Tag: presentation best practices


My Presentation Is Fine—It’s The Audience That Doesn’t Get It!

“My presentation is fine. It’s the audience’s fault if they don’t get it?” “Why do I need to change the way I present? My lecture has worked for years. I get great scores and reviews.” I’m sure you’ve heard statements like this. Maybe you’ve even said something similar yourself. So, why should speakers change how … [Read more…]

Are You Guilty Of Advancing The Height Of Conference Arrogance?

The sound of a great conference is not the thunderous applause following an inspiring speaker. It is the creaking of our mind’s doors and windows opening to fresh vistas and perspectives. It’s the low hum of people talking to one another in pairs about their insights, thoughts, reflections, concerns and opportunities around short chunked critical … [Read more…]

Too Many Conferences Provide Plop, Placate And Pay

Have conferences become too enthralled with experts and attendees swapping solutions? Have conference organizers resigned themselves to the inertia of the way we’ve always done it? Is the traditional conference experience in danger of being institutionalized which devalues individual expression? Are we addicted to providing passive plop, placate and pay* experiences? Are conference organizers sitting … [Read more…]

Conferences Can Cultivate Curiosity Or The Cult Of Expertise Groupies

Everyone seems to be looking for the next sure thing. We like answers. We seek quick remedies. We attend conferences looking for shortcut solutions with big payouts. We expend a lot of energy to find tips to the trade, keys to success, or hacks that provide instant results. The less we have to work at … [Read more…]

Confusion And Brain Strain Are Freakish Factors Required To Learn

Whenever possible the brain operates on autopilot. That’s why for example you can fold laundry while having a conversation. Your brain goes on autopilot to fold clothes so you can focus your thinking on the conversation. When you do something over and over again, your brain picks up the pattern and reverts to autopilot. This … [Read more…]

Increase Your Conference Attendee Engagement By Increasing Relevance

“How can I increase engagement at my conference?” It’s a question I hear a lot. “How can I help my attendees increase their engagement?” What’s my answer? Increase the relevance. Increase the relevance of the content. Increase the relevance of the learning experience. Oh and by the way, what type of engagement are you talking … [Read more…]

Conferences Are Creating Toxic Events With Visual Logorrhea

Most conferences spread verbal diarrhea and visual logorrhea like viral diseases. We create toxic airborne events cluttering the conference experience with an overuse of monologues, panel dialogues and slideuments. Author Garr Reynolds coined the word slideument referring to presentations that have enough text that they can “speak for themselves.” While a presentation that speaks for … [Read more…]

How To Be A Bodacious, Wicked, Totally Tubular Technical Presenter

Highly specialized technical complex topics are often associated with boring, butt-numbing, brain-draining, hum-drum, buzzkill presentations. So how do you tackle complicated technical content head on and still deliver an engaging, memorable and bodacious presentation? How do you move your audience from saying, “I thought that presentation would never end,” to “Booyah! That was totally awesomesauce!” … [Read more…]

It Is Time To Hold Conference Speakers More Accountable

It’s time to hold speakers accountable for attendee learning, not just completed evaluation smile sheets! It’s time to encourage conference speakers to consciously improve. And if we want our conference speakers to improve, we need to provide them with information that shows where they need to improve and how to improve. What Product Does A … [Read more…]

Just Because You Speak Does Not Mean Your Audience Learns: Eight Presenter Principles To Master

Most speakers are really good at talking! But talking to your audience does not mean that your audience is learning. Our Brains Have Limits As speakers, we have assumed that talking to an audience results in their learning. We think that their minds are like sponges absorbing what we are saying. But just hearing information … [Read more…]