Everyone has heard the advice about incorporating stories into a presentation to make your message more " sticky " and easier to understand. These same elements are what you have to work with in your business stories.  The story you create should underscore and amplify the business message you're communicating. So we're all on board there. But if you're not a natural story teller [and I count myself firmly in this camp]...you

With the explosion in popularity of microblogging tools like Twitter , presenters are now faced with the possibility, or even likelihood, that some members of their audience will be tweeting (posting on Twitter) during the presentation. Initially, that idea is off-putting to many presenters. Or "What if they say something negative about me or my They sputter, "But that means the audience won't be paying attention to me." Or "It will be distracting for me to see everybody typing on their iPhones."

In a previous post, I explored  common concerns about Twitter usage in presentations and concluded that Twitter offers many benefits in terms of audience involvement and engagement. However, seeing the benefits of using Twitter and being able to incorporate it effectively into your presentation are two very different things. So let's take a look at some best practices for integrating Twitter HASHTAGS Set up a hashtag  for the presentation.

When I teach presentation skills classes, I frequently get asked the question, "Should I use notes in my presentation?" [ Said in a tone of voice that assumes the correct answer is no ]. For some misguided reason, people seem to think that if they are delivering a presentation or a speech, they need to be able to do it completely from memory, sans notes. Practically, having notes They seem to think notes are cheating or make them look like they're unsure of their material. Well, my answer to the question, "Should I use notes?" is

                                                                                                                             I'm pretty sure that no one sets out to give a boring presentation. Yet why do so many presentations end up that way? There are a number of classic presentation behaviors that will send you off the charts on the boring meter. Now these aren't mysterious things that we don't know are boring. They are simply behaviors we don't pay enough attention to.

I've just returned from two trips to Africa where I spoke and ran workshops at the Women in Management and Business  (WimBIZ) conference (Lagos, Nigeria) and the Kenyan Association of Women Business Owners  (KAWBO) conference (Nairobi, Kenya). presentation style, format and approach. The wife of the Governor of Lagos They were both amazing experiences and I thought it would be interesting to make some comparisons between African and U.S. STYLE

Don't Use Slides    A panel is more like a dialogue or conversation among the panelists and the audience than it is a series of stand-alone presentations. Tags: Presentation Tips and Techniques Speaking on Panels business presentations speaking on a pane I recently attended my local ASTD chapter meeting ( www.dcastd.org ) where a panel of CLOs talked about the role of global learning in tough economic times. I'm not usually a fan of panels, because they frequently appear disorganized with speakers rambling , cutting each other off and running out of time.

Participants in my presentation skills workshops typically cite concerns about not being credible to the audience as one of the key contributors to their presentation nervousness and anxiety. In presentations , we can define credible to mean that your audience will trust you are providing relevant information and you deserve to be listened to because you have sufficient knowledge of the subject matter. This worry gets expressed in a variety of ways: I

couple of weeks before the panel presentation, the moderator should meet with the panelists (conference call is fine, although face-to-face is better, if feasible), review the objectives of the presentation, the general framework and share an overview of the questions and tips for being a successful panelist . The goal of the briefing is to get everyone comfortable enough with the topic area and each others' contributions that the presentation appears smooth and seamless. Most of you would likely say that speaking on a panel is more difficult and requires more preparation than moderating one.

Perfect Power Point Presentation" articles and coaches abound. And yet, this phrase is a perfect oxymoron--if a Power Point presentation is perfect it will be a total failure for your audience and for the speaker . making them perfect) you will fail to create a perfect presentation . Quality speaking and writing is not dead or out of favor. In fact, compared with 5 or 10 years ago, communication skills for both speaking and writing are more important than ever.