I’m known to be a fairly good presenter, and I usually lecture on marketing/communication issues at work. Ever since I had to give a lecture about Web 2.0 for Managers, I take great interest in presentations techniques and methods. To stay up-to-date I follow Garr and Guy Kawasaki’s blogs, among others.
This last post from Garr really made me cry from laughter.. it’s amazing how true some of these insights are. I bet most of you have seen, at least once, a slide filled with information, that the presenter just read to you out loud, as if you are 1st graders who can’t read… You can read the full post and watch more funny videos at PresentationZen. Life After Death by PowerPoint
Before I wrap this up, a friendly reminder: IBM Software Group in Israel will host the SOA by IBM event in May 8th at Avenue. If you want to hear about SOA from business and industry leaders, you are most welcome to attend – it’s free! There are 4 different sessions to choose from, I’m sure you’ll find your spot, and get the answers you need.
It has been an interesting 2 weeks for me, and today they are over. I’m doing my MBA at Bar Ilan University, and during the past 2 weeks I had 4 exams, which means I had to take some time off from work..
Well, my last exam was yesterday (Wed), and today I decided to make a long weekend, and drove up north with couple of friends to the Hermon Mt., the only ‘Ski Resort’ we have in Israel. We had some true winter this past month in Israel, and the snow piled up to over 1 meter, which is about 3.2 feet – and that’s a lot! for Israel.. It was excellent!! Beautiful weather, excellent snowboarding conditions, good company – we even brought short-wave radio, so we can talk to each other on the slopes.. The only problem was that we were not alone – the site was PACKED with people, skiing/snowboarding (and visitors), and when there are a lot of people, the resort turns into an unpleasant place. It’s just not equipped to handle massive amount of people, and at some point we had to wait 30min for the chair-lift, and an additional 20min on it (very-very slow). So overall it was a good first day for snowboarding, but we didn’t snowboard as much as we hoped..
So, after 3 days off work, and an additional 2 days (weekend), I’m heading back to work on Sunday (as you might recall, Israel working week is Sun-Thu). And on that subject, I owe you a follow-up post, regarding my presentation this Sun. I gave a presentation earlier this week to my department at work about web 2.0 tactics, and its business implications. After reading some of my linked bloggers, I decided to use some of their rules, which I described in an earlier post. Re Web 2.0, Todd Watson posted on his blog this video, web 2.0 explained. After watching it, twice, I think I could save a lot of time working on my presentation, and just show that video..
It was a blast! I must take my hat (or fingers) off to Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and Presentation Zen for their ideas on how to deliver a winning presentation. Although I think they aimed more at VC presentations, giving an elevator pitch, or a business plan to investors, but their tips also apply to every-day presentations.
The first slide, ‘title’, was the comic shown to the left. A big thank you (and link of course) goes to bLaugh – the (un)official comic of the blogosphere, for their inspiring comics, which I used in my slides.
Oh, one last thing – Technorati has started tracking my blog.. after I signed in, and gave it a trace order.. Another milestone achieved.
The amount of information on the web is truly awesome. I use Google Reader as my rss reader, and I have 3 dozens of subscriptions. I had 2 exams this week, MBA requires some effort, and it’s been several days since I read posts. You won’t believe how many new posts I had – over 200!! I’m really starting to appreciate all those RSS readers, like google – they can save you time by showing all your subscriptions in one place. Thanks!
I read through some of my subscriptions and found posts about presentations – how to make a successful presentation, where to find good pictures, the rules – a lot of info. I have a presentation coming up this Sunday, and I decided to put to the test some of these tips, and start with the pictures tip.
The basic idea is that a presentation should appeal to your emotion. And that your slides should support what you say, not repeat it. Don’t overload your slides with text. The 10/20/30 rule (Guy Kawasaki) says that your presentation should have 10 slides, take 20 minutes and font size of 30 or above. If your slides repeat what you say, the audience doesn’t need you.
So, I’m going to make some adjustments to my presentation and I’ll let you know the outcome next week..
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
