What do you do?  Keep listening to the speaker and ignore the slides completely, or attempt to read the slides whilst the speaker keeps talking?  Neither option works.  Either you try to ignore the distraction of the slides and listen – hard to do.  Or you can chose the opposite – while you struggle to read the slide, the speaker has moved on to a new topic.

Don’t try to use slides as hand-outs for the audience to take away.  They are attending a face-to-face communication, not reading a book. Reading and listening are two completely different forms of communications, using different mental processes.  Audiences can’t read slides and listen at the same time. In fact, If you have too much on the slides, they are very hard to read on their own, even without the complication of listening.

I’ve talked previously about how brief good slide content must be.  Basically – hardly any words.  Let’s face it: If the slides were any use to someone who hadn’t attended the presentation, they probably didn’t communicate well during it!

Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen has a good example of using speaker notes plus slides for a reasonable compromise on the slide+hand-out front.

Very few people are good joke tellers and even worse, presenters who know they are not that interesting (or even down right boring) think if they start their presentation with a joke somehow the speech will go well.

Jokes are a problem Firstly they are usually old . Secondly you can offend your audience if you tell a joke that is sexist,dirty,racist, religious,ageist ,etc. So really there is very little left in the joke cupboard

What works so much better are stories,personal anecdotes that may or may not provoke laughter but will remain in your audiences minds for a lot longer.

How many of you have been to a comedian  and laughed throughout but can not remember a single joke next day?  It is the same with presentations -we don’t lock in the joke ,what we remember is the story and how it made us feel.

Stories are an essential part of or human condition.We have stored inside us memories of childhood and the stories that are universally shared.   These make the best content for a successful presntation.

So next time you are thinking of livening up your presentation leave out the jokes and replace them with your real stories and anecdotes.Then sit back and enjoy the audiences response.

Years ago when we started Communicate Consultants we made sure our workshops were interactive with the learning taking place through discussion ,experiential exercises , practical work and not much lecture.

The key was face to face communication over a period of time usually one day. And it still is today.

However I am now embarking on an entirely new (to me ) way of running workshops. Webinars.

Talk about stepping outside your comfort zone and challenging your assumptions on how people can take in information.

Instead of reacting to the participants body language and facial expressions and adjusting the programme accordingly by stopping,asking questions and getting group involvement I am chatting to my laptop.

As much as I like my laptop it isn’t the most responsive of media and doesn’t get my jokes.

So I have had to adjust how I get the message across to the people on ‘the other side’.

It’s a bit like using your voice on the phone to sound excited,enthusiastic and engaging whilst seeing yourself on the camera (like Skype) and looking quite peculiar.

Questions pop up randomly which need answering but I can’t check they have understood or I’ve answered the question correctly.its a case of fingers crossed.

Tomorrow is my second webinar this time on Negotiations to IPENZ The Institute of Professional Engineers  www.ipenz.org.nz

So why do them?

The answer is its an efficient way to get a message across to people scattered over a large geographical area

Its quick -one hour to stimulate your participants to understand some principles and learn some new stuff

And for me it’s the chance to step outside my comfort zone and tackle a new skills-that’s got to be fun!

And they’re right in one sense – most people do have a problem giving negative feedback and therefore avoid giving it.  So one up to the strong-minded. There is however a difference between giving negative feedback and doing so effectively.

The reason for giving feedback is to create positive change in future behaviour – the feedback only has ‘no problem’ when the recipient has changed their behaviour in a positive direction. If the person on the receiving end feels bruised and battered or unfairly treated, the impact may be worse than no feedback at all.

So when you are giving feedback, focus on the future change required, rather than it becoming an argument  about who did what and when. Negative feedback should cause a positive adjustment in behaviour, not just provide an opportunity to let off steam.  The Top Ten Checklist for Giving Feedback provides some handy tips – ten of them in fact!

Remember successful feedback is about what happens in the targeted change, not just what leaves your bow.

Often when I ask people about the best presenter at a recent  conference, the answer relates to story telling – the presenter told a story that the listener could relate to and use as the basis for future action.

An example?  A new team leader hearing a presenter talk about the issue of sometimes having to make an unpopular decision as a leader. The presenter told about her son falling over that very morning and getting a bad gravel graze.  The mother had to inflict pain on the boy to clean out the graze so it could heal well.  Who knows how true that small story was, but it lingered with the listener and gave her the confidence to act on some difficult issues she was facing. 

Don’t get stuck on the idea that your life is too mundane for stories.  You don’t have to have chopped off your arm with a multi-tool to escape from being trapped under a rock!  Often the most powerful and long-lasting stories are built from very simple accessible material – as in the grazed knee example.   With this type of story, an audience can think: ‘Ah ha! Yes, I get that.  This is familiar’,  then they have the basis for understanding or action.   

 A while ago I worked with a group young army recruitment personnel.  Some of them had coped with some very dramatic situations during their overseas service, but the most compelling story came from a woman who talked about how joining the army had enabled her to find a route out of a  very negative and limited background. The audience could relate to the story and use it as a message for action.  So, just look at your ordinary daily life for compelling content.  If you want an example, take a look at Carmen Agra Deedy telling the story of taking her mother to the shopping mall. Okay, she’s a brilliant story teller and has really worked on this one, but the source of the content is very simple:

So look around your life for some real stories, then when you have some ideas or concepts that are difficult to get across, ask yourself: ‘What else  in my life is similar to this concept or has the same kinds of elements? Who knows how your life might be compelling for someone else.

Some other useful resources:

• One of our favourite books: ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath covers story telling for presenters very well and…
•  for some extra practical tips look at: Ten tips for using stories and case studies

And yet we so often read ,or experience, situations when caring seems to have been forgotten.

Caring translates into all our dealings with people not just those closest to us.

• When we deliver a presentation we should ‘care’ about our audience
• When we work with clients and customers we should ‘care’ about them
• As managers and leaders we should care about our staff.

 Yet unfortunatelyoften we get too busy ,or just plain forget to use that core value in almost all of us.

Roger Steare rogersteare.com recently spoke at a meeting  and he talked passionately about the need to get back to using our core values at work. We care about the things that matter close to us -our families (and/or animals!)  and yet so often at work the culture dulls what we know is intrinsically right -the universals that make us civilised.  The too tight job description so we don’t ‘go the extra mile’.  The rules that stifle common sense

Perhaps it’s time to take stock and not wait for a disaster to bring out the best in us .We all do care  it’s now time to show it

Ignore the irritating teacherly voice because the content is good.  She is using an interesting new technology called BrainShark to share the presentation.