Five Presentation Mistakes Everyone Makes - Nancy Duarte

by Nancy Duarte | 2:00 PM December 12, 2012 We all know what it’s like to sit through a bad presentation. We can easily spot the flaws — too long, too boring, indecipherable, what have you — when we watch others speak. The thing is, when we take the stage ourselves, many of us fall into the same traps. Here are five of the most common, along with some tips on how to avoid them. 1. To unearth the emotional appeal of your ideas, ask yourself a series of “why” questions. 2. 3. 4. 5. This is the seventh and final post in Nancy Duarte’s blog series on creating and delivering presentations, based on tips from her new book, the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Read the other posts here: Post #1: How to Present to Senior Executives Post #2: Create a Presentation Your Audience Will Care About Post #3: Do Your Slides Pass the Glance Test Post #4: Structure Your Presentation Like a Story Post #5: Disarm Your Audience When You Present Post #6: Authentic Presentations Take Practice

WELSTech 10 ways to avoid death by bullet points - Presentitude - The concept of Death by PowerPoint has largely been blamed on the over use of bullets in presentations. It’s somewhat sad as bullets are a great way to organize content and create a structure. If you are structuring a to-do list for your next project – you will most likely use bullets as an organizing tool. The problem is as great as bullets are for organizing and structure content, bullets are not in their basic form a very great tool for presenting content, however organized. But sometimes you are stuck. You can’t shorten your content (maybe for legal or other reasons it all has to stay). How can you avoid people dying of your bullets? These are 10 techniques to use on your slides if you are stuck with the bullets, and a way to minimize the chance your audience will fall asleep… Let’s say we have to present this text about the benefits of using a calendar and we have to use all the text as commanded by a very evil and bullet prone boss (who really, really likes planners). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

0403 | Daniel Pink Daniel Pink is the author of the New York Times Bestseller To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others. In this interview, we talk about the new ABCs of influencing others, the power of attunement for leaders, and why we are all in sales now. Listen below or subscribe via iTunes. This podcast is supported by Audible.com. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Enjoy This? Sign-up for the podcast newsletter and get updated when new content is ready. 10 Creative Exercises That Are Better Than Brainstorming We're all familiar with traditional brainstorming as a method for producing new ideas, but there are many alternative exercises for tackling problems and developing new ideas, both individually and in a group setting. Ranging from structured to silly, here's a selection of ten simple techniques and exercises to help you get your problem solving juices flowing: 1) Storyboarding If you're trying to design a process, storyboarding can help you see where your collective understanding of a problem supports or conflicts with a proposed solution, and where more thought/research is needed. Sticky notes are your friend. Once you have a group of sticky notes to work from, start arranging them on the board as a progression: first this, then that. 2) Forced Connections This exercise involves bringing together ideas that serve very different needs or interests to form a new concept. 3) Brain-Writing 4) Zero Draft Taking your central theme or topic: 6) Questioning Assumptions 7) Wishing 9) Group Sketching

Prezi – Advantages and Disadvantages by @InstTechTalk Prezi is a great presentation tool for spicing up the mundane PowerPoint that you’ve been using for the past 10 years. It allows for new kinds of visualizations and opportunities to link imagery to motion, which in turn creates a deeper understanding and retention duration. With any technology, there are advantages and disadvantages that exist. Take a look at some of the ones I have come up with and then from there, you can weigh out the pros and cons to decide if Prezi is something worth adding to your classroom cannon. Advantages: 1. Prezi is not your typical slide-based presentation tool. 2. Prezi is completely free. ITT Tip: Always consider what technology resources kids have at home. 3. One of my favorite aspects of Prezi (assuming it is used correctly) is the ability to have movement actually become part of the presentation. 4. The web-based software is designed with all ages in mind. 5. Disadvantages 1. Yes, you read it correctly. 2. 3.