Nope.

Webinars tend to be passive, informational data dumps, which (surprise!) don’t get our audience members excited. They’re being used more and more frequently for virtual training and orientation programs, but if the listeners aren’t ingesting the content, what’s the point? No matter what you call them (webinar, virtual meeting) or what platform you use (GoToMeeting, Lync Online, WebEx) here are 4 best practices to keep in mind:

1. Hold interest

• Keep the presentation slides moving. More than a few minutes on one slide causes a massive dip in attention (which you can usually track in your webinar toolbox). No one needs to see the same agenda or fiscal results for an hour, so keep it going.
• Use engaging visual slides. Garr Reynolds is well renowned for his easy-to-implement slide tips — take a look.

2. Direct

• Why are you having this webinar? We’ve all sat through an informational webinar with no real point or direction. Spare your audience this fate and let them know not just what info you’re dishing, but why they should care.
• Think through who is listening and why. What do you want them to know, understand, or do? What is their call to action? What do they get from being a participant? These may seem obvious, but lay it out for your listeners — you can’t assume they see the value.

3. Interact

• Don’t make it a one-person show. Get clients, customers, stellar sales reps, and others on your team involved in the presentation by having them present a few slides, offer an example or short story, or give a quick interview. This will limit multitasking and continue to help keep interest high.
• Use polling, Q&A, chat rooms, and other functions available in your webinar toolbox. Often, no one wants to be the sole voice to unmute and ask a question, so give your listeners other ways to engage. If you have more than 10 people participating, consider getting a producer to help you manage the interactions and keep things running smoothly.

4. Push energy

• Show energy through your voice. You may have created the most influential PowerPoint in history, but to keep your audience’s attention, you need to pay attention to your delivery. Project volume, smile, move around, and gesture because they’ll hear the energy. If you sound like you care about the content, they’re more likely to care. All they have of you (other than your words) is your voice, so use it to keep them focused.

Ultimately, you need to think about communication experience you are creating. Sure, people should pay attention because the webinar information you’re doling out is important, but they won’t if they’re bored. It’s your responsibility as the presenter to keep them with you.

Please share your thoughts on these tips, or your own best practices!

Use descriptive titles on your slides.

Quite often these days, on top of having a slide deck to support you while presenting live, you’re also expected to have a living, breathing slideument; it’ll be emailed around, forwarded, and likely read by someone who never heard you present the information!

How will these email readers know what you meant? Use descriptive titles.

Yank out titles that don’t give a clue as to what’s on the slide. Call out the key point, instead of leaving it open to interpretation.

Examples to strengthen your titles:

Weak → Strong

Redefining Data Requirements → Have your data at the right time, in the right format.

Usability Principles → Usability is unique to your business.

Conclusion → Adopting this standardization process is key for Q4.

Have any of you tried this yet? Let us know below and we’ll work with you on it!

Follow this link to more posts and tips for effective slides.

With all the recent emphasis on the design of your PowerPoints (Keynote for the Mac), it’s time to revisit the fact that your visuals are NOT your presentation. You and your Point of View are the centerpiece. I think that the emphasis on PowerPoints (we’ll call them PP for brevity) is because 2008 WAS a great year for great design with the publication of Garr Reynolds’ book “Presentation Zen” and Nancy Duarte’s “slide:ology” (both still best sellers on Amazon.) Make no mistake that having powerful and visual support materials is critical to your impact. But it’s still your impact – it’s not a PP.

Keep in mind that we’re talking here about in-person presentations, not PP ‘decks’ that are designed to be used as a written report. Also, many major conferences think ‘decks’ when they ask their speakers to send in their PowerPoints in advance. Why? They are NOT their presentation! (This just happened to me, and I did it because the client IS the client. But it misses the point of the experience.)

Unfortunately we find that in about 95% of the cases for most speakers in business today their PP’s are the centerpiece of their message. They create their content around their PP’s, rather than figuring out what they want to say, and then using PP’s, (and videos, and exercises, and SHARP’s, etc.) to SUPPORT their presentation.

When it comes to persuasive impact in our communications, it is not through technology, but only with it. YOU are always the centerpiece of your presentation, and no graphically dazzling slide should ever replace you. Nor Twitter stream for that matter.

With all the advances in technology, we must continuously emphasize the critical importance of human confidence in the delivery as well as in the tools of delivery – the primary tool being yourself. With greater “high tech” we need a corresponding increase in “high touch.” Think of using videos – embed them in your PPs. And experiment with a live Twitter stream – this can be distracting in a more formal speech but is great for tech/breakout/collaborative sessions. And remember that with this advanced technology and the many more options available for visual support, your confidence and control as the centerpiece has to be even more skilled.

Think of Steve Jobs and why his presentations are so powerful. (He led our Top Ten Communicators of 2005 list, even before the famous iPhone announcement, and was on the list most years since.) While he uses elegantly simple slides and perfectly timed and executed demos, he remains the center of the presentation. Often, (as at the top of the screen here) he will completely clear the screen (using a black slide – that’s the way to do it) to keep the audience’s attention on his energy, on his enthusiasm, and on his words. Not the PowerPoint’s. (Or Keynote’s in this case.)

Remembering that you are the presentation, develop visuals that enhance your point of view. After all, visuals are important:

• “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Cicero
• 55% of likability – critical component of trust – comes through the visual behavior of the speaker Mehrabian
• A 500% average increase in retention occurs when visuals are used in a presentation
• 83% of what we know is learned by seeing and observing

For your own personal and visual impact, see yourself on video. And
when you get to support, for great tips on presentation design, check
out Garr Reynold’s blog Presentation Zen and Nancy Duarte’s blog slide:ology.

Always keep in mind that you are your most important visual aid.
Train yourself first so that you have a confidence that never quits in
the face of new technology. And then add great design.

Nancy Duarte at Apple Store

So the Flip Video came out – and it works great for a very small (iPod size) video camera of adequate quality that you can immediately edit and put up on YouTube. Here's an example – my first shot.

And Nancy was great – overcoming a lot of background noise and distractions at a busy downtown Apple Store. Here is Nancy with her first key point, on the importance of Telling Great Stories.

She had terrific slides of course, but even moreso was her great content (Dru took some notes as I was busy with Flip Video):

1. Tell Great Stories – she illustrated with visuals that ALSO told the great stories by themselves.
2. Reach Beyond Projection – a presentation can be slides – projected, but she told also of the many other varieties, from decks (the written) to on the web, to PDA plus devices – where you can interact, collaborate, and view. In other words, the world of presentation is a new world.
3. Show Don't Tell – and here she gave a great example of a Garr Reynolds' presentation on SlideShare.
4. Create a Profound Experience – unusual was a chart of visual storytelling that looked for the conflict and resolution. Nancy said to identify those points in a preso where you want people to be conflicted, for conflict generates emotion generates action.

Dru Scott also bought a few more copies of Slide:ology. That deserved an iPhone picture.

The Flip Video was OK, but the quality isn't great when you have poor sound and a screen as background. For a longer and higher quality view of Nancy, you might try this interview.

Other tidbits:

• Nancy said to use high quality images – they evoke credibility, and Duarte Design spends over $150,000 a year on images!
• Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds have changed the process of creating and presenting in less than a year with their influence, blogs, and particularly their wonderful and complimentary books Slide:ology and Presentation Zen. Both books are in the top 100 at Amazon already. Amazing.
• Twitter, Tribes (also in the top 100 at Amazon) and Technology are changing the face of communicating. (At least task and relationship communicating – nothing will ever replace 'face to face'…)
• The video revolution continues. Flip Video costs $179 and enables anyone to immediately shoot and edit and be able to use videos in their PowerPoints, blog posts, YouTube or devices. And video is the BEST way to capture emotion to influence to action in a very short time.

This book about presentation design is about much more than that, and I recommend you run right out and get it (or rather log on to Amazon and buy it where it is already, amazingly, in the top 100, and also in it’s second printing).

This is an outstanding book for YOU for three primary reasons:

1. It is brilliantly written and designed
2. It is a concept book that is about life as well as presenting your ideas
3. It is also a how-to book, and one we will be giving out to our key clients

Read on for the details…

1. This is a beautiful book, brilliantly written. Garr designed it as well as wrote it, and he put it
together like a great in-person presentation. Presentation Zen uses:

• Stories, beginning each chapter and sprinkled throughout. I loved his opening about the ‘aha’ moment with the Bento on the Super Express train from Tokyo to Osaka.
• Visuals, probably the best you’ve seen in a published book – not only beautiful but relevant. Look at Mt. Fuji hovering over the Super Express on page 4. More importantly, look at the beautiful PowerPoint visuals that are sprinkled throughout.
• Concepts, many new ideas and reframing many important ideas. Yes, he of course details why PowerPoints are abused in almost all business presentations, but he shows how slides and visuals can be used in new ways.
• Authenticity, his own voice is personal and powerful. Much like his great blog at www.presentationzen.com, which is the most popular blog on presentations.
• Aha’s, the moments of insight that are plentiful are also delightful. Like in Chapter 2 on Creativity Garr reveals in several ways how structure gives birth to creativity.
• Sharing the Wealth, where we hear from outstanding other voices like Guy Kawasaki, Dan Pink, Nancy Duarte, Chip Heath, Brenda Ueland and Seth Godin – all blended into the one voice of the book.

2. This is a concept book. In a way it was hard to read since I wanted to go fast so I could review it, but I wanted to dwell on the ideas and the visuals and the layout and analyze it. Yes, it will take several readings, and will be a reference book for all good presenters:

• 
  Garr Reynolds gets it right. From the outset he lays out what is wrong with PowerPoints and what we call "information vs. influence" and Chip and Dan Heath call the "curse of knowledge." Garr explains it, and what to do about it.
• His contents are in three sections: Preparation, Design and Delivery
• His three key concepts are: Clarity, Simplicity and Naturalness
• In Preparation, he uses similar concepts that we teach about getting out of analytical, logical and digital mode and into organic, creative and analog mode. Don’t start at the computer in your PowerPoints, start with your Focus (or Point Of View as we say in the Decker Grid) and getting your ideas on post-its in a brainstorm session.
• In Design, he is a master – you have to read the book and see the pictures.I don’t know a lot about design so I learned a lot.
• In Delivery, he stresses being natural. I would have emphasized the importance of confidence and behavior more – but of course that’s our area of expertise. And who’s to quibble with a masterpiece. That’s like saying Tiger Woods is not the greatest golfer because he only won three of four Majors. (No one has ever won all four.)

3. This is a "How-To" book. On top of all of the above, this is one of the best teaching books on presentations that there is, and belongs on every bookshelf. Since it emphasizes PowerPoint (and Keynote of course) design and business presentations, naturally it will make the biggest impact if that’s your presentation venue. But if you are a doctor, media personality, non-profit leader, pastor, musician or just a regular old person (since we all speak,) this is a book from which you can gain a lot of inspiration and information. And you will enjoy reading it. Here’s Amazon to save you time…

THE BEST

1. Gov. Mike Huckabee – What but for communicating would get a presidential candidate so far so fast?

A few months ago Huckabee was almost an unknown. Now he is a front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination, and“ probably the fastest rise ever from relative obscurity to the cover of the weekly newsmagazines. Governor Huckabee is open in style, authentic, natural and amazingly great at thinking (and speaking) on his feet. He tells stories, and connects with people. (See more detail here.) Powerful tools when you have to build trust and credibility visually, quickly and mostly through TV. And powerful tools for a leader. Although he has a conservative constituency, they alone could not get him this far this fast. It is his communicating.

2. Dr. Mehmet Oz – He became "America’s Doctor" in one short year, because of his communications (and Oprah of course.)

He is a unique personality, fast eyes, crisp words forcefully put – when he talks about alcohol he says œhangover with a hard G. The communication experience he delivers is a man of the people – trusted by the people. He makes a good case for Dress & Appearance – always in surgical scrubs when on Oprah. He is able to synthesize complex health/medical discussions into something tangible – he talks at our level. Add to that straightforward and down to earth advice, funny and real – you have a real (and media) superstar.

3. Al Gore – even if he hadn’t won the Academy Award, Al Gore would get the communicator’s comeback of the year award.

In a few short years he transformed himself as a speaker by becoming open vs closed, vulnerable vs. distant, fluid vs. stiff. He worked at it, and even though he did not ‘invent the internet,’ he did invent ‘global warming.’ Or his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ gave it the exposure to get in the popular vernacular. But it was Gore himself as narrator of the film who did the job (with a little help from our friends at Duarte Design (see Best Communicators #9 for the importance of visual support in communicating.) Some people think Al Gore deserves the Presidency. I don’t know about that, but he does deserve his many awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize and a top communicator of the year. Who would have thunk it?

4. Ben Zander -“ this great musical conductor is not only brilliant, he is one of the most sought after speakers on the ‘circuit.’

Contrary to popular belief, there really is no ‘speaking circuit,’ as groups and organizations hire speakers very independently. But if there was one, Ben Zander would be the darling. He speaks on leadership, teamwork and creativity in an original style, yet he is a world-renown musician and conductor. A master at creativity

- he expresses himself with reckless abandon – and makes the case as well as anyone that communication rides energy. As one audience member said, "Trying to describe what Ben Zander does in front of a large audience is like trying to capture the essence of electricity – it crackles, it sparks…"

5. Maria Bartiromo – recent controversy aside, Maria Bartiromo is one of the most articulate, attractive and animated TV commentators around.

She knows her subject well, and has ridden her stint as financial commentator to a news anchor and respected interviewer on CNBC and nationally. Her distinctive style, with a slight New York accent, powerful voice, and eye communications are even more causative of her rise to fame than her full lips. Even when confronted with recent controversy, her confident communicating enabled her to overcome adverse publicity. She will be around for a long time.

6. Tony Dungy – a quiet style, he speaks softly yet carries a big stick.

He was the first NFL Coach to defeat all other 32 NFL teams. He won a Super Bowl and his Indianapolis Colts are contending again this year. Author of the best selling "Quiet Strength," Tony Dungy is forceful as a person, coach and man. When his son James tragically died in 2005, he spoke up about it, and was vulnerable. When he wanted to put his beliefs up front, he did so with firm conviction. For when he speaks, he is low key but carries a big stick. Big enough to tame the mightiest of football players.

7. Glenn Beck – an unknown except in radio until the last couple of years, Beck is really made for TV.

‘First Brain Friendly’ is a term almost invented for Glenn as he always has a ready smile even amidst strong diatribes. The first communicator to get his own steady hour show on the instant and pop-corny CNN Headline News, he interviews extremely well, is fast on his thinking feet, and is personally vulnerable, which make for great communication attributes.

8. Dr. Jim Dobson -This conservative Christian commentator speaks out on unpopular issues with a force and power of content that belays his soft and humble style.

I heard Dr. Dobson in a speech this year and was amazed at his impact without seemingly raising his voice. He would just be a good ministry leader if he did not shy away from also being an active voice. He embodies our leadership concept of ‘œforward lean.’ In this blog account, there are more reasons Dobson excels as a communicator in person, on radio and in print and books.

9. Steve Jobs, Guy Kawasaki, Garr Reynolds - power in supporting visuals.

  

Photos: Steve Jobs

– Guy Kawasaki

– Garr finishing his new book ‘Presentation Zen’

Here we have three top notch communicators at varying degrees of public impact, but ALL sharing brilliant use of visuals as PowerPoint (or Keynote) support. Steve Jobs was singled out as #1 of the Top Ten two years ago, and could justifiably be so again with his brilliant introduction of the iPhone. Guy Kawasaki was in the Top Ten last year, and deserves it again for consistency of speaking, knowing speaking, and knowing human impact. (And having the biggest blog in the communications arena.) Garr Reynolds is new to the list, but probably is the best at knowing all there is to know about design and PowerPoints, and is just out with his great new book ‘Presentation Zen.’ (See his blog of the same name so you too can use PowerPoint support the way it’s supposed to be used.)

10. Oprah Winfrey -“ the only reason she’s number 10 this year is because she’s been on the list in past years.

And she probably deserves to be on each year’s Ten Best Communicators list since she is so good, so versatile, and rather than reinventing herself she builds on what she has already created. She isn’t afraid of risking, in communicating and in life. She spoke up sharply and with power when there was scandal in her Foundation, and no doubt will continue to be a role model for great communications because of her energy, vulnerability and consistency.

Continue on for the Ten Worst by clicking the link below…

The Ten Worst Communicators of 2007

1. Alberto Gonzales – he not only lied, but showed he was lying because of
his behaviors.

Even when he could no longer lie and had to apologize to
his fans and the general public he did it in the most non-convincing
way possible. Former Attorney Alberto Gonzales was kept on for a long time by President Bush, but to no avail – he could not talk his way out of a very strong appearance of guilt that was caused by his communications as much as actions.

2. Michael Vick – when you want your public AND the judges empathy,
it is not the time to ‘˜gut it out’™ and put on a stone face.

What Vick
did was bad enough, but how he handled himself made it worse. Stiff,
appearing aloof and distant, he communicated that he was as bad as his
press. This is a young man who had an amazing talent and he
was unable to parlay that into Character, which is the most important
quality in a leader.

3. Robert Eckert – the Chairman of Mattel was caught in a toy
recall disaster probably not of his making, but ‘˜the buck stops
here.’

And he did not take advantage of his
spokesman role to turn the tide for Mattel in the recall of lead
painted toys made in China. He said the words, but his manner belied
sincerity. One of the YouTube clips could be subtitled, ‘œHow to be a
disaster’ . The hand tenting, eye communication and facial expression are vivid examples of Emerson’s quote ‘What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you say.’

4. Bud Selig – the steroid scandal is bad enough, but you don’™t
have to look farther than Baseball’™s leadership to see why it has gone
this far.

One of the worst communicators even before this year,“ Commissioner Bud Selig
could be called Big Scowl. This Bud could never nip it in the bud. He
reeks of ineptness culminating in his ‘ums’™ and ‘˜ahs’ and lack of authenticity. Baseball sure could do better, and don’t expect the scandals to end
anytime soon as long as Bud Selig continues to waffle in communicating and in
decisions.

5. Nancy Grace -“ the worst last year, she hasn’t gotten any better.

I still don’™t know why she is on the air – perhaps it has a similarity to
the fact that we tend to like looking at spectacular disasters. Harsh, snarly
and abrasive, she remains on the air, but diminished in stature.

6. Fred Thompson – high expectations dashed!

When the venerable
Senator/Actor announced for the Republican presidency, he was expected
to rocket to the top. Instead he fell to the bottom of the polls, which
surprised a lot of people – me included. What happened to the credible,
authoritative, smiling person we had known? We now saw an uncertain,
hemming and hawing figure with downcast eyes. Of all people who should
have shined in the debates, he has become a tarnished also ran because
of poor communication and not meeting our expectations.

7. Larry Craig – high expectations dashed, Part II. And a bit more serious.

Here we had no
communications expectations of Senator Larry Craig, but we did have at least expectations
that a Senator would at least tell the truth. Boy, talk about body
language. Foot signals and tapping do communicate, and for Craig his ‘˜unconscious communications’ became conscious very quickly. Plus he should
have said what he meant, or nothing at all. To plead guilty to escape
shame just does not track as truth. The soon to be ex-Senator Criag gave us a lesson in how NOT to handle a
crisis.

8. Janet Jackson – body shape changes, but communication doesn’t.

Here is a case of a person who has been through a lot and is a great performer, but cannot convert that to credibility in person. Janet Jackson has a great voice, but when she speaks it is high and squeaky, and she lacks authority.  She is unfortunately an example of many public figures who perform with confidence yet speak poorly – potential influence wasted.

9. George Bush -“ it is tragic when the bully pulpit is not used effectively.

President Bush gets on the worst communicators because of another loss of
potential. His lack of speaking ability, detailed on these pages and
elsewhere, have unfortunately made his opinions seem less and less important. He had his
most recent press conference on December 20, and it was worse than a yawner. Nobody
was listening. No news headlines, and amazingly little coverage for a President. He has the power of position, but not persuasion, and that is tragic in any leader, much less the leader of the United States.

10. Suze Orman – many people like her, I don’t get it.

Suze
Orman is knowledgeable and opinionated, but strident and sharp. Most of
us like our financial information from a trusted and credible source.
Suze is an admitted media star, and supposedly knowledgeable from being
an author, but in person she projects sarcasm and bite. So she makes
the list, but for Suze lovers, at least she is among the best of the
worst.

So what do you think?

It was to be an informal event – and in a sense it was. Garr Reynolds had been up for 40 hours traveling from Japan to San Francisco to speak at Stanford, and then immediately came over to Duarte Design headquarters tonight to speak again to a small group of friends. It was like a who’s who of presentations: Nancy and Mark Duarte, Ben and Kelly Decker, Microsoft folks, Slideshare, Ian Griffin of the National Speakers Association – and the publishing and PR people of Peach Pit Press and Eastwick, among the many Duarte designers and others.

One occasion for the gathering was that Garr has finished his book! "Presentation Zen" is out and it’s great. A review will be coming, and more of the experience of this stimulating night with creative presentation people. One interesting point to bloggers, among many insights, was how his blog at Presentation Zen was the start of the community that led to the book.

But I had the feeling that with Garr’s remarks, his new book, and Nancy Duarte’s yet to be published new book as well, and several other factors in the technology world that there will be a new age of presenting.

There just might be a breakthrough so the business world can see the light – it’s not our data we are presenting, it’s experience. It’s not PowerPoint text, it’s design in pictures. It’s not information, it’s influence.

More to come on these exciting developments, a "Presentation Zen" book revue, and highlights of Garr’s remarks.

Garr Reynolds with his first book, presented by Publisher Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel of Peach Pit Press