by Olivia Mitchell | Content, Presentation research
Presentation experts extol the power of telling stories in presentations. A recent Scientific American “The Secrets of Storytelling” explores why stories are so powerful. It looks at three theories from the fascinating field of evolutionary psychology....
by Olivia Mitchell | Content, Presentation research
In your business presentations, you may be tempted to stick to hard, proven facts and statistics to persuade your audience. But a powerful anecdote can trump objective facts. The power of the anecdote 1. Vaccinations and autism A recent Scientific American article by...
by Olivia Mitchell | Delivery, Presentation research
Why is it, that when you’re speaking in front of a group you suddenly become aware of these great clumsy appendages at the end of your arms – your hands? Why do you suddenly wonder what to do about them? Gesturing is natural In normal one-to-one...
by Olivia Mitchell | Powerpoint, Presentation research
The more concrete and specific you make your words, the more persuasive you will be to your audience. The same applies to the pictures you show. Recent research backs this up. Students were given short fictional news stories to read: One story claimed that watching TV...
by Olivia Mitchell | Content, Presentation research
In my last post I wrote about the attention-getting myth. I argued that the idea that you have to grab attention at the beginning of a presentation is a myth. Here’s the evidence to back that up. Studies have been done measuring the attention levels of students...