It’s hard to pull off a dramatic opening when you’re nervous. So don’t get hung up on having a dramatic opening. My advice is to match your presentation opening  to your level of presentation competence and confidence. Level 1 - The Organized Opening I get frustrated at presentation advice which says you have to do something clever or dramatic at the beginning of a presentation to grab your audience’s attention. That’s for three reasons:

The Open Medium Could a simple little message distribution system like Twitter have such profound change. Twitter is the first truly open social media that I know of. Open relationships. The culture of Twitter insists on open, not closed; free not censored; share not take. The Iran protests and Twitter's hand in dramatically showing that an oppressive regime can no longer censor dissent may have changed communications forever. Ahmadinejad 's r egime thought they had shut down all social media sites and Iranian ISP's even before the election.

I often blog on the importance of open body language in giving a presentation.  0160; But no less important is openness of language.  0160; Following are 4 keys ways that people test openness of language against the ideal; fail in one of these and your audience will write you off as not forthright, or honest – and ultimately not worth listening to.  0160; Openness in Intent.   0160; As humans, we believe that actions, especially ones directed toward us, are meaningful, and we want to know the meanings.

Dimdim is an open source webconferencing service that promises to host web meetings for up to 20 people -- for free. Author Ellen Finkelstein and I were collaborating on a PowerPoint presentation design and script the other day. Ellen was in Iowa. I

Create a strong opening (in this case, using humor and interaction) to get the audience engaged quickly. The opening will take about 1 minute. Tags: Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies Openings and Closing I'm working with a client who is scheduled to give a 12-minute industry presentation on a complex topic with lots of stats and data. She also has several great stories to illustrate her topic, activities for interaction with the audience, and good ideas for images for her PowerPoint.

You know exactly how you're going to open and close your talk 4. Tags: Preparation Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies Public Speaking Anxiety Resources PowerPoint Openings and Closing Cam Beck asked me this question the other day in response to my post about your worst public speaking fear coming true : "So how do you know the difference between preparing and over-preparing?" First of all, here's what it looks like to be unprepared . Also, here's a post I wrote about how I prepare for a presentation .

Put your bio into a handout and use your opening to engage your audience, to grab their attention and let them know you're there to serve them. Tags: Public Speaking Techniques and Strategies Openings and Closing I've heard some speakers say that it's important to establish your credentials at the beginning of a presentation, so your audience knows that you're a credible expert. I say, fuhgeddaboudit.

In this third part of my series on decoding body language, I'm continuing with openness signals  from the face, head and torso.  thus people who are smiling are more likely to be open to you than people who are smile from a relaxed, natural one that is welcoming and open.   0160; Flaring nostrils are the stuff of romance romance novels and books about horses.

others’ intentions is the most basic one -- their degree of openness (or its opposite). It's the most basic, because if people are open to each other, communication can begin.  whether this person is open to you.   more wrinkles and the deeper they are, the more The first possibility to check about others’ 0160; If they are not, nothing good can happen.   

I start with a basic outline : an opening, a body with three main points (to begin with), and a closing. The story template is similar to a regular outline, but also builds a series of opening and closing slides to set the scene for the presentation. I prepare my opening and closing last, after the body feels mostly complete. I've heard many speakers say that they create their presentation at the last minute, don't practice, and basically wing it , all because they don't want to lose spontaneity. They're afraid that if they practice, they will sound rehearsed or worse,