How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

Recently, I have been working with a large industrial group that has many different departments working on different parts of their overall business strategy.

In an effort to present their company’s future strategies and goals, they have developed a 20 slide, sixty minute presentation that brings together all the different work that department does and how each department works together to achieve their future plans.

Unfortunately, the presentation does not work. Why?

Firstly, the writer of the presentation went round each department individually and asked them to prepare slides and a script for the part they each have in the overall strategy. This immediately caused a dysfunctional and disjointed set of slides that had no natural flow or logic. While the writer of the presentation did his or her best to bring each part together in a logical fashion, it failed because there was not a team of people working together to get the presentation right or logical, there was just one person who did not understand any of the work that each department did.

If you are preparing a presentation that focuses on the overall strategies or direction your company is going and there are a number of different departments involved, then the presentation needs to be built with a team of people, ideally one person from each department meeting together to put the presentation together. This way, each department representative can ensure that each point made in the presentation fits logically and seamlessly in the ‘big picture’, and where one person in the team does not understand something, it can be explained properly so that what goes in to the presentation is clear and easy to understand.

Another problem that has occurred, is that the script and the slides are not compatible. What is written on the slide, is not what is being spoken by the presenter. This causes great confusion with the audience.

Finally, the person responsible for the translation of the presentation into English was never involved in the original build of the presentation. This means that the English translation is even further away from the original presentation ‘script’. This essentially renders the whole presentation in English useless.

As a result of this lack of ‘togetherness’ the whole presentation fails. It is full of technical mumbo jumbo, that not even a senior professor at a top university understands and there is no point to the presentation.

To avoid this, it is essential that a team of people are given the responsibility to build the presentation. A representative from each department should be on the team, and if the presentation is to be translated into English, then the translator needs to be in the team. This way, any difficult technical language can be tested by different people to ensure understanding and a clear and consistent message.

Remember, a presentation is not something you build to impress your boss. A presentation is something you build to communicate a message. It is therefore important to make sure that your message is the most important goal, and not the number of slides or the how technical your slides are.

Recently I have been working with a doctor on preparing a presentation where there is a lot of medical data. The problem is that the presenter has only five minutes to make the presentation and will then be allowed to answer question for 3 minutes.

When we present data in a presentation the temptation is to load as much information as possible into the chart, but when we do this we are running the risk of overloading our audience’s brain with too much information. And the information we really want our audience to see and learn is lost in a chart full of unecessary information.

Below is an example of such a chart:

On this chart we have a lot of information that really is not necessary. In this example, the presenter wants to highlight the yellow and orange columns. Other information the presenter wants the audience to see is the authors names and the dates. The four columns at the end of the table is not referred to in the presentation.

The problem here is that the final four columns are distractions. They are not relevant to the presentation or to the point the presenter is making.

My advice in this situation is to remove them. While your boss may not like this, it is more important to allow your slide to ‘breath’ and to give your audience the chance to focus on the information that is relevant. While I personally think that the “author” and the “period” is also not relevant, as these are not referred to by the presenter, this slide can be improved by removing the final four slides:

Now the slide looks much less cluttered and messy. The audience has a chance to actually focus on the relevant information, and the presenter is now showing essentially the important information only.

If I were given the opportunity to prepare this slide, here’s how I would present it:

Now, only the information I talk about is presented on the slide. There is nothing to distract my audience and the information is presented in a clear and concise way.

When we prepare presentation slides, it is very tempting to overload out charts with data. However, we must think about our audience, and so only putting in the information that is relevant allows us to focus our audience’s attention on that information and nothing else. If we want to give more detail, then this is where a handout can be useful. Our audience members can then study the data in more detail after our presentation. This is particularly important when we have a very short time to give our presentation.

So, please think about your audience, put yourself in their shoes when you prepare your slides and ask yourself if all the data in your slide is really relevant. If it is not, remove it.

이번 주 가르 레이놀즈는 자신의 블로그에 “왜” 라고 의문을 갖는것의 중요성에 관한 글을 올려놓았습니다. 이 글을 읽은 후 저는 한참을 생각했습니다.

“왜 내 메세지가 중요한걸까?” 라는 질문이 한동안 머릿속을 떠나지 않더군요.

그리고 이 질문은 “왜 사람들은 자신의 메세지가 청중에게 중요하다고 생각하지 않는 것일까?” 라는 또 다른 의문을 만들어 주었습니다. 한참을 고민하다 결국 프레젠테이션을 자주 접하시는 직장인분들을 떠올리고 나서야 그 이유를 알 수 있었습니다. 통상적으로 보면, 상사가 갑자기 여러분 책상으로 다가와 자신의 세일즈 미팅에 필요한 프레젠테이션을 준비하라고 지시합니다. (절대 부탁하거나 물어보지 않죠 ^^) 그것도 단기간 내에 말입니다. (보통 이틀의 시간도 주지 않습니다.T.T ) 회사에 충성하는 직원의 한사람으로서, 여러분은 상사의 명령에 따라야 한다는 부담감이 생기실 겁니다.

그래서 여러분은 상사에게 “프레젠테이션의 목적이 무엇인가요?” 라고 묻지 않고, 그저 엄청난 정보들과 보기에도 눈 아픈 복잡한 차트와 그래프들로 슬라이드를 채워 갑니다. 결국 여러분의 머릿속에는 상사만이 있을 뿐, 청중을 위한 프레젠테이션은 전혀 고려하지 않게 되는 것입니다.

제발 이런 실수는 범하지 마시기 바랍니다!

발표자로부터의 어떠한 정보 제공이나 의견없이 다른 누군가에 의해 준비된 프레젠테이션은 실패하기 쉽상입니다. 아무런 준비를 하지 않은 발표자는 슬라이드의 내용을 읽을 것이 뻔하기 때문에 결국 실패한 프레젠테이션이 되는 것입니다. 이런 프레젠테이션은 전달하고자 하는 메세지가 논리정연하지 못하고, 슬라이드와 발표자가 하는 말이 서로 어울리지 않아, 연결이 매끄럽지 못하게 될 것 입니다.

그러므로 다음번 프레젠테이션을 준비하실 때에는 가장 먼저 자신에게 질문하시기 바랍니다. “내 메세지가 왜 청중에게 중요한거지?” 라고 말입니다. “뭘 해야 상사가 칭찬해 줄까?” 또는 “어떻게 해야 상사가 감동할까?” 라는 질문이 아니라 말입니다. 프레젠테이션을 준비하면서 종이 위 가운데에 크게 “왜?”라고 적어보시기 바랍니다. 그런 후 여러분께서 작성하시는 슬라이드 마다 질문에 답하시기 바랍니다. “왜 이 메세지가 중요하지? 왜 이 슬라이드가 중요하지?” 하고 말입니다. 만약 그 질문에 답할 수 없다면 그 슬라이드는 과감하게 버리셔도 됩니다.

마지막으로 여러분, 부디 청중들을 위한 프레젠테이션을 만드시기 바랍니다. 청중은 여러분의 상사 보다 더욱 존중받아 마땅한 분들입니다. 그리고 기억하시기 바랍니다. 만약 여러분의 청중이 감동받으셨다면, 청중은 당신의 상사에게 이 사실을 전달할 것이고, 그렇게 되면 상사도 여러분에게 깊은 인상을 갖게 될 것입니다.

Here’s a quick tip for those of you who have to regularly do presentations.

When we present, we usually have to introduce ourselves to our audience. Of course, there are times when we present to our coworkers and in this situation it would be impractical to do a personal introduction. But when we do need to do a personal introduction it is a good idea to have a pre-prepared opening ready.

The advantages of having an introduction pre-prepared is that it can give you the confidence boost you need to deliver a strong presentation, a presentation where your confidence is high all the way the through.

I was recently watching a couple of Guy Kawasaki presentations on YouTube, one was from 2006 and one from 2008. What I noticed was the Guy used the same opening to introduce himself in both presentations, even though they were two years apart. There were a few differences, but these were very small. The advantages of doing this for Guy was that it enabled him to begin his presentations with humour that worked, and it also allowed him to be confident.

So, if you do do presentations regularly, prepare an introduction now, practice it and get it right, because introducing yourself is something you are going to have to do 95% of the time you do a presentation. A strong beginning usually always leads to a strong middle and a strong ending.

Below are the two You Tube videos I saw:

The impact of your presentation can be greatly increased with the use of a demonstration.

In his presentation at TED in February this year, Bill Gates talked about the solutions required for the problems today, and he demonstrated this by showing a glass jar of Fireflies. (around 8 minutes in to the presentation) Whilst in my humble opinion this demonstration did not illustrate his point particularly well, what it did do was to keep his audience interested, and created a more natural and ‘live’ feel to the presentation.

When Jamie Oliver did his TED talk this year, he powerfully demonstrated the amount of sugar kids in school consume each year with a wheelbarrow full of sugar. This demonstration was powerful and clearly demonstrated the point he was making.

Simon Raybould on the Presentation Skills Blog – “Telling People” says:

“Don’t tell me what you think… or what will happen if… or what you found when you… or what it’s like in the country of…. show me. Forget the words, forget the bullet-points; abandon the lists; throw out the dry stuff.

If you want to connect with me, to change me, to have an effect, to make me remember, show me something.

• Don’t tell me the Namib desert is dry – show me a picture of the sands.
• Don’t tell me the cash-flow forcast is bad – show me a graph
• Don’t tell me various ways you got funding – show me a pie chart
• Don’t tell me how fast the new computer is – show me a comparison (live if you can!)”

The power of the demonstration is awesome, and it can help you when you have to present in English. Quite often, our native language is not compatible with English, and to explain something competently and clearly in English is sometimes almost impossible. It is here where the use of a demonstration can get our message across in the best possible way.

So next time you are planning a presentation, give some time to thinking about possibly using a demonstration.