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However, as soon as the audience figures out that you’re reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch. If “thirty points,” is too dogmatic, the I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. How to Change the World A practical blog for impractical people. « A Brief History of Mine | Main | Resolution Assistance » December 30, 2005 The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint I suffer from something called Ménière’s disease—don’t worry, you cannot get it from reading my blog.

Stories connect speakers with their audience. People using the Beyond Bullet Points (BBP) approach enjoy successful presentations because they tell stories while giving the presentation. They don’t load their slides with a lot of words and meaningless data. Instead, they weave together the point of their presentation using the story telling techniques we learned as kids.

Remember, you want to make an emotional connection with your audience. Get an Audience. Without the audience to buoy my energy, I can sound dull and lifeless. An audience gives you emotional energy. I've taped faces over teddy bears, and Practice makes perfect, right? Not really. What

Steve tells us how to do this; before you step in front of an audience, take a deep breath. Audiences will always applaud skill. This is especially so when you get yourself some ‘flesh-time’ with your audiences before you begin your presentation. Photo credits to Neville I

I just trained a group of nearly 100 scientists in speaker skills and message development for public audiences, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. We spent a lot of time talking about the need to start with your audience's needs, and the limited attention spans of modern audiences. So it was not a surprise when one participant asked, "What do you do if you're losing your audience's The daylong training allows for plenty of questions, and I'm always eager to hear what speakers and would-be speakers have on their minds . Here are some of my suggestions:

Do you ever feel like an audience member is attacking you when they ask challenging questions during your presentation? Hopefully, your audience doesn't actually try to discredit you or prove you wrong, as a client recently mentioned to me, but sometimes a particular question can provoke a feeling of anger or defensiveness. Give your audience member the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is truly curious and is asking the question with good intentions. You might get riled up. You might get ruffled.

By listening to the backchannel, I knew when the presenter would overuse a cliche that didn't resonate with his audience. Conversely, the speaker provided many new ideas and action items for the audience. Audience members have been known to blog about conferences they're attending. “Content isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends - if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath.

And they annoy people.  The 2008 vogue.  We're Appealing only to the right side of the brain is less than truthful -- it lies by omission of key facts.  Audiences are getting more savvy.   Today's audience isn't quietly and politely absorbing canned corporate and political propaganda: they're getting accustomed to talking back and creating their own content. You can feel, see, and hear the pendulum swinging all around you! This is Your Brain on PowerPoint.  Our brains have 2 lobes.

After 45 minutes or so of eliciting audience oooohs and ahhhhs, a fabulous fireworks show ends with an overwhelming sensory display that excites and mobilizes the crowd. Your audience may not have actually said "oooh" or "aaaah" during your talk, but you recognize other emotional cues: You see nodding. Each "bang" technique signals the end of the presentation, yet it also leaves a powerful emotional Most fireworks presentations feature a super-explosive Grand Finale. The masses rise, stamp their feet, cheer wildly -- and go home feeling invigorated.