Category: presentations
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #5 — People assign meaning to your tone of voice
If you’ve ever eavesdropped on a conversation in a country where you did not speak the language, you might have been surprised to find yourself following along and picking up the feeling of the conversation even though you didn’t understand any of the words or literal meaning. This is an entire field of research, and it’s…
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #4 – People "read" your body positions instantly and unconsciously
Not too long ago I spoke at a conference with a line-up of great presenters. One man I had been looking forward to hearing got up to speak. He is well-known in his field, but I had never seen him speak. His talk was very good, but I couldn’t concentrate on it because throughout the…
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #3 – Multiple Sensory Channels Compete
Imagine that you are driving while listening to the radio and talking to a passenger sitting next to you. You are processing multiple sensory channels simultaneously. You are watching (the road), listening (to the radio and your friend), and thinking and talking. This doesn’t sound too difficult. People process multiple sensory channels all the time.…
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #2 – Writing By Hand Can Increase Commitment
I remember, many many years ago, when I wrote my Ph.D. thesis in graduate school, my first draft was done by hand (ok, now I’ve admitted that I’m quite old!). Most writing these days is done by typing on a keyboard. I write these blogs directly into my laptop using a keyboard, same thing with the…
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Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #1 – People learn best in 20 minute chunks
I’m wrapping up my new book, 100 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People (It’s available for pre-order and will ship on May 17th), so I thought I’d take some ideas from the book for some blog posts. I’ve picked my 10 favorites (always hard for me to pick only 10 when I love all…
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"Bad Powerpoint Presentations Are A Serious Threat To The Global Economy"
In his TED talk, John Bohannon says that “bad powerpoint presentations are a serious threat to the global economy”. He estimates that: Each day $250,000,000 (USD) is spent on presentations, assuming each presentation is ½ hour long, with an average audience of 4 people that have an average salary of $35,000 USD. Each day there…
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7 Tips To Get A Team To Implement Your Recommendations: Tip #5
This is the 5th in a 7-part series on how to get a team to implement your recommendations. Tip #1 was: Hide Your Top 3 Recommendations. Tip #2 was Say “You”, “They”, “Customers”, “Users”, or “Research”. Don’t say “I”. Tip #3 was Give Them A Presentation, Don’t Send Them A Report. Tip #4 was Use The Word…
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7 Tips To Get A Team To Implement Your Recommendations: Tip #3
This is the 3nd in a series on how to get a team to implement your recommendations. Tip #1 was: Hide Your Top 3 Recommendations. And Tip #2 was Say “You”, “They”, “Customers”, “Users”, or “Research”. Don’t say “I”. Now for Tip #3. The context is that you want to see your recommendations implemented. How…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #67 — Anecdotes Persuade More Than Data
Let’s say you have to make a presentation to several department heads at work about your latest conversations with your customers. You interviewed 25 customers and surveyed another 100, and have lots of important data to share. Your first thought might be to present a summary of the data in a numerical/statistical/data driven format, for…
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Send Me To South By Southwest: Vote for my panel
I’ve submitted to speak at South By Southwest (SXSW) next spring. The talk I’ve submitted is: The Psychology of Web Design: Interactive Behavior Explained. SXSW has an interesting way of deciding who the speakers are — 30% of their decision is based on votes. So if you go to the description of my talk (click…
