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© 2007 IBM Corporation IBM Software Services for WebSphere WebSphere Process Server Community Call Scott Karabin [email protected] Creating and Delivering an Effective Presentation Conference Call Edition

Effective Presenting

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Page 1: Effective Presenting

© 2007 IBM Corporation

IBM Software Services for WebSphere

WebSphere Process Server Community Call

Scott [email protected]

Creating and Delivering an Effective Presentation

Conference Call Edition

Page 2: Effective Presenting

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Agenda

What is an effective presentation?– Presentation lifecycle with audience in mind

Delivering an effective presentation– Before the presentation

• Planning out the presentation• Creating the presentation and slides• Rehearsing the presentation

– Presentation style

– During the presentation

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What is an effective presentation?

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An Effective Presentation

Good presentations typically have…

– A specific audience in mind

– A clear purpose

• persuade, inform, describe, introduce, challenge, etc.

– Good ideas and useful information

– An effective speaker(s) delivering the content

• knowledgeable, organized, prepared, dynamic

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Presentation Lifecycle

Rehearse Presentation

Deliver Presentation

Organize Content

Develop Central Idea

Determine Purpose

Generate Main Ideas

Gather Supporting Information and Materials

Select and Narrow the Topic

Audience

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Delivery vs. Content

Success depends more on delivery than content– 66% of experience for the audience is delivery

Same presentation given by different presenters will often yield different results– Well designed presentations reduce the differentiation based on

speakers capabilities

– Poorly designed presentations increase the differentiation based on speakers capabilities

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Speaker – Audience Interactions

Noise Other Distractions

Event ConsumerEvent Consumer

Event ConsumerAudienceSpeaker ChannelsMessage Message

ResponseResponse Channels

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Before the Presentation

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Basics of Getting Ready for a Presentation

Know your audience– Knowledge, background, expectations

– Size, context, culture, etc.

Know your topic– Study and prepare and bring your experience

– Don’t talk about what you don’t know

– Saying “I don’t know” is a good thing

Know your slides– Get comfortable with the flow (or change it)

– Practice and rehearse your slides

– Change the flow or content after the rehearsal

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Patterns for creating presentations

Top down

– Good for architectural and conceptual presentations

Chronological

– Good for operations and sequences of activities (installs, development, etc.)

Problem/Solution

– Good for focusing in on a specific problem area or topic

Spatially/Physical Location

Logical Sections (freeform)

These patterns can be applied to the whole presentation as well as sub-sections of the presentation

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Flow of the presentation

No more than 7 major ideas

Consider Transitions

– Verbal and Non-Verbal

• Slide Separators• Repeat Outline

If they only remember 3 things…

Tell a story: What is the central idea?

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Create a flow for the slide VMware Tools can change many VM characteristics

– Which devices are currently active in the VM

– Which folders are currently shared with the Host

– Reorganize / shrink the size of the VM’s hard disk

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Slide Content

An inexperienced presenter often feels the need to put more text on a slide than is needed.

The normal instinct is to try to tell the audience everything about an idea and not leave anything out, because leaving ideas out could be seen as not knowing everything about the topic and not being an expert.

There is too much text on the slide if you are writing complete sentences. There is way to much text on the slide when you are writing in run-on sentences like the one in the previous bullet.

Too much text detracts from the message on the slide and causes the audience to read the slide when in fact you want the audience to be listening to you. (I know I do!)

This is especially important for conference calls. You only have one channel to hold the audiences attention in a conference call.

You can get away with much less text on a slide than you realize…

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Really!

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Less is More

Color can hurt

Use fonts sparingly

– 2 Fonts

– Monospaced font for “code”

– Be careful with color • Use 3 or less• Be consistent (e.g. Red=Bad, Blue=Code)• Might appear different on screen• Can make text unreadable• …or worse!

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Screen Capture

This space on the diagram is wasted

Describe the screen capture

– Point to the important details

– Maintain “Aspect Ratio” of graphics

– Save screens for reuse

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Screen Capture - Better

Edit to remove whitespace

Audience sees relevant details

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Rehearse the presentation

Be familiar/comfortable with the slides and content

Know the flow and timings of each section– Follow the outline of content that should be covered

Record the rehearsal and listen to it– Critique the speed, timing, and wording

– Evaluate potential changes to improve the flow or timings

Be able to control the media/equipment– Test and rehearse with equipment (video/audio)

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How many slides? Know your speed

Rule of Thumb

– 1 minute/slide (fast pace)

– 2 minutes/slide (normal)

– 3 minutes/slide (slow or dense information)

Modifications

– Less experience -> Talk fast

– Larger audience -> Less Questions

“No speech is all bad if it’s short”

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Know the Environment

Be familiar/comfortable with the environment

Get to the location early and ask to see the room

Check out the location before you have to present

Be able to control the media/equipment

– Test and rehearse with equipment (video/audio)

Evaluate the various views the audience has from different areas of the room

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Managing Anxiety

Get a good night’s sleep before the presentation– Feeling rested and relaxed will help control nervousness

Watch what you eat before presenting

Take many deep breath/control breathing before the start of the presentation– This can reduce sweaty palms and increased heart rate

Visualize your success

Act calm to stay calm

Focus on your message to forget your fear

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Remember that you…

are prepared

selected a good topic

know your audience

rehearsed the presentation

know your introduction inside and out

want to share your information and knowledge with the audience and they came to hear from you

will be done in a matter of minutes and after the intro, time will go by more quickly than you expect

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Presentation Style

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Style of presentation

Manuscript– Reading has a tendency to bore the audience, need to read manuscript as if you’re

not reading

Memorization– Potential to forget, sounds stiff/rehearsed, can be distracted by questions or other

interruptions

Impromptu– “Off the cuff” nature is informal, conversational, and can be impressive, but can lack

organization and thorough research

Extemporaneous (sweet spot)– Conversational presentation that has a written or memorized outline to add emphasis

and organization to ideas

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During the Presentation

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Physical Delivery – Vocal

Articulation– Volume and enunciation

– Pronunciation

Pitch– Inflection

Rate– Too fast (excited), too slow (tired or confused)

– Pauses can be good times to regroup

Silence

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Physical Delivery – Vocal Bad Habits

Mono-tone

Using the same word over and over– Repetition of concepts can be a good thing, but repetition of words rarely is

• Repetition of words or sounds (alliteration) can be very powerful but it has to be intentional

– Word or words that add no value and are used to fill the space/time continuum

• Used to give the speaker more time to think of their next concept

– Better than aaaahhhhh - uuuhhhmmm, but still bad

• Words: really, actually, usually, like, generally, ok, so ah (aka SOA), et cetera

• Phrases: and what not, and so on,

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Know the flow of the slide (more important on conference calls)

VMware Tools can change many VM characteristics

– Which devices are currently active in the VM

– Which folders are currently shared with the Host

– Reorganize / shrink the size of the VM’s hard disk

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Managing the Audience

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Speaker – Audience Interactions

Noise Other Distractions

Event ConsumerEvent Consumer

Event ConsumerAudienceSpeaker ChannelsMessage Message

ResponseResponse Channels

Page 31: Effective Presenting

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Managing the audience

Set a tone for session

– Help the audience to learn and have fun

– You are there for the audience, not for yourself

• Have a service-oriented (really bad pun) view

Keep control of the session

– Don’t allow questions to take things too far off topic

– Don’t get overwhelmed by too many questions

– Deal with difficult audience members gracefully

– Some questions are better to take off-line

• Questions that spur extended discussions that aren’t planned are best taken off-line

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Audience and Questions

Questions asked during the presentation

– Always repeat the question

– There are no dumb question???

• Does that mean there are no good questions?

Remember the questions (they are feedback)

– Questions will show where the audience is having trouble following the flow

– Answers to the questions may be things you want to add to the presentation

Try to predict the questions

– Review presentation before giving it and try to think of possible questions

– Try to improve the slides and content to reduce the number of questions

Page 33: Effective Presenting

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Presentation Lifecycle

Rehearse Presentation

Deliver Presentation

Organize Content

Develop Central Idea

Determine Purpose

Generate Main Ideas

Gather Supporting Information and Materials

Select and Narrow the Topic

Audience

Page 34: Effective Presenting

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Resources

IBM Internal Presentation Central

– http://w3.ibm.com/ibm/presentations/

Public Speaking, An Audience-Centered Approach

– Steven Beebe and Susan Beebe

– 5th Edition in 1991

– 12th Edition 2005

Public Speaking for Dummies, Wiley

– Malcolm Kushner

P08 and P09 from WSTC 2007. Thanks to Matt Oberlin for allowing me to reuse many of his most excellent slides

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Summary

What is an effective presentation?– Presentation lifecycle with audience in mind

Delivering an effective presentation– Before the presentation

• Planning out the presentation• Creating the presentation and slides• Rehearsing the presentation

– Presentation style

– During the presentation