Larry Bird was an 88% free throw shooter in his NBA career.  As a child he used to shoot 200 free throws before school, every day.  There are a number of free resources our there, including my free eBook entitled "10 Tips and Techniques for More Effective Presentations."   If you have a presentation that needs and expert's touch, why not hire a presentation designer ?  If there's one thing I've learned while engulfed in the world of marketing communications the past few years, it's that you are ALWAYS presenting - especially when it comes to business. 

Join our thriving community to get extra content, early input into my blog posts, and to share your questions, photos and video. New! Sign up for The Eloquent Woman's free monthly newsletter, Step Up Your Speaking. Ashley Merryman: On Parenting from PopTech on Vimeo . With a generous hat tip to David Murray of Vital Speeches of the Day for pointing me here , check out this Ashley Merryman speech on parenting, praise and how it influences children's ambitions.

Too many speakers and organizers just let panels happen without thinking through the content, flow, space for adjustments that need to be made in real time, and how to give the audience (in the room and outside the room on the backchannel) the information it needs and wants. Don't forget that there are other great resources for you to consult on managing the backchannel , including: Cliff Atkinson's book The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever , written after what he observed at the SXSW conference last year; and Olivia Mitchell's