‘freeze up’, and when that happens it is not good. So how can you overcome this extreme form of stage fright? Here are a list of strategies that have always helped me and I hope can help you:

1. Arrive early and claim the room

By arriving early, setting up your computer / whiteboard / OHP etc you are becoming familiar with the room. After setting up your computer walk around the room, get a real feel for its dimensions and layout. Part of the problem we have when we present is that we are not familiar with the room in which we are presenting and therefore we naturally feel uncomfortable. By arriving early, and before your audience arrives, you allow yourself time to become familiar with the room and to ‘own’ it. Once you ‘own’ the room it becomes your territory and then you will feel much more comfortable. Imagine how you feel talking to a stranger at your desk or in your office – you do not feel nervous then do you? That is because it is your territory.

2. Prepare and practice

If you do not practice and prepare before hand then you are going to be very nervous. By practicing your presentation, going through it with your slides and not just reading and reading a paper script you will gradually feel more confident. By being confident you will overcome to worst of the nerves. Again, you need to do this with your slides as this gives your practice and rehearsal a more realistic feel and it also prevents you from losing your place in the middle of your presentation.

3. Greet your audience when they arrive

There is a subconscious factor working when you are standing at the door of the presentation room greeting your audience when they arrive. It gives you an air of power and control. It also gives you the chance to see that your audience are not angry monsters wanting to kill you, but nice, friendly people interesting in what you have to say. Hiding away at the back of the room is going to intensify your nerves. Being out there at the door greeting your audience is going to help you forget that you are nervous – after all what is more natural than meeting people?

4. Don’t change your presentation last minute

I still cannot believe that people do this – they spend weeks preparing for a big presentation, they practice many hours and then on the night before or even the morning before they change their presentation. Never do this! Changing your presentation hours before delivering it is going to intensify your fears. Set a cut off of one week before your presentation and then do not change it. You will be tempted to do it, but do not. Once you have your boss’s OK then stick with what you have got and then practice it. If you have practiced the presentation well enough, made no changes you will be confident and your fear will be less intense.

5. Visualise

Olympic athletes, stage actors and musicians all use this trick to enhance their performance. They visualise performing fantastically and winning the gold medal or receiving loud applause. As you are practicing your presentation visualise everything going well – visualise looking at the audience, clicking through your slides seamlessly and answering questions effectively. While most people find it difficult to see how this can work, trust me when I tell you that it really does. It prepares your body and mind and it helps you to perform brilliantly.

I hope these little tips help you when you next do your presentation – try them, they have be tried and tested by many great speakers over the years and they have been proven to work.

To always be seeking to make better and better presentations I spend a lot of time surfing the internet looking at photography blogs. Not only do they give me ideas for slide design but they also give me inspiration to keep improving my own photography habit – which I confess is strictly as a amateur.

One of the best blogs out there is Scott Kelby’s “Photoshop Insider” blog. I have been a big fan of Scott’s blog for many years now and it is full of amazing tips, tricks and ideas that any presenter can learn from.

So check it out and see if you too can be inspired.

Here is a re-post of a blog post I did about one year ago on my own personal site. The reason for the re-post is because I cannot emphasise enough how great story telling is the real secret behind a great presentation. This does not matter whether you are teaching a group of business people how to be more productive or teaching English to a classroom full of university students from Russia, telling stories is the secret to having your students remember you and remember what you are teaching them.

Now, I am very interested in presentations, spending most of days either preparing a presentation or delivering a presentation.

One of my sources of inspiration is TED.com a great website, full of high quality video of incredible people talking about incredible things.

One of the ‘secrets’ of a good presentation is the ability to ‘tell a story’ and in this presentation, Mike Rowe (of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs) tells an amazing story about lamb castration. (click here for 한국어) He also shows you that you do not need slides to do a fantastic presentation. Just be out there, front and centre talking to your audience

Lessons we can learn from this presentation:

1. You do not need to prepare a Powerpoint / Keynote presentation file to do a great presentation
2. The ability to tell a story, and to show some human element in the story, turns a presentation into a great presentation
3. Do not use a lecturn, table or podium unless you absolutely have to. Be out there front and centre and talk to your audience.
4. Show humility – do not try to show you are perfect – you are not
5. Be natural and be yourself

Too often a presenter, so afraid of forgetting his or her speech, will type the content of their presentation into their slide. They do this in the hope their audience will think they are helping them. Sadly, no audience will think this. Your audience will assume you have done little or no preparation and quickly lose interest in your presentation.

However, both PowerPoint and Keynote have the ability to help you. What you need to do is to use “Presenter Mode” or “presenter View”.

What this essentially does is show the whole slide on the main screen and your notes and next slide on your computer monitor. By using this feature in your presentation software you can avoid having to type out your script and or reading your script from your slides.

Below are a couple of screen shots from both PowerPoint and Keynote to demonstrate what your view (on your computer monitor looks like in presenter mode. For more information on presenter mode in PowerPoint you can see Microsoft’s page on it here

Today, on the Discovery Channel there was a documentary about Concorde’s last flight and the accident in 2000 that happened at Charles De Gaulle Airport. During the documentary, one British Airway’s Concorde’s pilots told the story of how Concorde was accepted to JFK Airport in New York – an airport vital to the success (and future) of Concorde.

Concorde was not a quiet plane. In fact Concorde was very noisy. I was very lucky to see Concorde several times landing at Leeds / Bradford Airport nearby the house I grew up in and I remember a staggeringly beautiful airplane that looked so graceful. But WOW! was it noisy. Because of this noise, there were many protesters and demonstrations at JFK Airport demanding that the airport refuse permission for Concorde to land there.

When Concorde flew in to JFK Airport shortly after a temporary ban was lifted in 1977, a press conference was called. Captain Brian Walpole of British Airways reported that the American media were very hostile towards the Concorde team. The press conference was being held in a hanger at JFK and shortly after the conference began Concorde was towed into the hanger behind the gathered media. As Concorde came in, the media and public went deathly quiet. All you could hear were people saying how beautiful the plane was. Shortly after this event Concorde was accepted and the vital link between London and New York was established and ran right up to the retirement of Concorde in 2003.

Captain Walpole states that had Concorde not come in to the conference when it did, Concorde would never have flown in to JFK and quite likely we would never have seen Concorde for the many years we did.

Never underestimate the power of real life visuals in your presentations. Words do have power, but if you can, and if the opportunity is there, alway use a real live product to show your audience. It carries more power than just spoken words.

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.

On my recent trip to Ireland I became fascinated with the posters and billboards, as well as the scenery and nature. and this got me thinking. How can we improve our slide design and thinking when it comes to presenting.

One of the best ways to get inspiration for designing our slides it to just look around our everyday environment. Unfortunately, this can become a bit boring, particularly when our local environment does not change very much.

However, most people are fortunate enough to travel, whether that is a weekend away with our friends or family, or if you are very fortunate you may have to opportunity to travel abroad. Opportunities to travel to other countries can give you bundles of chances to gain inspiration for your next presentation.

Recently, I have been doing an environmentally friendly presentation course with a large company here in Korea. On my trip last week I had a stop in Amsterdam and I noticed that there where hundreds of wind turbines (see picture below) This gave me the opportunity to take some pictures that I can use in my slides later this week.

So whenever you travel, wherever you travel, always carry a camera with you and seek out opportunities to improve the way you design your slides and your ideas.