How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

A long time ago, I visited the Spanish island of Ibiza. For those of you who do not know, Ibiza is known as the nightclub capital of the world.

I spent a week there, clubbing, drinking and eating vast quantities of unhealthy food. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I came away inspired by the DJs in the clubs. They were professional – no alcohol drinking, they were entertaining and they knew exactly what their audiences wanted and when to give it to them.

I came away so inspired that I began a mobile disco with one of my best friends and spent the next three years going round weddings, Christmas and birthday parties doing discos. It was one of the best times of my life.

Since then I have had a very big love for dance music and in particular with house music. I can listen to it any time of the day.

All professional DJs know about giving audiences what they want. They know how to begin a ‘set’ – the name they give to giving a performance – and they know when to build up to the climax of their particular set.

DJs also know what to play at different times of the night. If they are doing the early set, then they play slower music, building up the beats per minute towards midnight when the music becomes high tempo and their audiences are on the dance floor dancing and chanting.

As presenters we need to know how to ‘play’ to our audiences. We need to know when to give our audience the highlight of our presentation and we need to know when to slow things down or speed things up.

How do DJs do this? They practice. Almost all DJs I know, whether they are amateur, like I was, or professional like the DJ pictured about (David Guetta – one of my favourites) they spend all week practicing before an event – checking that the music mixes well and practicing set after set to make sure everything just works.

What we can learn from these DJs is how to get our audience’s attention with the right kind of information at the right time. maybe you want to begin your presentation slowly and build up to the climax, or perhaps you want to begin with something big and surprise your audience.

Whichever way you choose, as a presenter you have the power, but you also need the energy. It is no good just standing there behind a lectern or podium not moving. You have to show your audience you care, you have to show your energy and you have to show your passion for what you are presenting about. That is what makes the superstar DJs like David Guetta so successful. It is their energy and they knowledge of what their audiences want.

For those of you who enjoy a little dance music – take a look at the video below of David Guetta doing a set at le Redlight Nightclub in Paris. It is just so inspiring.

One more thing…

With all that technology they use, things do go wrong from time to time. All DJs I know have back up systems ready and waiting to start – just in case something goes wrong. Do you have a backup system ready and waiting?

한국에 거주하고 있는 외국인으로서, 한가지 안타까운점이 있다면 그것은 바로, 이 아름답고 멋있는 “한국”이라는 나라를 전 세계에 알리고자 했던 많은 노력들이 큰 결실을 이루지 못하고 있다는 것입니다.

물론, 한류와 같이 성공한 케이스도 일부 있기는 하지만, 한국과 그 문화를 전 세계 널리 알리고자 했던 정부의 방대한 노력의 성과는 아시아에만 국한될 뿐, 서구 문화권까지는 아직 미치지 못했습니다.

하지만 얼마전, 새로운 프로젝트가 시작되었다는 좋은 소식을 듣게 되었습니다. 이 프로젝트의 이름은 “오방색 프로젝트”로, 공연과 기술 그리고 예술을 통해 한국을 알리고자 고안되었다고 합니다.

흥미로운 프로젝트가 될 것 같아, 제 블로그를 읽어주시는 독자 여러분들도 함께 동참하시길 바라는 마음으로 이 프로젝트에 초대하고자 합니다.

아래는 프로젝트에 대한 한국어 소개입니다.

한국은, 세계 경제를 선도하는 나라들 중 하나로 성장하기 위해 모진 풍파와 시련들을 견뎌낸, 말 그대로 어메이징한 나라입니다. 이제는 훌륭한 우리의 음식과 예술, 음악과 드라마 그리고 성공을 향한 확고한 결단력등을 통해 전 세계에 한국의 아름다움을 보여줄 차례입니다.

아래는 오방색 프로젝트를 소개하는 동영상으로, 프로젝트에 관한 세부사항을 살펴보실 수 있습니다.

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

Ever since I was twelve years old, when I was first introduced to the James Bond books, I have had a fascination and admiration for the creator and author of the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming with his ever present cigarette

Ian Fleming had a brilliant ability to bring people alive through the way he described them. No small detail was ever over-looked, and he used everyday products to give his characters some authenticity. He was a “people watcher” – a person who enjoyed looking at people and observing their mannerisms, their fashion style and the way they interacted with other people. This interest in people and their surroundings gave him the ability to replicate his observations in minute detail through his books.

Ian Fleming also based many of his characters on people he actually knew. While this sometimes caused offence to some people, it also helped him to create authenticity in his characters.

So. how does this help the humble presenter?

As this blog, and many other presentation blogs and books continue to advocate, telling stories in your presentation can take your presentation from being ‘just another boring presentation’ to becoming a great presentation. One way of telling compelling and interesting stories is to ‘set the scene’ to actually help your audience imagine the scene, the situation or the person you are describing. Ian Fleming had this ability, and while Ian Fleming was not presenting his characters using PowerPoint or Keynote, he was using this ability to become one of the twentieth century’s greatest fiction writers.

Here is an example of Ian Fleming’s writing. In this paragraph, taken from the first James Bond book, Casino Royale, Fleming is describing Felix Leiter, a character that comes up in many of his stories, as the CIA representative, and eventual close friend of James Bond.

Felix Leiter was about thirty-five. He was tall with a thin bony frame and his lightweight, tan-coloured suit hung loosely from his shoulders like the clothes of Frank Sinatra. His movements and speech were slow, but one had the feeling that there was plenty of speed and strength in him and that he would be a tough and cruel fighter. As he sat hunched over the table, he seemed to have some of the jack-knife quality of a falcon. There was this impression also in his face, in the sharpness of his chin and cheekbones and the wide wry mouth. His grey eyes had a feline slant which was increased by his habit of screwing them up against the smoke of the Chesterfields which he tapped out of the pack in a chain. The permanent wrinkles which this habit had etched at the corners gave the impression that he smiled more with his eyes than with his mouth. A mop of straw-coloured hair lent his face a boyish look which closer examination contradicted.

Just from this paragraph, you can imagine Felix Leiter vividly, you can imagine the clothes he is wearing and even the way he smokes his cigarettes.

When we present, and when we try to describe a situation to our audience, giving vivid, and precise descriptions of the characters in our stories helps our audience to build a clear picture of the scene or character. This not only helps our presentation to become more interesting and even entertaining, it also makes our presentation much more memorable. And that is always the ultimate goal.

So, next time you begin preparing your presentation, take time to think carefully about the stories you will use, how you describe the scene and characters in your stories really does make a huge impact on your presentation.

Recently, I attended a presentation evening, where a number of speakers were given 20 minutes to talk on any subject they pleased. The presentations given were excellent, but there was a recurring, annoying habit by most of the speakers.

The microphones used that day were lapel microphones. These are microphones that are attached to the lapel or shirt of the person speaking. They are excellent microphones as the audience cannot see them, but there is a problem.

The speaker often forgets that they are wearing them and keeps touching them during the presentation. The noise this touching creates is horrible and incredibly distracting to the audience.

So, if you are presenting and have to wear a lapel microphone, make sure that you keep your hands and arms away from them, or at least make sure that they are placed in an area that you will not be touching.