Category: Presentation Skills

Hurricane in the Brain

7/20/2018

This week I'm working with students at an entrepreneurship camp. The week of brainstorming, idea development, and teamwork will culminate in a 7-minute pitch on Friday afternoon. Several participants have noted that when they speak in front of a large group of people they notice that they have trouble remembering what they said and did once it's over. I call that the hurricane in the brain.

What causes this inability to recall details or their presentation experience? I have a theory about this. Presenting is like juggling and the hurricane occurs when the speaker tries to juggle too many things at once. Think about all the things a public speaker needs to pay attention to: time management, body language, speaking speed and volume, working with technology, and then add presenting in a second or third language (the running chainsaw)! Add in trying to recite a memorized script in these stressful conditions and the brain can't handle all those things at once.

What can presenters do about this? One suggestion is to try to work more on understanding what your audience needs to know and then using your slides to help you deliver the content in manageable chunks. Each slide is its own chapter of your story. Also, remember that you (should) know more about your topic than your audience and your mission is to inform and/or persuade them. Focus on helping them understand your content. Concentrate on communicating clearly and efficiently with them (focusing outward) and stop thinking about all the mistakes you might make (focusing inward). Think positively before you start speaking. The audience wants you to succeed. Nobody goes to a presentation hoping the presenter will get confused and lose their confidence.

Better preparation will help reduce the disorientation that many public speakers experience. Approach your presentation will a "service mentality". You have a gift to give. If that gift is useful to the audience then you should feel good about giving it. Your presentation is an opportunity as much as you might consider it a threat. It's all about the way you choose to approach it.

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A Lesson for Teaching Impromptu Speaking Skills

7/5/2018

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One of the topics I didn't go into in my book on how to teacher presentation skills is how to teach impromptu speaking skills. Most of the formal presentations you and your students will give will be planned out and rehearsed (well, hopefully). However, there are times when you are called upon to stand in front of a group of people and share your experience or just "say a few words".

One example of this was when I was representing KOTESOL at a conference in Russia and was asked to come to the front and say a few words about the conference that KOTESOL would be hosting the next year. No warning, no time to prepare, just get up there, smile, and wing it. This situation can even throw experienced presenters for a loop. No PowerPoint slides to fall back on, to time limits to base our amount of content on, just freestyling it in front a room of your peers.

The biggest problem that occurs in this situation is that we revert back to all out bad public speaking habits. We forget to make strong eye contact with different parts of the room. We lose track of what our hands are doing. We forget that most audiences want to hear less, not more, so we ramble on and on with no organization to our thoughts.

It's good to give students the opportunity to experience what it's like to be called on to speak in front of a group without being able to sufficiently prepare. I do this with my students in three stages.

Stage 1
In groups of three or four students, I give them a personal topic such as their hobby or favorite restaurant (listed on a PowerPoint slide) and give them three minutes to prepare and then one minute each to speak. I use the timer on my phone to keep track of the time and the beeping means the time is up. The students can stay for this stage seated but they need to adjust their chair so that they can easily see all of their group members. All of the group members talk about their experience with the same topic.

Stage 2
This time I give them a new topic and only give them one minute to prepare. The talking time is 45 seconds. I usually have them stand up for this stage. Be sure to start with a different group member this time.

Stage 3
This time they will not be given any prep time and the speaking time is 30 seconds. The twist is that when it's time for the second presenter, I change the topic. For this round, every student has a new topic. *evil laughter*

It's important to explain to your students the difference between high-stakes and low-stake presentations. They won't lose their jobs if they mess up in your class. Your classroom needs to be a safe space where students view a bad presentation as a learning experience and not something that will damage their reputation or harm their grade (when it's for practice). If you can get your students to relax and look at the class as an opportunity and not a threat, this activity will be both practical and empowering for your students. Best of all, it can be done in less than thirty minutes. Good luck!

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Presentation Skills that Teachers Should Display

10/1/2017

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Fall is a busy academic conference season and while I don't plan to attend any conferences this month, I do have some fond memories of presenting and networking at conferences in Vladivostok, Taipei, Shizuoka, and Seoul in Octobers past. I have attended some great sessions at these events but it's always the bad talks that tend to stand out in my mind and I think it's because I can't understand how an educator can have such poor presentation skills. We do this every day!

Let's take a look at 10 basic presentation skills and how they fit into classroom teaching, yet sometimes become forgotten during a conference presentation.

1. Eye contact/eye rotation

Teachers need to look at their students. We need to build a connection with them and establish trust. This is difficult to do if we aren't looking them in the eye. We also need to maintain control of the class, watching to see who might be dozing off, checking their phones a little too long, or getting ready to cause a disturbance. The longer we teach, the more natural it becomes to rotate our line of sight through the different areas of the class. Front-middle, back-right, back-middle, back-left, front-left, etc. Everyone in the audience needs to feel like you are speaking directly to them and making eye contact is a critical aspect of that.

2. Not turning to talk to the screen

I understand that speaking in a new environment can be daunting and, as a teacher, you might be used to being able to look at your computer's monitor when using a PowerPoint deck with your lesson but there are several reasons why a speaker shouldn't have to turn around so often and stare at the projector screen. First, you shouldn't have so many words on the slide that you need to read from them. Second, you should know more about the topic than the audience. Just talk to them about the content of your lesson/talk. Finally, you are supposed to be speaking TO your audience and you can't do that with your back turned to them.

3. Speaking volume/microphone awareness

While many classroom teachers may not have classes big enough to merit using a microphone, they should be used to speaking at a volume so the students in the back row can hear them comfortably. The same thing applies when speaking at a conference. For larger venues where a microphone is needed, be sure not to let the microphone drop if you are holding it or turn away from a fixed-position microphone to look behind you at the screen.

4. Speaking speed

Teachers who teach native speakers can more or less be excused for this one but teachers who teach English (or any language) to second language speakers should be used to speaking slowly and monitoring their vocabulary levels. We need to be aware of these key delivery elements when speaking at conferences as there will often be a variety of English listening abilities among our audience members.

5. Appropriate use of visuals

Whether we are using pictures in a textbook, from supplemental texts, off the internet, or in a PPT, the purpose of our visuals is to show so we don't have to try to tell something and have our students imagine it. Similarly, in a conference presentation, we want to reserve space on our slides for photos, data, and key words to help the audience understand what we are trying to explain. The speaker can then focus on providing explanations and details to compliment the visuals.

6. Familiarization with tech

The first time many teachers got a TV in their rooms with a computer connected to it, hilarity must have ensued. I'm sure half the time it was a student who showed the teacher how to push the TV/AV button on the remote control to change the input from the TV received to the computer. Hopefully, that was a valuable lesson to check the tech before class starts. In any case, it is not uncommon to see conference speakers bomb because they didn't check in advance to see if the internet was connected, whether their video would play without installing additional programs, if there were speakers in the room, or a number of other potential technical issues that could happen during their talk.

7. Hooking

Good teachers explain to their students WHY they are covering certain material or undertaking a given activity. Telling students how learning or experiencing something could benefit them later in their academic career or after they graduate can increase student motivation and reduce the likelihood of bad/distracted behavior. Conference speakers should also start with a hook, explaining how the content is relevant to the audience and could benefit them when they go back to work.

8. Energy/enthusiasm

I often tell participants in my teacher training workshops that I'm glad they are now able to remember what it's like to be stuck on the other side of the classroom for hours at a time. The best situations are when there are multiple trainers and I ask them to compare and contrast the sessions. Invariably, the "best" trainers had a high energy level and were "passionate" about their topics. If that is what you prefer as an audience member, wouldn't you strive to appear that way when you are in front of the room?

9. Time management

I still talk with some of my friends about the time the plenary speaker "stole our lunch". He was the speaker just before the lunch break and kept talking until 12:15 which meant people didn't hit the restaurants down the street until 12:20 at the earliest. The long lines meant many people were late getting back to the 1pm sessions, all because this "experienced" conference speaker couldn't (or wouldn't) keep track of his time. In his defense, he did appear to be an ivory tower academic more than a humble classroom instructor but surely he had spent years in the classroom prior to that. As teachers, we are always checking the clock to see how long we can let an activity go on and making sure we save a few minutes at the end of class for reminders and questions. For some reason, at a conference that skill can fly right out the window.

10. Q&A

Speaking of questions, are we not used to asking for questions at the end of an activity or class? Surely we have developed delaying tactics and the awareness to discern a general question that everyone would be interested in from a specific question that sounds like something we should discuss with that one student after class. Granted, at some conferences, Q&A sessions can be a minefield and a few attendees will want to make your session all about them but a confident, seasoned teacher should be able to manage the room and put arrogant or socially-inept audience members in their place.

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Putting the Wow Before the How

4/21/2017

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As much as I enjoy working as a communications consultant, I miss working with students. Most of my clients these days are researchers and civil servants. I feel fortunate to work with chemistry students in one of the labs at KAIST twice a month and I enjoyed meeting the students who attended the materials science symposium that I emceed in Osaka earlier this week. In both cases I noticed the same thing; students are not proficient at "selling" their research outcomes.

Now let me be clear, I am not blaming their professors for this. There are only so many hours in a day and professors have full plates. Between conducting and writing up their own research, planning and giving lectures, and mentoring their students' research projects they are insanely busy. Add in departmental meetings, reams of bureaucratic paperwork that need to be filled out, and applying for grants I'm surprised they have time to tuck their kids into bed at night.

So if professors are too busy, whose job is it to teach students (and junior researchers for that matter) how to explain their poster presentations efficiently and maximize the time they are given to speak during general sessions at conferences? Too often they are unable to organize their content in a way that clearly explains the problem they were attempting to solve, the solution they tried, the outcome that justified creating the poster or applying for the speaking slot, and only then explaining how they accomplished it.

Two recent examples come to mind and I will use these stories often when coaching young scientists. The first case is from the chemistry lab students. One of the graduate students was practicing his 10-minute presentation on a fairly significant breakthrough. He found a way to conduct a test that previous took ten seconds and now could be accomplished in one tenth of second. Wow, right? The problem was that he waited until the end of the talk to tell the audience what we had achieved. We all waited patiently while he explained the background of the test and the procedures he went through. Slides and slides of charts and tables were shown without telling the audience why we should care. It was a textbook example of "burying the lead". He shared all of the methodology before he got to the results (like he would in a journal article).

Similarly, one of the poster presenters in Osaka was unable to give an elevator pitch for her experiment's results. I asked her to give me the 15-second version of her research and she looked at me like I was speaking Greek (her English was pretty good, so that was not the problem). I then asked her to briefly tell me the problem, what she did, and what the outcome was so I could decide if I wanted to hear how she did it or not. There was a professor emeritus standing behind me as I said this. I pointed to him and explained that he was a busy guy who didn't have time to hear the details of everyone's poster. He needed to know what the achievement was to help him decide if he wanted to hear more. He nodded and said that was correct. "Time is money," he agreed. I think she got what I was trying to emphasize because she came over to my table at the closing banquet to say thank you for the advice. No one had explained that to he before.

It's not fair to generalize and say that Korean students, or Japanese students, or science and engineering students don't know how to sell their research because I'm not sure any students are being mentored on how best to share their research outcomes at conferences and symposiums. Perhaps it's like putting together one's first Western-style CV; you see someone else's CV that you like and change their info to yours. Students should watch other presentations and take note of organization styles that help them get the most out of what is being said and shown. In a perfect world students would be taught ways to share their work with international audiences more clearly and efficiently but for now I'll summarize it into one key tip: "Put the WOW before the HOW."

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Upgrading from a "Not Bad" to a "Good" Presenter

10/30/2016

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Let's be honest, if you attend professional conferences regularly you've seen your fair share of bad presentations. By now, if the presenter makes a little bit of eye contact and doesn't speak in monotone while reading a slew of text-filled slides you leave thinking, "Hey, that wasn't bad." Seriously, "not bad" is the new "good" but this may not be enough for some public speakers. They want to improve their skills and become legitimately "good". Here are some suggestions for taking your presentation skills to the next level.

Many seasoned presenters will suggest observing other presenters. I give this advice as well but to really shine try referencing a point made by a speaker from earlier in the day (especially a plenary talk that many of your audience members attended) in your talk. This shows flexibility on your part and makes your talk feel current. It also doesn't hurt to name drop or give a little shout out if that person happens to be attending your talk.

Next, share your personal stories. Scientists often keep their presentations dry and fact based. Why not talk to the audience members about how you failed, what you learned from failing, and then how that led to you trying something that turned out to be the breakthrough you are presenting on today? Your scientific/academic talk doesn't have to come across like a TED Talk but it will stand out in the crowd when everyone else is turning their backs to the audience and reading the stats off their PowerPoints.

Speaking of slides, it can be hard to predict the size of the room you will be presenting in and the size of the screen your slides will be projected onto so avoid small fonts whenever you can. The best way to accomplish this is to reduce the number of words on each slide. Remember, slides are free. You can break up sections of your talk over a number of slides. On a side note, if your slide desk has a large number of slides, don't include the total number of slides in the slide footer (ie: 1/89). Doing that can really damage the audience's motivation to listen to your talk as it will feel longer than it really is.

Another way to lose the audience is to overuse the word "I". The best presenters enjoy presenting and ego plays a big part in that but step back and listen to yourself telling your story. If you feel you are starting too many sentences with "I", trying editing a few sentences using the examples below.
I discovered that the algae required more sunlight in the winter. ---> It was interesting to discover that the algae required more sunlight in the winter. OR We were excited to discover that the algae required more sunlight in the winter. OR It turns out that that the algae required more sunlight in the winter.

Finally, make every effort to finish your presentation on time. Newer presenters will be tempted to skip their last few slides to accomplish this but doing that can frustrate your audience. I mean, you went to all the trouble to make those slides and now you consider them unimportant? Summarize the key point or "takeaway" from each slide in about ten seconds when you notice you are running low on time. When you finish your presentation you make your final impression and it can leave a strong impression on the audience. By finishing on time (or, God forbid, a little early) you demonstrate your preparedness, your consideration of the audience's time, and are able to slow down and really focus on tying everything together and selling your talk's takeaways. This also allows ample time for the audience to ask a question or two.

The next time you find yourself attending a conference, watch for presenters utilizing these tips and I'll bet you will find yourself nodding and thinking, "Hey, that was pretty good."

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Presentation Skills Tips

10/24/2016

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Here are 52 presentation skills tips to help you and your students give better presentations. To learn more about these tips, contact me about scheduling a presentation skills workshop at your school or office. Email: archerengcon@gmail.com

Pre-talk preparation

Observe other presenters. Use mannerisms and slide designs that you like. Avoid doing things you don’t like.
The most successful presentations have a goal and a theme.
Prepare your talk with a target audience in mind.
Make sure your vocabulary level and speaking speed matches that audience.
Establish a halfway point for your talk so you can check how you are managing your time.
Be prepared to shorten your talk due to circumstances beyond your control.
Finishing early is better than finishing late. Don’t hold the audience hostage.
Prezi is awesome, once. Do you need to use tricks to keep the audience’s attention?
Demo high-stakes presentation in low-stakes environments.

On-site preparation

Arrive early to familiarize yourself with the venue and equipment and greet early arriving audience members.
Tell the audience if you want them to hold their questions until the end or mute their phones.
Make sure your speaking volume and font sizes are suitable for audience members in the back of the room.
Control your breathing and try to slow down your speaking speed at the start of your talk.
Give a complete introduction (greeting, introduce yourself, announce your topic, and hook the audience).
You should hook the audience at the beginning. Give them a selfish reason to listen.
Don’t predict or draw attention to your mistakes.

Attitude/Nerves

You can choose to enjoy public speaking or dread it (like riding a roller coaster).
Your confidence level rises when you have something valuable to give the audience.
The audience wants you to succeed. What are you afraid of?
Find friendly faces in the audience.

Technology

Have a copy of your materials online and on a USB in addition to printed copies.
Don’t let your handheld microphone drop or turn away from a podium microphone.
Don’t trust technology. Test the tech but have a Plan B.
Buy your own PPT remote control.
Know what the F5 key does.

Delivery

Watch the audience watching you. Make sure they understand you and respond to their non-verbal cues.
Rotate your eye contact around different areas of the audience and try to build a connection with as many of the attendees as possible.
Try not to turn your back to the audience.
Energy/enthusiasm can compensate for dry content.
Use your nervous energy to increase your enthusiasm.
Pause confidently Utilize “thoughtful pauses”.
Always move with a purpose. Don’t let your movements distract the audience.
Don’t stand in the projector light.
Stay flexible. No one knows what you are planning to say.

Content

Make sure your cover slide includes your presentation title, your name, and your affiliation. Your job title can also be added if it improves your credibility.
Slides show and the presenter tells. Utilize your visuals effectively.
Let your slides guide you through the organization of your content so you can focus on telling your story.
Use clear signposts. Let the audience know when you are moving to a new section.
Animate busy slides. The visuals should match your story as you are telling it.
Slides are free. You don’t have to put too much info on one slide.
Having too many words on a slide leads to reading the slide.
One typo can ruin your credibility.
Avoid writing text over photos/colorful backgrounds.
Don’t play music or videos and try to talk over them.
Don’t skip slides, even if you are running low on time. Summarize their key points briefly.
Handouts are not the same as slides. Handouts should be text-heavy, slides text-light.
Finish strong with takeaways from your talk and an action step.
Your final slide should let the audience know how to contact you.

Q&A

Keep backup data for Q&A on slides after your contact slide.
If you don’t have the data requested during Q&A, offer to send the person who asked an email after the presentation.
Offer to stay after the talk and chat with audience members who have very specific or personal issues to discuss. Don’t waste the general audience’s time.
Watch out for “hijackers” and audience members seeking the spotlight.

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Twenty Presentation Skills Tips

2/28/2016

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I spent last Thursday and Friday working with professionals from the nuclear and telecommunications industries. Thursday was lecture-based and an opportunity to share tips, suggestions, theory, and some personal stories to help the participants understand audience members' expectations for a successful presentation. On Friday the participants gave short presentation samples and received feedback.

Here are twenty tips based on Friday's observations:

Don't
1. Don't wait until you have been introduced to install/start your PowerPoint. You are already "on camera" at this point. Be ready to begin when everyone is looking at you.

2. Don't make excuses or apologize at the beginning of your presentation. It sets a negative tone.

3. Don't leave out the hook (the benefit of your content to the audience) in your introduction or save it until the end when it's too late to catch the audience's attention.

4. Don't voice your pauses. The audience will wait. Ummms and errrrs show audience that you are pausing. Pause with thoughtful confidence.

5. Don't make quick, jerky movements. Move smoothly and with a purpose. Slow down.

6. Stand or walk in front of the screen. You want to be "in the spotlight", not in the projector light.

Do
7. Bring energy and enthusiasm to your presentation. Turn your nervous energy into a powerful opening.

8. Make your introductions as efficient as possible. Time is money. Don't waste too much time before getting started on your topic talking about unrelated things.

9. Angle your body to face the audience even if the podium doesn't face them directly.

10. Familiarize yourself with the technology in the room. Know how to use remote controls, light switches, thermostats, projector and screen controls, etc. before your presentation begins.

11. Decide whether you will need to use a microphone in advance and make sure you speak directly into the microphone at all times if you are using one.

12. Explain technical words and abbreviations if you are speaking to a general audience. You might not be able to use your first language (ex. Korean) with audiences at international conferences so prepare in advance how to explain these terms as simply as possible using English.

13. Consider using handouts in place of wordy slides. Handouts are easier to read and can be useful after the conference is over. Also, be sure to make more than enough copies.

14. Turn down the lights in the front of the room to make it easier for audience members to read your slides (especially those with smaller font sizes).

15. Give a hat tip to presenters from earlier sessions who had a topic similar to yours. Recognize the similarity and briefly explain how you presentation will be different.

16. Conclude with an action step or reminder of the takeaway you want the audience to leave with.

17. Be sure you have a conclusion/contact information slide so you don't accidentally go to the black PowerPoint ending screen.

18. Predict what kinds of questions audience members might ask. One of the most common question types is "Why did you X, and not Y?".

19. Have a plan for how to avoid answering questions that are off topic or too specific for one audience member. Offer to speak with them personally after the presentation or send them an email. Stay in control.

20. Finish a little early instead of a little late. The audience will appreciate you for it.

Many of the areas for improvement that I noticed in Friday's workshop were the same ones that I observed while teaching presentation skills to university students. Presentation skills are similar to athletic or musical skills in that theory can be helpful but practice is needed to see real improvement.

If your school or organization would like to schedule a workshop to improve participants' presentation skills, please contact me at archerengcon@gmail.com.

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Presentation Tips for Managers

11/6/2014

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Conferences and symposiums are great places to learn about what is happening in one's field and strengthen our professional networks. Unfortunately, both plenary and concurrent sessions have a poor reputation at these events due to the lack of presentation skills and preparation by the speakers. Simply put, no one enjoys sitting through a lousy presentation.

Recently I was asked to help a department head at one of the government institutes in Daejeon prepare for her 20-minute talk in China at an international conference for leaders in her field. We worked together for three hours and I was excited about the improvements in her presentation's content, organization, and visuals. When she returned we met for a cup of coffee and she told me that the president of the organization referenced her talk during the closing ceremony, drawing praise from her institute's president and resulting in immense satisfaction for her and the desire to present again in the near future. It wasn't rocket science that we used to help craft a talk that was both clear and useful to the conference attendees and resonated strongly enough that the organization's president referred to it during his closing remarks.

Here are some of the tips I suggested:

1. Connect your topic to the audience

The department head was talking about better communication with the public but the audience was mainly engineers. She needed to find a way to convince them that communication with people outside the institute was not only the job of the public relations department. She used the example of having a drink in a bar and someone asking where they worked. Whether you are a scientist in the field of satellite technology, nuclear safety, or automotive design people will have questions about your industry and it is to your advantage to know how to answer them.

2. Have a clear, unified message

Twenty minutes isn't a lot of time when you have a lot to say. You won't finish in time if you try to go into too much detail or give too many examples. We cut a lot out of her presentation and were able to focus on the best examples and most relevant information. Attendees left her talk with her key takeaways clearly in the front of their minds. Mission accomplished.

3. Show, don't tell

Pictures, charts, and graphs work better than sentences on your slides. Pictures quickly and easily impart your message. She used a photo of people inside an airplane to connect the audience to her message since most attendees flew to the conference and then a picture of the cockpit controls to demonstrate that it is possible to enjoy the flight without understanding the technology actually used to fly the plane. Even the attendees with weaker English skills understand her message clearly.

4. Keep your text slides simple

Slides are free. Each slide needs to have a purpose but should not contain all the information you wish to convey. If all of the content is on the slide then why are you there. The audience can read the slide faster than you can read it aloud and will be reading ahead if the slide is particularly wordy and, thus, not listening to you. Animate slides with multiple sections or use more than one slide and add a heading.

5. Finish a little early

If your talk is 20 minutes, it's better to finish in 16 minutes than 24 minutes. I don't know any conference attendees who complain that they had too much time to talk to a colleague, grab a cup of coffee, or run to the restroom. Finishing early leaves time for Q&A or an extended break time. Finishing late throws the entire day's schedule into disarray and makes you look both selfish and unprofessional.

6. Finish strong

A good presentation includes an action step at the end whether the goal is informative or persuasive. If you presentation truly offered valuable information for your audience's needs your action step can suggest ways for them to use it or directions for learning more about it now that their interest has been piqued. Don't forget to add a slide at the end that includes your contact information or links to the resources that you mentioned in your action step. You can also go back to an image that you used at the beginning of the talk to bring the message full circle. The black screen at the end of a PowerPoint slide show tells the audience that you thought there might be something else and forget that there wasn't. That demonstrates poor preparation on your part and can damage your reputation.

***

By keeping your audience and their needs firmly in your mind, you can turn a below-average speech into a winning presentation. Remember that when you speak in public you are not only representing yourself in a professional capacity but your organization and often your country as well. Leave your audience better equipped to succeed in their field at the end of your presentation and they will thank you for it.

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Hurricane in the Brain

A Lesson for Teaching Impromptu Speaking Skills

Presentation Skills that Teachers Should Display

Putting the Wow Before the How

Upgrading from a "Not Bad" to a "Good" Presenter

Presentation Skills Tips

Twenty Presentation Skills Tips

Presentation Tips for Managers

Tim's Thoughts

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