How to effectively present in English in the 21st Century

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.

When I was younger I always wanted to be a barrister. A barrister is a lawyer who represents his or her client in court. Essentially, a barrister speaks on behalf of his client in front of a judge and or jury. Barristers are found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries and the occupation dates back to the fifteenth century.

(Above is a still shot from the UK TV series Kavanagh QC starring the late John Thaw as James Kavanagh QC)

A Barrister can be defined as a professional speaker. Their job essentially is to convince a jury or a judge of the merits of their client’s case. To do this they need to be able to persuade, speak clearly and simply on very complex subjects related to law and do so in a way that a jury understands why their client is innocent or guilty.

In the 1990′s there was a barrister in the United Kingdom called George Carman QC. (QC stands for Queen’s Counsel – a senior barrister) George Carman became famous for his ability to persuade a jury of the merits of his client’s case. He used the techniques of repetition, image building in the minds of the jury and spoke with few notes – which gave him an air of naturalness. George Carman lost few cases, he had a great ability to read the jury, understand the jury and to put his case in such a manner that the jury were willing to do whatever George wanted them to do.

In a newspaper article in the Independent newspaper in 1992 they wrote:

George Carman’s success rests on meticulous hard work, a thorough preparation of his case aided by a prodigious memory that enables him to conduct a cross examination over many hours with only the sketchiest of notes. Nor is there much to criticise, say those who have worked closely with him, in his habits of work. He is rigorous and demanding, but juniors and solicitors chorus their appreciation of his fairness, generosity, lack of pomposity.

Barristers quite often have little or no time to prepare their cases, like presenters, they are often given their ‘subject’ a few days before the court hearing. Yet, they know that their client’s future rests on their ability to argue their case in court. When there is a lack of time, a barrister will give up his or her free time to make sure their cases are fully prepared and ready.

As a presenter, you need all the skills of a successful barrister. You need to know your subject inside out, you need to know how you will develop your subject, when to repeat important information and when and how to paint a picture in your audience’s minds. These skills do not come by preparing your presentation the night before you give it. These skills come from “meticulous hard work and a thorough preparation”.

As a presenter, you may not have a client’s future in your hands, but you will certainly have your future and quite possibly the future of you company’s latest project in your hands. Surely these are important enough to make sure that you prepare your presentation with care.

If you would like to read more about George Carman, his son wrote a biography of his father, called No Ordinary Man, A Life Of George Carman.

현재 세계 각지에서 이루어지는 프레젠테이션들의 가장 큰 문제점 중 하나는 너무 많은 사람들이 슬라이드에 엄청난 정보를 지나치게 자세하게 담아낸다는 것입니다. 만약 여러분께서 이렇게 하신다면, 그 프레젠테이션은 포커스를 잃어버리고, 청중들이 지루해져 잠들기 딱 좋은 재미없는 결과물이 될 것입니다.

아래에 있는 홀리데이 인 호텔 광고 동영상을 봐주시기 바랍니다. 동영상을 보시면, 광고의 환상적인 단순함이 멋진 프레젠테이션 슬라이드를 만들어 내고 있는것을 보실 수 있습니다. 광고 안에서는 그저 단순한 두 단어들이 그에 부응하는 이미지들과 어우러져 멋진 조화를 이루어 내고 있습니다.

광고안의 이미지는 감정을 자아내고, 단어들은 메세지를 만들어 냅니다. 복잡한 것은 어디에도 없습니다. 이곳은 게시판이나 목록, 차트나 그래프가 아니기 때문이죠. 오직 단순한 이미지와 간단한 메세지가 전부입니다. 훌륭하고 멋진 프레젠테이션을 만들기 위해 여러분에게 필요한것은 이것이 전부입니다. 하지만 애석하게도, 아직까지 많은 발표자들이 이 단순함의 진리를 실천하지 못해, 오늘날의 악명 높은 프레젠테이션을 남기는게 현실입니다. 그러므로 여러분의 질 높은 프레젠테이션을 위해, 이 단순함의 진리를 한번 실천해 보시기 바랍니다.