Give Great Presentations (And Without a Slide-Deck) E-Book

Nicholas Bate

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 50

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

You're half an hour away from presentation greatness! Why not use your next spare half an hour to skill-up? Each of these short e-books can be read in just 30 minutes. Addressing those painful work problems, and giving practical tools and expert advice to overcome them, the 30 Minute Reads series will make your work-life more productive, less painful and more successful! Does the thought of giving a presentation leave you wanting to take really early retirement? Well hang on to your P45s because this succinct guide to better presentations will help you leave the power point behind, learn how to present yourself, pace your presentation and have the audience eating out of your hands in just 30 minutes. Also available in a digital bundle with 4 other titles as part of 30 Minute Reads: The business skills collection. Give Great Presentations will help you: * Identify the problem and what isn't working * Discover the 10 Big Strategies * Put in place your super-structured, super-easy, 5-day count-down plan to no more pain.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title page

What will this book do for you?

1: Why Present?

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

2: Structure

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

3: Why You Should Create a Storyboard

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

4: Become a Good Storyteller

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

5: Slides: Less is More

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

6: Gaining Confidence

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

7: Challenges

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

8: The Other Presentations

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

9: Media: What Else is Available?

The Challenge

The Detail

The Story

The Solution

10: Your Action Plan

About the Author

Copyright page

End User License Agreement

What will this book do for you?

So: a guide on how to present brilliantly? That's good as many of us hate it and rarely do of our best. And increasingly, of course, it's vital in the modern organization – be that corporate or educational or small start-up – as a method of communicating. But what's this about “without slide deck”? Is that some kind of suggestion that slide decks and by implication slides are not part of the brilliant presentation? What's that all about?

Well of course it's not absolutely cut and dried. A brilliant presentation may or may not use slides, but one thing is certain: without a great deal of care the poor use of slides can very easily create a dreadful presentation. We've all been there: the presenter reading from slides and/or slides which add no value and then to add insult to injury we are given a massive slide deck as a “souvenir” of our experience.

So we will go back to basics and consider why we even need to present, what makes for a great presentation and the role of slides within a presentation. Along the way we will build your confidence, help you handle problems and ensure you are a great storyteller.

Here's the structure of Give Great Presentations (And Without a Slide-deck)

Section 1: Why Present? It's something happening all across the world: in the largest of corporations and in the smallest of village schools. People presenting, very often with PowerPoint slides. Why are they doing it? Does it work? Is it the best way?

Section 2: Structure. Our first big idea: that we present to reach a goal and that we can maximize our chances of reaching that goal by a carefully planned structure to our presentation.

Section 3: Why You Should Create a Story­board. There's a lot to handle in any presentation: there's the big “arc” of our core message of course. And then all the tiny details. And there's the problem of being creative and making it interesting. And keeping to time. That's what the storyboard is all about.

Section 4: Become a Good Storyteller. We show you how to become a great storyteller.

Section 5: Slides: Less is More. To be fair you might want one or two. Here is the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the world of slides.

Section 6: Gaining Confidence. Without the “comfort blanket” of our slides how do we remain calm, focused and professional?

Section 7: Challenges. From awkward people to projectors going down to “where's my water?” … the challenges you will face – and their solutions – as a presenter.

Section 8: The Other Presentations. What changes in small group presentations? Or conferences? Or sales pitches?

Section 9: Media: What Else is Available? If we are ditching all – or at least most – of our slides, what else can we use?

Section 10: Your Action Plan. Your personal checklist to success in any presentation, small or large.

The majority of the sections will start with the big idea (e.g. telling more stories) and then explain how to address that challenge in more detail. There will then be a mini case study: those with the same challenges you have, that we all have; this gives us a chance to see how they practically implement the concepts. We'll also make sure your toughest questions are answered before a final summary. Everything in this book is tried and tested: it is both pragmatic and practical. We encourage you to start using the ideas immediately as that's the way this digital version was designed.

Read on …

1

Why Present?

The Challenge

Modern presenting has developed a well-run formula: open PowerPoint and start typing the words you are going to say into a series of frames, which will become slides. Add features and a picture or two. Run through the timing a few times and hey presto: you have your presentation. Present the slides by using them as if they were an auto-prompt and at the end make the slide deck available as necessary.

It's OK. It's rarely better than that. It's often really dire. And it's actually not presenting. It's a “read-along”. Presenting has increasingly become about the slide deck. We need to remind ourselves that slides or videos or guest speakers or anything we might throw into the mix should not detract from what is our message?

Mmm: let's just think about why we are trying to present?

The Detail

We present to get something to happen. The nature of putting a body of people in a room and somebody (the presenter, the facilitator) guiding them through to conclusions can be remarkably powerful. Nothing else can do it. An executive summary can't. Nor an email. Nor a video, however exciting. No, put a good presenter in a room and you are much more likely to get the action you seek. And if you throw in a great presentation too, then you are on to a winner.