You know how much I love a good analogy, right? I'm kind of a crazed analogy-gatherer, and now I've found someone else who is as obsessed with analogies as I am! Meet Peter Mihalik, author of the Ygolana|Analogy blog. He collects analogies from around the Web and posts them on his site. Here's one I like a lot: Reproduction is like Website.

We talk a lot about organizing our content, main points, opening and closing, but we rarely talk about how to get from one segment to the next. How do you handle the spaces in between your points, stories, examples, and exercises? These are your transitions. It's as important to plan your transitions as it is to plan the rest of your presentation.

During a session with a client the other day, we talked about the delivery of his company's new employee orientation. He was looking for ways to make his message more clear and to keep his diverse audience's attention through a day-long training. The reason? The environment. speaker plays just one part in making a lengthy training work. Be creative.

How many times have you sat in the audience during the Q&A portion of a presentation (either live or on the Web or phone), and felt frustrated by one audience member dominating the questions? Perhaps this person has several questions that go on and on, or perhaps she doesn't have a question at all and tells long stories. Then move on. Just do it.

Here's a short and sweet video by Dan Meyer , sharing his process of evolving from a lecture-based educator to an interactive facilitator. His use of images and graphics is creative and fun. Don't you wish you had had Dan for your high school math teacher? know I could have benefited from his teaching philosophy!

TED has earned a lot of attention over the years for many reasons, including the nature and quality of its short-form conference presentations. All presenters lucky enough to be asked to speak at TED are given 18-minute slots maximum (some are for even less time such as 3- and 6-minute slots). Ben Saunders ). Thou Shalt Tell a Story. Although Dr.

Exposing ourselves to traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas — notions that may seem quite foreign to most of us — is a good exercise in lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in 1967. Lateral Thinking is for changing concepts and perception," says de Bono. Seven principles for changing your perception Kanso (??) Fukinsei (???) Shizen (??)

Most people do not really think about design and designers, let alone think of themselves as designers. But what, if anything, can regular people — teachers, students, business people of all types — learn from designers and from thinking like a designer? And what of more specialized professions? believe there is. 1) Embrace constraints.

Presenting while people are tweeting is challenging – but also adds a new dimension to the presentation experience for your audience. Gradually tools are being developed to make it easier for you as the presenter to manage the backchannel. would love to see more tools available which work within the most common slideware – PowerPoint and Keynote.

At last, we have some scientifically rigorous evidence to show that slides full of bullet-points don’t work. The research is the work of Chris Atherton , a cognitive psychologist. Chris recently delivered a presentation at the Technical Communication UK Conference and has put up her slides on slideshare. The research. Sparse slides.