An Education: In Presentations
29/09/10 22:14 Filed in: Presentations
What a gift. Over a two-month period, eight highly regarded presentation experts have been booked to lead hour-long webinars as part of a virtual event called the Outstanding Presentations Workshop. And bonus — the webinars are free, courtesy of generous sponsors.
Three of the webinars have already taken place (as of the end of September.) I listened to each one of them and took notes to share with Podium readers. So, here are some great insights and tips from a trio of top presentation designers.
Rick Altman - Author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck and the updated version Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Still Suck. Rick is also the conference host for the Presentation Summit which is taking place in San Diego in October.
Rick says:
• One of the reasons presentations suck is because people put too much text on their slides. To cut back, apply the three-word rule. Look at every bullet in your deck and ask yourself: could I shorten it to just three words? The answer won’t always be yes, but chances are you’ll still do some serious pruning.
• People become overwhelmed and quickly lose interest in slides that are busy and complex. To help people absorb what they see, present information in bite sized sequences. For example, when displaying a chart, start by showing the axes, then the bars, and then the lines. You’ll also probably do a better job of narrating such slides when you build them bit by bit.
• If you’re creating slides for someone else, provide extra directions and advice to the speaker in the notes field.
Nancy Duarte - principal of Duarte Design — the company that created the graphics for Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, and author of Slide:ology and the just-published Resonate.
Nancy says:
• Presentations are a new form of literature and people need to develop presentation literacy skills.
• When designing a slide, think in terms of signal to noise ratio. Ask yourself: how challenging will it be for people to get the message? Then get rid of anything that might slow down the viewer’s ability to understand the point.
• One of the reasons PowerPoint is ‘broken’ is because people use slides like documents. In other words they create ‘slideuments’. To avoid that fate, pull off everything that’s a crutch for the presenter and just leave the information the audience has to remember.
Olivia Mitchell - Partner in a presentation skills training company called Effective Speaking based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Olivia says:
• Craft a solid, clear key message that is relevant to the audience, specific (the more specific the more memorable) and expressed in plain spoken language.
• Follow the advice of the Heath brothers who wrote the book Made to Stick. Tell a story first to create an emotional impact. Then follow up with the statistics.
• Use a metaphor when you’re speaking about a concept that’s new to the audience. To help listeners get the idea, compare the thing that’s unfamiliar to something that is familiar.
Three of the webinars have already taken place (as of the end of September.) I listened to each one of them and took notes to share with Podium readers. So, here are some great insights and tips from a trio of top presentation designers.
Rick Altman - Author of Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Suck and the updated version Why Most PowerPoint Presentations Still Suck. Rick is also the conference host for the Presentation Summit which is taking place in San Diego in October.
Rick says:
• One of the reasons presentations suck is because people put too much text on their slides. To cut back, apply the three-word rule. Look at every bullet in your deck and ask yourself: could I shorten it to just three words? The answer won’t always be yes, but chances are you’ll still do some serious pruning.
• People become overwhelmed and quickly lose interest in slides that are busy and complex. To help people absorb what they see, present information in bite sized sequences. For example, when displaying a chart, start by showing the axes, then the bars, and then the lines. You’ll also probably do a better job of narrating such slides when you build them bit by bit.
• If you’re creating slides for someone else, provide extra directions and advice to the speaker in the notes field.
Nancy Duarte - principal of Duarte Design — the company that created the graphics for Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, and author of Slide:ology and the just-published Resonate.
Nancy says:
• Presentations are a new form of literature and people need to develop presentation literacy skills.
• When designing a slide, think in terms of signal to noise ratio. Ask yourself: how challenging will it be for people to get the message? Then get rid of anything that might slow down the viewer’s ability to understand the point.
• One of the reasons PowerPoint is ‘broken’ is because people use slides like documents. In other words they create ‘slideuments’. To avoid that fate, pull off everything that’s a crutch for the presenter and just leave the information the audience has to remember.
Olivia Mitchell - Partner in a presentation skills training company called Effective Speaking based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Olivia says:
• Craft a solid, clear key message that is relevant to the audience, specific (the more specific the more memorable) and expressed in plain spoken language.
• Follow the advice of the Heath brothers who wrote the book Made to Stick. Tell a story first to create an emotional impact. Then follow up with the statistics.
• Use a metaphor when you’re speaking about a concept that’s new to the audience. To help listeners get the idea, compare the thing that’s unfamiliar to something that is familiar.
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Working With Word Clouds
29/09/10 22:02 Filed in: Speeches
We speechwriters don’t end up with much to show for our efforts. While the words we write may change what people think, believe or are willing to do, our only souvenir of the assignment might be a paper text, an entry on a Web site (text again), or maybe a video recording of the speaker on the podium. But have you ever asked your friends over to watch the video of a speech you wrote? Probably not…
Well there is a way to create a memento that you could hang on the wall if you were so inclined. Make a word cloud. To do that go to www.wordle.net, follow the simple instructions and congratulate yourself on your artistry.
Wordle is the brainchild of a man who thinks outside the font. His name is Jonathan Feinberg and he developed Wordle as a means of drawing pictures with words. The tool is free and anyone can use it to make word clouds for their own use or to share with the world. Users have licence to do whatever they like with their creations: publish them on paper or online, for instance, or even emblazon them on t-shirts and mugs.
Wordle applies weight to the words in the source text. The more frequently a word occurs, the larger it appears in the word cloud. (Allowances are made for words such as ‘a’ and ‘the’ to keep things manageable.)
So, pour a speech into the hopper, wait a few seconds and then gaze upon the glory of your creation. You can tweak your efforts endlessly to change the colour, font and arrangement. Once you’re happy with the results, save the word cloud as a screen shot and treat it like an image.
Keep in mind, however, that the word clouds Wordle generates are meant to be decorative. They’re not analytical tools. Take for example a word cloud made from the speech Pierre Trudeau delivered on the eve of the 1980 Quebec Referendum. While he was firmly on the ‘no’ side of the debate and said so repeatedly, the word ‘yes’ figured prominently in the word cloud. I suspect Wordle eliminated ‘no’ as a freestanding word because it’s also a common syllable.
Despite the odd glitch, some of which can be fixed with some experimentation, Wordle is a great tool for creating interesting graphics from words. It’s fun to play with too.
Ideas for Using Word Clouds
• Illustrate a Web post of a speech
• Illustrate a newsletter or magazine article about a speech
• Illustrate a cover page for a hard copy of a speech
• Decorate your office wall
• Save in a journal where you document each speech that you write
If you can think of other ways to use them, please add a comment.
Examples of Speech Word Clouds
The speech Pierre Trudeau gave on the eve of the Quebec Referendum 1980
The speech current Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered to the
United Nations, September 23, 2010
The speech environmentalist David Suzuki delivered in Los Angeles to the Governors’ Climate Change Summit in 2008
Finally: The description of my workshop Speechwriting: The Basics & Beyond (shameless self promotion)
Well there is a way to create a memento that you could hang on the wall if you were so inclined. Make a word cloud. To do that go to www.wordle.net, follow the simple instructions and congratulate yourself on your artistry.
Wordle is the brainchild of a man who thinks outside the font. His name is Jonathan Feinberg and he developed Wordle as a means of drawing pictures with words. The tool is free and anyone can use it to make word clouds for their own use or to share with the world. Users have licence to do whatever they like with their creations: publish them on paper or online, for instance, or even emblazon them on t-shirts and mugs.
Wordle applies weight to the words in the source text. The more frequently a word occurs, the larger it appears in the word cloud. (Allowances are made for words such as ‘a’ and ‘the’ to keep things manageable.)
So, pour a speech into the hopper, wait a few seconds and then gaze upon the glory of your creation. You can tweak your efforts endlessly to change the colour, font and arrangement. Once you’re happy with the results, save the word cloud as a screen shot and treat it like an image.
Keep in mind, however, that the word clouds Wordle generates are meant to be decorative. They’re not analytical tools. Take for example a word cloud made from the speech Pierre Trudeau delivered on the eve of the 1980 Quebec Referendum. While he was firmly on the ‘no’ side of the debate and said so repeatedly, the word ‘yes’ figured prominently in the word cloud. I suspect Wordle eliminated ‘no’ as a freestanding word because it’s also a common syllable.
Despite the odd glitch, some of which can be fixed with some experimentation, Wordle is a great tool for creating interesting graphics from words. It’s fun to play with too.
Ideas for Using Word Clouds
• Illustrate a Web post of a speech
• Illustrate a newsletter or magazine article about a speech
• Illustrate a cover page for a hard copy of a speech
• Decorate your office wall
• Save in a journal where you document each speech that you write
If you can think of other ways to use them, please add a comment.
Examples of Speech Word Clouds
The speech Pierre Trudeau gave on the eve of the Quebec Referendum 1980
The speech current Prime Minister Stephen Harper delivered to the
United Nations, September 23, 2010
The speech environmentalist David Suzuki delivered in Los Angeles to the Governors’ Climate Change Summit in 2008
Finally: The description of my workshop Speechwriting: The Basics & Beyond (shameless self promotion)
Speechwriting Tips from Twitter
10/09/10 15:53 Filed in: Speeches
Speechwriting Tips from Twitter
Twitter is a terrific resource for speechwriters. Everyday, scribes from around the world share insights, recommend books and provide links to terrific online resources. If you want to broaden your horizons, join the conversation. An easy way to start is by following me, @wendycherwinski, or the people quoted below.
A great speech is like a pickpocket. It distracts us with its surface brilliance while working its magic in the shadows.
@martinshovel
Frame everything you say and show in terms of your audience's point of view and needs.
@Story_Jon
Being spontaneously funny is hard work http://bit.ly/bjxmpW How Joan Rivers does it.
@beachwordsmith
“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.” -- Cato The Elder
@LilyIatrides
Book Review: Boring to Bravo (Kristin Arnold) http://bit.ly/alEcaE
@6minutes
Twitter is a terrific resource for speechwriters. Everyday, scribes from around the world share insights, recommend books and provide links to terrific online resources. If you want to broaden your horizons, join the conversation. An easy way to start is by following me, @wendycherwinski, or the people quoted below.
A great speech is like a pickpocket. It distracts us with its surface brilliance while working its magic in the shadows.
@martinshovel
Frame everything you say and show in terms of your audience's point of view and needs.
@Story_Jon
Being spontaneously funny is hard work http://bit.ly/bjxmpW How Joan Rivers does it.
@beachwordsmith
“Grasp the subject, the words will follow.” -- Cato The Elder
@LilyIatrides
Book Review: Boring to Bravo (Kristin Arnold) http://bit.ly/alEcaE
@6minutes