Archive for January, 2009

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Tools To Help Visualize Your Next Presentation

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
Presenters Who Can Visualize Lots Of Data Are Better Communicators

Presenters Who Can Visualize Lots Of Data Are Better Communicators

We would all like our next presentation to be our best. However, when we’ve got lots and lots of data to present, we can all too easily overwhelm our audience. What’s a presenter to do? It turns out that the good folks over at IBM have come up with a way to help us out of this mess that we’ve gotten ourselves into…

Not having enough data to support our position is rarely the issue. Rather, having too much data and not enough knowledge that has been created by processing that data IS the issue. Researchers at IBM have set up an experimental web site at www.many-eyes.com where you can upload data and then play around with it in order to visualize it.

Now I’m sure that everyone is well aware of the graphing capabilities of both PowerPoint and Excel. The problem is that EVERYONE is aware of these and so all too often, every presentation starts to look the same.

The scientists at IBM’s Watson Research Center (located up in Cambridge, Mass.) have created this site not so much to help presenters, but rather to help people publish and discuss graphics in a group. However, there is no reason that we can’t make use of the tools that they are providing us with and if we can get some social networking suggestions along the way, all the better.

The web site is the creation of two IBM researchers, Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas. What they wanted to do was to take the sophisticated data visualization tools that have been available to researchers and make them available to the masses.

Currently, the Many Eyes site provides 16 different ways to present your data. Yes, your old friends the stack graphs and bar charts are there. However there are also more interesting presentations such as diagrams that let people map relationships and TreeMaps which show information in colored rectangles.

This Is An Example Of A TreeMap Visualization

This Is An Example Of A TreeMap Visualization

When the site first became available, they only offered visualisation tools that would work with numbers. Quickly the site owners discovered that their users were attempting to upload books and blog posts. Based on this discovery, they went ahead and added visualization techniques that would work with unstructured text.

One of my favorite unstructured tools is the Tag cloud that you’ve probably been seeing show up on blogs (like mine). The more a word is used, the larger it appears in a tag cloud. Here’s an example:

Example of a Tag Cloud Visualization

Example of a Tag Cloud Visualization

If you want to learn how to use this tool to process your data, Rich Hoeg has created the Northstar Nerd Tutorial: Data Visualization via IBM’s Many Eyes.

One important point to realize, the tool was really designed to allow people to share data and visualizations. Don’t upload confidential info! You can delete your information after you are done processing it; however, if it has been commented on by others this won’t make the site’s owners very happy.

Have fun coming up with different ways to look at your data and present it to your audience. However, keep in mind that once you start to look at the data in a different way, it may end up giving you answers to questions that you didn’t even know that you had.

When you have to present data as part of a presentation, what format do you normally use? What tools do you use to create your visualizations? Do you think that your audience can understand what your visualizations are saying? Do you feel that all graphs are starting to look the same? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in communication skills | 2 Comments »

It’s All About The Nonverbal, Presenter

Monday, January 26th, 2009
What A Presenter Says Nonverbally Is Just As Important As His Words

What A Presenter Says Nonverbally Is Just As Important As His Words

So we stand up, walk to the front of the room, and start our presentation. All too often, we seem to think that we are the only conversation going on in the room at any given time. It turns out that we’re wrong – there’s a whole lot of nonverbal stuff going on between us and our audience. Maybe we should take a look at what we are saying…

Dr. Alex “Sandy” Pentland is a researcher who works at MIT’s Media Lab. He’s been working on trying to use technology to capture the nonverbal signals that we are giving off so that we can better understand what we are “saying”. He’s a recognized expert in this field and is the author of a new book called Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World

Dr. Pentland’s approach to answering these questions has been to invent something that he calls a “sociometer”. This is a wearable badge-like device that uses technology to constantly measure all sorts of nonverbal aspects of how people communicate.

What Dr. Pentland has discovered is valuable stuff for us presenters. One discovery that he’s made is that you can measure how interested people are in something by measuring the timing between two people who are having a conversation. If they are anticipating when the other one will pause and then jumping in right then and leaving no gaps in the conversation, then you know that they are paying a lot of attention to each other.

From a presenter’s point-of-view, since we are really having a one-way conversation with our audience, we need to create this anticipation. You need to be having a dialog with your audience and you need to be asking them a lot of questions. As they anticipate your questions and mentally prepare answers, they will become more and more engaged in what you are saying.

Dr. Pentland has also been able to measure that part of us that “mirrors” another person. When we watch someone move, the part of our brain that corresponds to that action fires up – this is called mirroring. When we mimic each other’s gestures during a conversation, this causes feelings of trust and empathy to occur.

As a presenter we can use this knowledge in two different ways. First, by moving around during our presentations we can keep our audience more mentally awake because their brains will constantly be firing trying to mirror our actions. Secondly, if when we are making a key point we take the time to physically mirror our audience (stop moving, stand straight up, hands at our sides), they will accept what we have to say more readily.

Dr. Pentland’s last area of observation has been in fluency or consistency. The best example of this these days is Tiger Wood’s golf swing – smooth and fluid. It turns out that when you are consistent in your tone or your motions, then this tells your audience that you really know what you’re doing (or at least have really practiced it!)

For a presenter, this means that we really do have practice our speeches before we give them. Every time we practice saying the words, we become just a little bit more fluid and just a bit smoother.

Finally, Dr. Pentland took some time and studied people who were presenting business cases in order to get funding. What he found is that it really didn’t matter WHAT they said, the same ones would always get funded. These were the ones who were the most excited about their plans.

The final note for us presenters is that we ALWAYS have to find a way to get excited about what we are presenting. We may not realize it, but our excitement level is a key nonverbal message that comes through loud and clear every time we present.

When you give a presentation, do you ask your audience a lot of questions in order to keep them engaged in what you are saying? Do you try to mirror your audience during your presentation? How many times do you pratice your speech before you give it? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in nonverbal | 1 Comment »

Do You Look Presentable During Your Presentation?

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
How You Dress Can Have A Big Impact On How Effective Your Presentation Is

How You Dress Can Have A Big Impact On How Effective Your Presentation Is

Remember when your Mom said that looks don’t matter? She may have been right then; however, now is now and the better you look, the more impact your presentation will have.

Whether you realize it or not, you are always being judged by your audience. What you need is some advice to make sure that you come out on top when they judge you. If you take a moment and think about, you are representing a brand in how you act, walk, and talk. Your wardrobe plays a big part in the impression that you make.

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach who has spent a lot of time thinking about this topic. Here are some of his suggestions that will help you do this correctly:

  1. You MUST Look Better Than Everyone Else In The Room: If you remember nothing else from this post, then remember this – great presenters should always dress just a little bit nicer than everyone else who is attending the event. The classic example of this was Ronald Reagan (“the great communicator”) who always stood out because he was always the best dressed person in the room.
  2. Make Sure That Your Clothes Fit Correctly: How many of us wear clothes that are too short, too long, too tight, or even too loose? If you’ll take just a moment and list to what George Zimmerman, the founder of Men’s Wearhouse, says you’ll understand that you are making a mistake. Zimmerman says that the #1 most important decision that you need to make when buying clothes is that they give you a proper fit.
  3. Make Sure Your Clothes Say Nice Things About You: Make sure that you choose clothes that complement you – your skin tone, hair, and your eye color. The key here is to make sure that your clothes complement you, not fight you. Feel free to mix and match – just make sure that they look good together.
  4. Are You Well Heeled?: Assuming that you are not a puppy, it is still important that you pay attention to your shoes. It turns out that people really do notice the shoes that you are wearing. Make sure that you spend as much time on picking out your shoes as you do the rest of your outfit.
  5. Quality Is Worth It – Spend More: It turns out that you are not just paying for a fancy designer label. High quality fabrics and shoes not only look better, but they also last longer. Go ahead – spend more for better quality clothes and you’ll not only look nicer, but you will save money in the end because your clothes will last longer.

There you go – it’s not that hard to look great. Take the time to look good and your presentation will have that much more impact.

Do you take the time to look your best before every presentation that you give? Have you ever been giving a presentation when you realized that there was something wrong with your outfit? What did you do about it? Leave me a comment and let me know what’s on your mind.

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Posted in presentation tips | 2 Comments »

7 Secrets To Getting Your Adult Audience To Learn From Your Presentation

Monday, January 19th, 2009
Taking The Time To Make Sure Your Audience Can Learn Will Produce Lasting Benefits

Taking The Time To Make Sure Your Audience Can Learn Will Produce Lasting Benefits

So why should anyone take the time to attend your presentation? Unless you are Paris Hilton (hi Paris!) or former President Clinton, you probably don’t have enough star power alone to pull people to your presentation. So what’s a presenter to do?

These days with everyone being overworked and so stressed for time, the one question that needs to be answered is “W.I.I.F.M.”? That is “what’s in it for me” of course. Another way of saying this is, what are you going to teach me? This brings up the question of just how does a presenter go about teaching an adult audience?

When in doubt, ask an expert. In this case we can have a talk with Dorothy Billington who has done a lot of research into how adults learn. Let’s see what her seven secrets to getting adults to learn better are:

  1. Provide A Safe Environment: In order for students to learn, they need a safe and supportive environment where they are acknowledged and respected.
  2. Be Free To Think: provide the audience with the ability to experiment and to be creative. This includes having the ability to experience intellectual freedom.
  3. Teacher / Student Interaction: As a presenter, you need to treat your audience as peers. This means that you need to acknowledge that they are intelligent and experienced adults. You will need to listen to and appreciate their opinions.
  4. Self Learning: Your audience must be allowed to take responsibility for their own learning. This means that their learning should be self directed. Taking the time before your presentation to work with members of the audience to find out  what individual learning needs are will help move this along.
  5. Not Too Fast, Not Too Slow: As the presenter, you are going to need to come up with the ideal pacing for your audience. This will challenge them at a level that is just beyond their level of their ability. Be careful: if you push the pace too far, then you’ll lose your audience. If your pace is too slow, then you’ll bore them.
  6. Make Active Learners: When your audience is actively involved in the learning process, then they will retain what you say. If they are just sitting there passively, then retention will be less.
  7. Feedback Is Good: providing a way for your audience to give you feedback on what works for them. Once you start to get this type of input, then you will need to listen to your audience and go back and make changes to your presentation.

Since we’ve gone to all of the effort of creating a presentation, we need to do our best to make sure that the information sticks with your audience. These seven secrets will get you moving down the right path…

How do you get your audiences to remember what you have just told them? How do you control the pacing of your presentation? Do you have any way to get feedback from your audience on how much they have learned? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in adult learning | 2 Comments »

Make Your Audience Sit Up, Take Notice, And Learn At Your Next Presentation

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Understanding How Adults Learn Is The Key To An Effective Presentation

Understanding How Adults Learn Is The Key To An Effective Presentation

Some presentations are designed to simply motivate your audience. Some are designed to educate them. It’s this second batch that is tricky to do. It’s probably not that your presentations are lacking in educational material, but rather it’s the way that you are delivering it that really matters. You need to find a way to deliver the information in the way that adults learn…

So here’s the answer to this question right off the bat: research shows that adults learn best when information is presented interactively, using role-playing, and peer-to-peer dialog. The lectures that most presenters use are really only good for passing information along to an audience.

The last thing in the world that you want is for your next presentation to remind your audience of a high school or college class. Having you stand at the front of the room and drone on with no chance for interaction is not what today’s audiences are looking for.

The secret to making your presentation “stick” with your audience is to realize that the more active your adult audience is during your presentation, the more they will learn because they will be tapping into the knowledge and experience of their peers.

At different times during your presentation your role as the presenter should really be to be a “guide on a side” who facilitates discussions among audience members and offering feedback as needed.

We’ve all heard about left-brain / right-brain stuff. Our left-brain is set up for the way most presentations are delivered – logical, analytical, and subjective. It’s our right-brain, our visual & creative side, that is not being fed during most presentations.

Much of what it takes to make sure that a presentation appeals to how your adult audience learns has to do with how the presentation event is set up. Here are some key suggestions on how you can make your next presentation a powerful adult learning experience:

  • Use Round Tables: having your audience sit at round (or half round) tables that seat 8 or 10 people helps your audience to interact easily.
  • Schedule Break Time: make sure that your audience has time both before and after your presentation to meet and discuss what they are going to learn and what they have learned.
  • Use Comfortable Seats: Rarely do we have control over this, but if possible the more comfortable the seats are, the more learning will happen.
  • Lose The Lectern: This can be done as simply as making sure that you have a wireless microphone so that you are not tied to one spot and can move around and interact with your audience.
  • Handouts & Downloads Are Good: You audience is hungry for information that they can take back to the office. Giving them something that they can touch and hold is one way to do this.
  • More Brian Food: This is my favorite. Most food that is served during a presentation can be sugar or carb-heavy. If possible, provide healthful food options.

At the end of the day, you go to a lot of effort to get ready to deliver a presentation. You want your audience to be impacted by your words and you want them to be able to absorb and learn from the information that you are presenting. If you follow these tips, your audience will have a better chance of learning and retaining what you have to say.

What do you do today to help your audiences learn what you are presenting? Do you feel that you do a good job of getting your audience to retain what you are presenting? What was the best learning presentation that you have ever attended? What was it so successful? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in adult learning | 4 Comments »

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