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In a slight digression from my normal posts, I’d like to share some thoughts about limiting beleifs and how they hold us back from realising our true potential, be that as a presenter, influencer, parent  etc.   I hope you enjoy this short (5min) audio podcast.

Just make sure your speakers are turned on and click on the little arrow below.

I was running an influencing skills workshop earlier this week and part of the course involved a presentation by me on Prof Robert Cialdini’s six principles of influence.  (NB: If you haven’t read professor Cialdini’s book on Influence, you really should!)

One of the principles is called consensus and it embodies the idea that we are more likely to take an action if we hear, see or read about other people like us doing the recommended action.    During the Q& A one of my delegates asked a great question - could one use this principle to change the culture of an organisation?  In other words, could you use the consensus principle to change the current predominating group consensus?                                

Not immediately knowing an answer, I opened the question up to the group for discussion, and together we decided that yes it probably could.    The trick would be to identify “rebels” “mavericks” and “early adopters” who were already demonstrating some of the principles of the new, desired cultural approach.  Having identified these internal “champions for change” one would need to consistently raise the profile of their activities, especially to people of a similar role or grade.

Over time the idea would be, that by giving repeated attention to the “role models” , the others, who were stuck in the “old approach” would be influenced to change simply because others like them were doing it.   

Do you have any examples of this principle in practice in your businesses?

Recently I have come across a number of clients who didn’t know that you could crop pictures from within PowerPoint, rather than having to use a graphics programme. 

it’s really simple.  Once you have inserted or pasted your picture into your slide, go to the top menu and make sure that the picture toolbar is ticked so that it appears in the toolbar area above the slide.   (If you place the cursor in the toolbar area and right click you will get a list of the available toolbars)

Now click on the picture you want to crop to select it then click on the crop icon in the picture toolbar. (NB: this looks like two overlapping X’s),   When you do this the border around the picture will change from circles to frame corners.

If you place the cursor over any of these frame markers, left click and drag, the picture will be cropped.    In PowerPoint, cropping like this does not permanently delete the area that has been cropped unless you compress the image afterwards.

Many people ask me where I get the pictures I use in my presentations. 

Well, whilst many of them are my own, I don’t always have the image I need.  

My first port of call in such a situation is always www.yotophoto.com.   This is a user friendly image search engine that searches lots of online stock photo sites for royalty free images.     Whilst you can find images online via the google image search feature, many are covered by copyright and you may have difficulty tracking down the originator to gain permission, hence my love of yotophoto.    The site also has some great technical info on copyright and the in’s and outs of using photographs on the web.

Yotophoto searches the following databases:

• Flickr,
• Wikipedia,
• Stock.Xchng,
• Morguefile,
• Pixelperfect Digital and
• OpenPhoto

 My second favourite place is the microsoft clipart and media site which has thousands of photographs for free download.

Another question I get asked is “How do you get screenshots on your slides.  I use a great little piece of software called Snagit  although Windows Vista  has a simple snipping tool built in.  You can find it in the accessories menu.

 So there you have it.  You now have no excuse for your presentations being picture free zones.  Ditch the bullet points and replace them with powerful images - your audience will thank you for it.  

For an example of images in action see my video post “It’s PowerPoint  Jim, but know as we know it!”

An finally, If you would like to download my Free Presentation Tips Booklet, visit www.reluctantpresenter.com and sign up now!

All effective speakers know that they need to take their audience on a journey. A journey from where they are at the start of the presentation, to where they need to be at the end in order to take the presenters desired action.

Occasionally you’ll be lucky and your audience will have already bought in to the concept’s that you are presenting. If they are, then recognise this and give them what just what they need. Remember you are pushing against an open door.

More often than not, however, they are not in full agreement with you. In fact they may even be sceptical or hostile. When this happens you have to work much harder.

From my experience, you need to map a course to get them from where they are to where you need them to be. If they are hostile, then you will need some intermediate stages that you need to lead them through before they become enthusiastic or converted. Perhaps they need to be curious, and then from curiosity you can lead them on to interest and then from interest on to openness and finally from openness into conviction.

Next time you prepare a presentation, start my mapping our the route needed and then consider how you are going to get them to each intermediate stage. Doing it this way makes it a lot easier and a lot more effective.

Happy New  to you all.  
I was wondering if any of you had applied the principle of setting New Years Resolutions to your Presentation and Public Speaking skills yet.    Here are some suggestions that might get you thinking…

I resolve to learn how to use PowerPoint effectively so that I don’t bore the pants of my audiences as much as I did in 2007!

• I resolve to “feel the fear and do it anyway” the next time I see an opportunity to present or speak in public because I finally realise the benefits that overcoming my fears can bring.

I resolve to seek help to overcome my presentation skills nerves.

• I resolve to think about my audience first when preparing my presentations.  I will consider who they are, what their attitude to my topic is and how I can make by content relevant to them in the first 30 seconds of my presentation.
• I resolve to always establish a clear outcome for my presentation or speech BEFORE I start to write it! Never again will I give a presentation that leaves the audience saying “What was that all about?”
• I resolve to give my presentations a clear structure with an attention grabbing beginning, a logical and emotional middle and a strong conclusion with a clear call to action.

I’m sure you can think of many others. Please let me know what your suggestions are and I’ll publish them on this blog!

Gavin

Today I came across a post on a blog called “Eight to Late” by  Kailash Awati, an IT development manager in Australia which I loved and so I thought I’d share it with you.

“Some weeks ago I sat through yet another presentation that had me drifting into dreamland within minutes.  To stay awake,  I started to put together a list of stereotypical soporific speakers,  much in the spirit  of a couple of my earlier posts on project mismanagers and meeting time wasters.  It was, I confess, the best time I’ve had at a bad presentation in a long time. Without further ado, here’s my list:

Pete PowerPoint: Peter’s presentations are a vehicle to showcase his undeniable virtuosity at PowerPoint.  The content? Who cares. The slides are absolutely brilliant.

Freda Funny-font: Freda loves visual aids. Her problem is that she uses unreadable fonts.

Marty Mumbler: Martin has something useful to say, I’m sure. The only problem is
I can’t figure out what it is. His presentations invariably consist of an inaudible
issuance of intonations that even those in the front row cannot interpret.

Greta Garbled: Greta has mastered the art of the unfocused presentation.  She manages to cram a lot of diverse  - but not necessarily relevant - material into her talks. It’s quite a challenge to figure out what she’s going on about.

Barry Backside: Barry’s presentations can actually be quite good - if only I could get to see them. His problem is that he refuses to face his audience while speaking, often unwittingly covering his slides, or the whiteboard or whatever visual aid he’s using.

Umberto Unprepared: Umberto likes to wing it, but unfortunately ends up crashing every time. He never prepares for his presentations, and it invariably shows right from his starting stutter to his final fumble.

Oscar Overtime (Thomas Too-much): Oscar is in some ways the extreme opposite of Umberto - he prepares way more material than he has time to deliver. Consequently he ends up going over his allotted time. He’s mastered the art of ignoring frantic signals from meeting moderators and cues from annoyed audiences. He’s prepared all that wonderful material and he’s going to deliver it (all), come what may.

Mike Microphone-Muddler: You’ll hear about half of Mike’s presentation. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to predict which parts of his talk you’ll hear because he keeps drifting in and out of microphone range at random.”

I’m sure we can all recognise the stereotypes outlined here.   If you want to do something about eliminating them, why not sign up to my free booklet at www.reluctantpresenter.com

You can checkout Kailash’s other posts at http://eight2late.wordpress.com