Posts Tagged ‘ 21st Century Presentation ’
Here’s a little presentation I did recently for CBC News here in Korea about my cultural journey – coming from the United Kingdom to Korea, and some of the things I have noticed that are different.
It is a light hearted look, but I hope it can show you how to keep a presentation natural, and how to use good quality slides to help your audience to fully understand what you are saying.
This year I have done our presentation seminar with a large number of people from many different companies. Some were large international companies, others were smaller domestic companies. On each occasion the students attending were a mixture of people from various departments ranging from the sales department to the human resources department.
However, one thing that has surprised me is that none of the students attending were senior managers. Almost all of them were junior members of their departments who, when questioned, did little or no presenting in their companies.
I find myself having to ask the question: why?
Why is it that the very people who have to do important presentations in English are the very people who do not attend presentation training seminars, courses or workshops? Do they think they are too good to attend? or is it that they feel they are too busy?
In my mind this is a crazy situation. Everyone knows that that the state of presentations today is terrible. In some places it is getting better and in some cases there is an understanding that presentation communication needs to improve, but the perception of the humble presentation is still that they are largely boring, useless and pointless.
My guess, and this is only a guess, is that these managers are too proud to admit they need further training. And it is here where the problem arises.
Most presentations I see done by university students are fantastic. The design, the message and the stories are there. It most cases the final presentation is a little rough around the edges, but on the whole their presentations are good, creative and have a clear, simple message. On the other hand most presentations I see done by senior executives have difficult to read slides, are full of boring text and are a complete mess when it comes to a message. The end product looks like something created in the 1990s., with no clear point and at the end a very confused audience.
Business communication did not stop evolving in the 1990s. The evolution of Business communication exploded in the 2000s. Audiences now demand simple, clear messages that are delivered in twenty minutes and the details are handed to them in a clear, convenient handout. Audiences no longer have time to sit in a meeting room listening to an old style executive spew word and boring word in a dull, unimaginative way for hours upon end. Audiences want to the point messages with great illustrations and simple easily digested facts and figures.
Until these senior executives get it and begin to understand that it is they that need to be taught how to present in the twenty-first century, presentations are going to continue with the same boring image. All I ask is that if you are a senior executive, please lose the pride and get some help. It will not only help you develop, but it will help restore the image of the presentation into something it should be. A great way to communicate a message.
I am an avid fan of motor sport. I have followed F1 and the World Rally Championship for many, many years.
One of my favourite motor sport events is the Dakar Rally. This rally is held every year in January in Argentina and Chile (previously it was called the Paris Dakar rally and was held in Africa) And every year for the past three years I have watched each day’s highlights to catch up on what was happening.
So, I began to wonder how I would explain this unique rally to a group of people who did not know anything about this rally. This then led me to realise that the only way I could effectively capture the drama, scenery and uniqueness of this rally would be to use the twenty-first century style of presenting. The 1990s style simply would not work, it could never capture the feel of the rally.
So, I decided to use the explanation of this rally to demonstrate how a twenty-first century presentation can use all the technology, and power in your presentation software to capture the essence of the Dakar Rally.
First:
A 1990s slide:
In a 1990s style presentation what you get is a small picture (here, the logo of this years Dakar) and a bullet pointed list of the rally’s features.
The problem with this approach is that to anyone who does not know anything about motor sport (and there really are a lot of people like that out there) this really does not help them to fully understand what it is all about. Essentially, this type of slide, and the words that would usually accompany it from the presenter is not going to help their audience understand.
Second:
A Twenty-First Century slide:
In a twenty-first slide you actually can now see the rally, the speed, the drama and the ground (you can see how dusty the road surface is) You also can see the types of vehicles that are raced in this rally. Now the presenter does not have to go into fine detail to describe the types of vehicles involved because the audience can now see the types of vehicles racing. There is no need for text, because the presenter can give the words – which is why the presenter is there in the first place. The whole thing just works much better.
Now, to really capture the drama, the competitive nature of the sport and the excitement, you could also include a second slide which includes a video – for example:
The difference is huge, and that is essentially the difference between what we used to do in the 1990s, and sadly, what many presenters still do today, and what we should be doing today.
The basis of a twenty-first century presentation is that you use all the media available to you to convey your message. Text alone seldom does it any more.