An article worth reading if you are interested in how technology is being applied to help overcome short attention spans.
Now all you have to do is convince your audiences to wear them!
How are you using technology to engage with your audiences?
Archive for the 'digital natives' Category
Technology when used well can enhance your message and credentials, but the problem is that most presenters are lazy and make the technology the message. Technology, while a great tool, does not necessarily lead to better presentations.
A bad movie is a bad movie whether it’s played on DVD, HDTV or 3D. If you cannot deliver an effective presentation by simply standing up and speaking to an audience, then using a slide-deck, playing a video or using an iPad is not going to make you a better presenter. In fact, it is more likely to either confuse your audience or make the technology the centre of the presentation.
The main purpose of any presentation – whether in a face-to-face meeting or on a conference call is twofold.
Firstly, there is the communication aspect, like informing the team of a new procedure, persuading your manager that you need a new resource or influencing a existing client to expand their business with you. It’s a good idea to write down what you wish to achieve before you start to prepare your main message or slides. This will give you a focus and something to check against as you develop your presentation.
The second purpose is to enhance the credibility of the presenter in the eyes of the audience. Think about the best speakers you know in your company, they tend to be regarded with a golden halo because they have good speaking skills. When you get to a senior level in an organisation the person who gets promoted to the executive level is likely to have the better soft skills, which means highly effective speaking and presenting skills. Have you asked whether your last presentation enhanced or detracted from your credibility. Many business presenters brush over the importance of their weekly ‘routine’ presentations which they make to their teams or line managers. But over time these interactions have a significant impact on how you are regarded inside your company.
So, in 2011, make a commitment to use technology less and bolster your presentation skills more. Attend a workshop, get a coach, or simply grab a book and rehearse the tips that are in the book. Record yourself, playback, critique and go again. Give yourself the edge when it comes to taking the next opportunity in your business and personal life. Have a great 2011! Whatever you do and wherever you are, I sincerely wish that your life improves and you take great strides forward in reaching your dreams!
About the Author
Warwick J Fahy
“I work with high-potential senior executives who need to be more confident and influential with their key stakeholders. I help the executive quickly and powerfully express their opinions into message based presentations – even when under pressure.” Learn more about who I help here.
Warwick is the author of “The One Minute Presenter: 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world”.
Sign up to “52 Tips to more confident public speaking” newsletter at www.warwickjohnfahy.com
All communication involves two parties. Today, hotels are having to adapt with increasingly web savvy guests who review sites like Tripadvisor.com before they book. Customer reviews are an important part of these sites. Are you listening to your guests? And how are you engaging with them?
All successful presenters have highly honed listening skills which they use to adapt and tailor their message for the audience that they wish to reach. For example, a salesperson hears an off-hand comment from a potential corporate client in the small talk before a meeting about how they were disappointed with another property’s responsiveness to minor changes in the build up to an important event. The salesperson – when talking about their service – could use this as an anecdote. For example, highlighting that they offer their corporate clients a dedicated hotel representative who promises same day response to all changes or questions in the weeks leading up to an event. This brings out the disappointment which the client had previously and solves it with a clear promise and commitment. The sales person could then go further and introduce their service team to the client, again emphasising their service promise.
The more frequently a presenter can match their strengths to specific questions or problems that the client wishes to solve, the more likely they are to engage and keep the audience’s attention throughout the presentation. Importantly in a sales pitch this will increase the chance of a sale.
Similarly, in the online world, it is important for hotels to engage with their guest’s feedback – both good and bad. A potential guest is more likely to forgive a poor review if the hotel comes back with a reasonable explanation about how they have improved or solved that problem – while avoiding the trap of making excuses or blaming some policy or procedure or third party.
How are you engaging with your online guests? To read an excllent article, click here to read Daniel Craig’s interview with Jean-Luc Chrétien, Executive VP Marketing & Distribution, Accor.
About the Author
Warwick J Fahy
“I work with high-potential senior executives who need to be more confident and influential with their key stakeholders. I help the executive quickly and powerfully express their opinions into message based presentations – even when under pressure.” Learn more about who I help here.
Warwick is the author of “The One Minute Presenter: 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world”.
Sign up to “52 Tips to more confident public speaking” newsletter at www.warwickjohnfahy.com
How do you learn?
Are you a “just in case” learner? Who likes to research without a clear specific purpose, who cuts and pastes information into a word document that never gets used. Who has a large pile of dusty conference notes unorganised in your office, a pile of books not finished. Do you enjoy knowledge for knowledge’s sake? Chances are you are using a digital immigrant learning strategy.
Are you a “just in time” learner? Do you only look for information when there is a clear end-goal or outcome? Do you turn to your network of peers and friends to search for this information? Who cuts-pastes, shares, gets feedback and refines before the end product is complete. Who is comfortable using a variety of sources including informal and crowdsourced (eg wikipedia) references. Who is impatient when there is no specifc purpose? You could be employing a digital natives learning strategy.
Not all young people are learning like digital natives and not all “older” people confine themselves to speaking digital as a second language. The good news is that if you continue to work on a second language, it improves. Today, you need to be nimble and adapt to new technologies and find a way to integrate them into your learning. Find a way that makes sense for you.
What is your learning strategy?
To view the other steps in this series, see Step 1 “Script read through” , Step 2 “Run Through” and Step 3 “Cue to Cue”
Step 4 : Tops and Tails
The two most important parts of a presentation are the opening and closing. Both parts attract the greatest audience attention and are the best opportunities to deliver a takeaway message. They are often delivered at a higher level of authority and punch. Take the opening two minutes and rehearse as a stand-alone section. Record it and while listening to the recording, look for ways to make the delivery more impactful. Use crisper and sharper words. Make a closer connection to the audience with words they relate with. Likewise, repeat this approach with the closing. This is the final chance to convey the message and leave the audience with a positive impression.
Related articles:
iPad product launch: What Makes Steve Jobs a Great Presenter?
RESOURCE BOX
Warwick John Fahy is the international executive speech coach for senior executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs who need to influence clients, investors, shareholders and team members. His highly practical approach and deep cross cultural intelligence have made him a sought-after business presentation coach throughout the world.
Warwick is the author of the acclaimed book, The One Minute Presenter – 8 steps to successful business presentations in a short attention span world. For free executive speaking tips visit http://www.oneminutepresenter.com/blog
For a media interview call +86 1391 786 7502.
Copyright 2010 Warwick John Fahy All rights reserved.
5 minute presentations
I am sure you have all sat through many teeth-grindingly long presentations with 89 PowerPoint slides. But what if the presentation was only 5 minutes long, with 20 slides and each slide automatically rotated after 15 seconds. Sounds great!
There are a number of new events springing up which ‘force’ presenters to be concise. I think this is a great thing. It is much harder to be concise and still remain compelling, but the philosophy of The One Minute Presenter is just this. With today’s short-attention span audiences, it is becoming more and more important to be concise.
If you cannot get along to one of Ignite’s events (Wiki page) – try this method when you are preparing for your next presentation. It will help you deliver a to-the-point message and finish on time.
Understanding your audience is essential to successful business presentations. Especially if you are presenting to audiences with short attention spans. Digital natives are regarded as having less patience for (traditional) presentations, so what can you do to adapt yourself to your audience?
Well a clue lies in a school in England whose headmaster claim that all teenagers need a lie-in and that classes should start at 11am. The claim is based on the way the teenage body clock is functioning which results in students falling asleep in class. In tests so far memory has improved and received (not surprisingly) good response from the students.
While you may not be faced with a teenage audience, business audiences today are just as distracted and likely to tune out if you cannot capture their attention. If it’s within your control think about the timing of your presentation. Just after lunch most people are sluggish and likely to drift off. Later in the afternoon people’s brains become tired and attention spans drop off. Mid to late mornings usually work well for most audiences. Also, be aware of spacing your content so that you don’t overload your audience with information. Add breaks every 10 minutes or so to allow your message to digest and for a different format of presenting like a video, a story or an activity.
Today’s tip covers two aspects of presentations and presenting. First, a presentation is linear. Second, the best presenter uses random access methods throughout their presentation.
Let’s start with the presentation. A presentation is a linear form of communication. While you are speaking, the audience has no idea of the words you can going to speak next. They may have an idea of the gist if you are presenting with clarity – but the actual words are unknown to them until you speak. And then, once spoken, there is no way that the audience can go back to what you have just said unless they interrupt you and ask you to repeat yourself (annoying) or they have one of those global remote controls that Adam Sandler had in the movie, Click (freaky).
Compare this form of communication with reading a book. At any time, you can jump ahead to read the next few pages or even read the last page like Billy Crystal’s character in When Harry met Sally. Or if you wish to stop and reflect on a paragraph you just read, you can. This method of communication is called random access. Using the internet is very much a random access experience with all the distractions of hyperlinks.
Today’s digital natives have grown up with a completely different approach to accessing information (learning). In the past, knowledge was passed from one generation to the next through the spoken traditions of storytelling which evolved into lecturing (how did that happen?). This took a further evolution into PowerPoint slides which have done more than any other tool to stifle learning in the business world. It’s not the software’s fault, just the way we use it. Today with the internet, we learn by using wikipedia, accessing interest-specific forums, seeing what our friends recommend and see how other people rate the problems through digg or delicious.
If I want to find a software or fix an IT problem, I could go and listen to my IT guy give me a long-winded explanation about something completely (to my mind) irrelevant. Linear communication. Or I could jump online and google the problem. Check what people with similar problems are saying on computer forums, search computer web sites for software. Check out their credibility on wiki. And then perhaps ask some friends via Twitter and Facebook. Random access communication.
Your challenge as a presenter is to use more random access methods of communication while you are presenting to give your audience the chance to make the learning experience their own. Examples include, discussion within a group at their tables, doing online research, reviewing notes and re-presenting or interpreting the learning points via a case study or role play. How else can you provide jump off points for your audience?
Whether you like marshmallows or not, a four-year-old child certainly does. What’s not to like? Chewy, sweet, synthetic colorful lumps of candy. But how long can a child go between a marshmallow? This was tested in the 1960s and brainy psychologists worked out that the longer a child could hold out – the higher their IQ and generally well-roundedness later in life.
Daniel Goleman has suggested that an important component of emotional intelligence is a concept called “delayed gratification”. People who lack this trait are said to need instant gratification and may suffer from poor impulse control.
The need for instant gratification is a feature of digital natives regardless of whether they like marshmallows or not. But what has this got to do with presenting? You don’t need to be a insightful commentator to realise that the developed world is trending towards instant gratification. We are continually informed with our mobile phones, blogs and now Facebook and Twitter (instant gratification of connectedness). Online shopping means we can continue when the shopping mall closes (some never do!)(instant gratification of consumption). Reality shows, Pop Idol imitations all contribute to this trend (instant gratification of popularity).
Back to presenting, what this means for you is that your audience is increasingly likely to expect a reward during your presentation. A reward? You mean just listening to my presentation is not enough to keep the audience happy? Don’t they know how smart, witty and insightful I am?
So what rewards can you use with your demanding audience? It doesn’t need to cost you anything. Let the audience be a part of the ‘journey’, let them take part and participate along with you as the guide. A presentation shouldn’t be a dump of information, it should be a joint discovery. If you ever feel that your presentations are becoming too predictable and canned, it’s time to change it up. Enjoy the journey!
Toddlers, goldfish and puppies are not the most especially attentive of audiences. But you can learn a lot from their attention spans. There’s short. And they won’t hang around if they feel bored.
Does your audience ever feel bored? This often happens when you present too much information with not enough time to connect the dots with vivid examples and practical applications. The result? Very little digestion and a completely unmotivated audience.
Brain studies have shown that using graphics (images, charts, pictures) first while introducing a topic the retention and interest goes up. Digital natives – who have grown up with interactive technology (video games, internet) like to think in fast bursts. Use graphics to quickly show a path, overview a topic or summarise findings.
Goldfishes are not known for having long memories. But to be honest, today’s audiences can often resemble goldfishes. But that’s your fault. Test it. Ask someone who has listened to your presentation one week later, what some of the key messages were and you will be amazed if they even remember listening to the presentation. Boring information is like watching paint dry: it takes up some time and then you forget all about it. Instead of delivering a “watermelon” of information to your audience, use spaced learning techniques. Help your audience recall key points but going back to them during the presentation, refreshing them after breaks, inserting colorful summary slides or graphics and giving quick “Q&A quizzes” throughout the day. The more you create chances for your audience to deepen their understanding, the higher their memory retention.
(Wo)man’s best friend he may be, but a puppy can be a real handful. Puppies learn through play and massive amounts of interactivity. They bring a digital native attitude to learning. Growing up playing PlayStation, Xbox, and countlesss other handheld consoles, digital natives expect all experiences to be “fun”. Work and learning included.
Yes. It’s important to treat yourself seriously and be good at what you do. But don’t treat your presentation too seriously if you want your audience to stay engaged and remember what your key messages are. Humour works. But even if you are not that funny, high amounts of interactivity will help you keep your audience awake. Pop quizzes, short discussion, role plays, two-player face offs (PK games) will all help increase interaction and keep the energy alive!
