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

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.

One of my favourite designers is Dieter Rams, famous for his work at the German company, Braun. Dieter Rams retired in 1995, but his legacy lives on today in the work that Jonathon Ives does at Apple and many other designers around the world.

Dieter Rams had a very simple philosophy: “less, but better” (“Weniger, aber besser“) and this is something that all students of English can, and should, use in their study philosophy.

Most students of English I have taught over the years try to learn too much. As a consequence of this they either learn very little, or they simply give up because the task is far too big. And it is far too big – not even native English speakers can learn all the words in the English language.

One of my fundamental principles when I teach a class of students is: “master the English you already know”. Most students only learn the basics of each different scenario. Then, because they very rarely use the English needed for that scenario they never develop that part of their English, thus they only have a very basic set of phrases to deal with each situation:

For example:
All Korean students learn to greet someone in English like this:

ENGLISH SPEAKER:

How are you?

STUDENT:

I’m fine thank you and you?

Now, grammatically this is absolutely fine, and occasionally you will hear a native speaker use this way to greet someone. But, it is boring! It is boring because almost every Korean English student I have ever met, taught or had a conversation with, has answered my question: “How are you?” with “I’m fine thank you and you?”

But there is a better way, and using it will make you stand out in a very positive way:

ENGLISH SPEAKER: How are you?

STUDENT: I’m very well thankyou. How are you?

This way is both polite and different and is formal enough for all occasions.

When you study English as an adult, you are studying English as a skill. You are no longer learning English to pass an exam (unless you are preparing to take the TOEIC or TOEFL test) and so you no longer need to study everything you might get tested on. What you need to do is to first work out the English you will need for your job, your hobby or your life.

Once you have worked out what English you will need, then you focus your attention on learning that part of English. But do not stop at the basics. Develop it, research it, ask questions about other ways of expressing your opinions, or asking the questions. Keep going until you know everything you need to know about it.

Learning less, but learning it better is one of the best ways to improve your English because it develops a much deeper understanding of the English you are using, you learn exactly what to say, when and in what situation. It helps you to make less mistakes and best of all it will make you sound like a much better English speaker

슬라이드 디자인에 필요한 영감을 찾고자 할 때 제가 주로 이용하는 것 중 하나가 바로 포스터 광고물(또는 프린트 광고물)입니다.

서울을 둘러 다닐때면, 저는 항상, 슬라이드 디자인에 영감을 주는 광고들을 찾아 보려고 합니다. 이런 포스터들은 전문 디자이너들에 의해 만들어진 것들로, 제 디자인 아이디어에 많은 도움을 줄 수 있기 때문이죠.

어제, 분당으로 가는 전철역에서 아래의 광고물을 보게 되었습니다. 강한 보라색과 흑백의 이미지가 서로 대조를 이루는 색상 배합이 너무나 맘에 들었습니다. 게다가, 이미지 안에 텍스트를 눈에 띄게 강조할 수 있도록 충분한 여백을 준 것이 눈에 들어왔습니다.

그래서 저는, 위의 포스트를 응용해 앞으로 있을 프레젠테이션에서 사용할 수 있는 슬라이드를 하나 새롭게 만들어 보았습니다.

슬라이드의 정확한 레이아웃을 위해 먼저, 키노트의 가이드라인 기능 (‘보기’ 탭에서 ‘안내선 보기’ 기능을 활성화 하시면 됩니다.)을 이용했습니다. 아래처럼 말이죠.

(파워 포인트에서는, 슬라이드 작업영역에 마우스 오른쪽 버튼을 누르시면 ‘눈금 및 안내선’ 대화상자를 불러올 수 있는 기능이 있습니다. 이 대화상자에서, ‘화면에 그리기 안내선 표시’를 활성화 하시고 안내선을 드래그 하셔서 원하시는 위치에 가져나 놓으시면 됩니다. 정확한 측정을 위해, ‘눈금 및 안내선’ 대화상자에서 ‘화면에 눈금표시’ 기능을 활성화 하시는 것도 좋습니다.)

l  보너스 팁 : 파워포인트에서 기본 레이 아웃의 안내선은 십자 형태입니다. 여러개의 안내선을 원하시면, 기본 안내선 위에 마우스를 대신 상태에서 컨트롤 키를 누르시고 드래그 하시면 안내선이 복사됩니다.  키노트에서는, 슬라이드 작업영역 밖의 눈금자에 마우스를 대시고 드래그 하시면 안내선이 저절로 복사 됩니다.

안내선을 설정한 후, 이미지와 컬러 블럭을 안내선 위에 놓으시고 텍스트를 타이핑 하시면 모든게 끝이 납니다. 이렇게 아래의 슬라이드를 만드는데 5분도 채 걸리지 않았답니다.

자! 위의 과정처럼, 효과적이고 아름다운 슬라이드를 만들 수 있는 영감을 얻는 것은 그리 어려운 일이 아닙니다. 눈을 크게 뜨시고 여러분 주변에 있는 사물이나 풍경을 주의깊게 살펴보시면 되는 것이죠. 그 곳에 바로 여러분이 찾고 계시는 디자인 아이디어가 있는 것입니다. 그럼 오늘 한번, 가까운 곳의 포스터 광고를 활용해 슬라이드 한 장 디자인 해보시는건 어떨까요?