Blog posts on Delivery
How to go from good presenter to great presenter
There is one thing that will take you from being a good presenter to becoming a great presenter. I've recently returned from 5 weeks travelling overseas. The first week back in New Zealand we ran a one-day presentation skills course. This is routine stuff for me. I've...
9 ways to use space in your presentation
There are many benefits to movement in a presentation: It adds energy and variety to your presentation. It makes you look more confident - because people who are nervous are generally frozen in one spot. And as an added bonus, if you move, you may start to feel more...
How to give a great presentation the hundredth time
I recently heard New York choreographer Mark Morris being interviewed on the radio. He talked about making a dance performance fresh and exciting - however much it's been rehearsed and performed. What he said is particularly relevant to presenters who present the same...
How to create authenticity – the inside-out approach
Be authentic, be yourself - that's the advice of most public speaking and presentation experts. But what if your authentic self is not a particularly engaging presenter? And can you coach someone else to be a more engaging presenter and authentic at the same time? The...
You can learn to be a better presenter
Barack Obama is well-known for his speaking skills. But it was not always that way. Here are some comments on Barack Obama from his early days in politics: From Time magazine: [Obama's] delivery was stiff and professorial--"more Harvard than Chicago," said an adviser...
Business presentations – don’t take performance too far
Is a business presentation like a performance? I believe we often take the comparison too far. Garr Reynolds has often noted that the similarities between the presenting and performing and in a post on Benjamin Zander, comments: We often talk about presentations being...
Are you missing out on half the power of your PowerPoint slides?
If you use your PowerPoint slides as your notes, you're missing out on half the power of your slides. To make the most of them, dance with your slides. Dancing with the slides means that you and your slides are partners in creating the presentation experience for your...
The three benefits of gesturing – it’s not what you think
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 conversation you never...
Unlearning presenting
In my last post I wrote about conversational presenting. Conversational presenting builds on the skills most of us already have and use in normal day-to-day conversations. But for many of us, conversational presenting is hard. That used to be the case for me. I was in...
Conversational Presenting
It's easier to listen to somebody when they're speaking in a conversational manner. This is intuitive but also backed up by research by Richard Mayer and others (there's a nice summary of the research at the Creating Passionate Users blog). Research by Mayer showed...
