How to present in English

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.

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.

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.

Beginning your presentation is often the most difficult part of presenting, because you are full of nerves and feelings of fear.

There are many ways to begin; you could begin with a simple “Good morning. Thank you for coming today” the Steve Jobs’ approach. Or, if you have been introduced, you could begin with something a little more elaborate “Thank you Mr Chairman. Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen”.

But whichever way you begin, starting strong and starting confidently is important.

A well rehearsed beginning is the key, and below is a list of ways you could begin your presentation. Whichever way you decide to use, the important thing to do is to feel comfortable and relaxed with the words:

Use can use these simple openings as often as you like. Choose one that you feel comfortable with and then give it a go.