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A common myth suggests that great presentations are an art form. While some of the world’s best presenters are certainly artists, we know that their presentations obey the kind of narrative structure that allows even novice public speakers the opportunity to deliver great presentations. So, What is Narrative Structure?Well, that depends on the industry, because narrative structure is important in every profession. While different definitions exist, they all point to the “structural framework” of how an idea or story is presented to an audience. The reliance on structure in a narrative underlines just how attainable great, engaging presentations are. Because if we can show how those are built (e.g. the skeleton), then all that’s left is adding the muscle, or content, and delivering it according to the narrative structure. The other key element in the narrative structure definition is the idea or story. Without the idea or story, there is no narrative to structure. So we really want to lean on storytelling as a way to engage our audience, and for a good reason....
We’ve seen it before—the speaker standing behind a podium, droning on and on in a monotone voice, with a boring bullet-point slide behind them. It’s all well and good to scoff at them, but then we think about our own projects, and wonder if they might fall into the same trap. Not to worry–we’ve compiled a list of 20 creative presentation ideas to spice up your next talk, with examples to help get you on the right track....
To pull off a KILLER presentation you need to: - Think creatively ... no more lazy bullet points
- Use tools and shortcuts so you can spend your time on the important stuff
- Create clean and captivating slides that appeal to people's emotions
In other words, you need to be a presentation HERO. Here's how to be one ...
Someone once told me that most PowerPoint presentations have neither power nor a point. I cannot recollect, in 30 years of work, a single PowerPoint presentation I saw or gave that altered the course of anything. Yet in meeting after meeting around the world, PowerPoint is the medium of choice. In fact, according to Microsoft, there are over 30 million PowerPoint presentations given every day.
When someone chooses to use PowerPoint or any other slide deck program, the choice has consequences. It establishes a power structure that is less relevant in today’s networked world, with the subject matter expert speaking at the front of the room and the audience passively receiving information. It keeps teams indoors, in closed rooms, in a seated position for prolonged periods which, as Mayo Clinic reports, increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and shortens life expectancy. And, most unfortunate, PowerPoint places technology at the center of the room with a heavy weight toward text, charts, sound bites, and bullet points.
When I helped start a social innovation organization called Civilla, in partnership with Adam and Lena Selzer, we gave ourselves an operating constraint: There would be no PowerPoint. None.
But saying no to something is easy. Figuring out what takes its place is harder....
AA voice narration in a PowerPoint 2016 presentation is sophisticated indeed. A self-playing, kiosk-style presentation can be accompanied by a human voice such that the narrator gives the presentation without actually being there.
To narrate a presentation, a working microphone must be attached or built in to your computer. You record the narration for slides one slide at a time or all at one time, and the recording is stored in the PowerPoint file, not in a separate audio file.
The best way to record voice narrations is to do it on a slide-by-slide basis. You can record across several slides, but getting your voice narration and slides to be in sync with one another can be a lot of trouble....
We all know the basics of good presentation skills: don’t read from a script; don’t overwhelm your audience with verbose slides; and the like. But for a particular kind of high-stakes presentation — one in which you’re trying to get buy-in from key decision-makers — those basics aren’t enough. To persuade the people who have the power to approve your idea or let it die, you need to start with a strong outline. Here are the questions to ask yourself so you can structure a presentation, from the outset, that defuses potential objections upfront and is so compelling a “yes” becomes far more likely....
The best designers in the world are not only known for their amazing designs, but also for their inspirational and motivational quotes about design.
Many of the lessons they teach can, unsurprisingly, be directly related to PowerPoint design!
If you need some inspiration and guidance for your next PowerPoint presentation, look no further:
We have compiled a list of 20 of the BEST inspirational quotes about design that relate directly to PowerPoint.
After each designer’s quote, we’ve given a short explanation of how it relates to your presentation, and what you can do to make it amazing....
"I read a thing that actually says that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I found that amazing. Number two was death. That means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy," jokes Jerry Seinfeld. And it's true. Experts estimate that 75% of the population has some level of anxiety regarding public speaking. Now, I'm willing to bet that this statistic is troubling for those who work in an industry where delivering presentations comes with the territory. Whether you've gotten up in front of a crowd 100 times or are about to encounter your first public speaking opportunity, the entire process can feel pretty overwhelming. To help you command the positive attention you deserve, we've uncovered 10 science-backed tips for nailing your next speaking gig....
What are you scared of?
If you ask most people, they might say public speaking. In fact, nearly ¾ of people are terrified of getting up in front of a crowd and talking.
As your business picks up, you’ll probably have to start facing your fears of public speaking more and more often. You can send as many cold emails and calls as you want, but big deals get done in person. From investor meetings to team presentations, business owners need to project confidence while convincing people to think their way on a regular basis.
While public speaking might be one of the most common fears out there, there are lots of people who do it all the time. Whether they’re musicians, TV hosts, or entrepreneurs, commanding a crowd is a key skill set for ambitious people in every industry.
I asked 13 professional public speakers for their advice. Here's what they had to say....
Many presenters believe in a mythology about slides that's hard to shake.The result? Audiences all over the world are experiencing what's commonly known as "death by PowerPoint," although it can happen with any slide software.If you are building slide decks with these myths in mind, it's time to rethink your approach so you can be a more effective presenter:...
Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report for Kleiner Perkins is a comprehensive and provocative collection of data about technology change. It’s also the most cluttered, visually jumbled 213-slide pileup in the history of PowerPoint. Reading this deck is like walking through a construction site in which the Hell’s Angels are putting on three simultaneous Cirque de Soleil shows during a Green Day concert. In a snowstorm. While it’s arguable whether there is a unifying intellectual concept here, one thing is completely clear: there is no unifying design concept (unless you count the wordy, telegraphic headings on each slide). Just as you can learn from Meeker’s trend insights, you can also learn from her design disasters. As you look at these slides, ask yourself two questions: - In a quick glance, what main idea jumps out from the slide? If I study the slide further, does it reveal more information? - In too many cases here, the answer to the first question is “Gee, I dunno,” and the answer to the second is “Ouch, I am getting a headache.”...
If there’s one tactic that has stood out in this presidential campaign, it is the way GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has slain his foes with the jawbone of an ass.
Trump’s penchant for labeling his opponents—from “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz to “Low-Energy Jeb” Bush—has been like a boxer’s left hook to the liver. It doesn’t look like much until the other guy drops.
Now Trump is trying to do the same to his Democratic foes, calling them “crooked” and “crazy.”
After The New York Times Magazine explored the issue (“Donald Trump Shares His Opponent-Branding Secrets”), I wondered: Do the same labeling techniques work in PR and marketing? Whether it’s throwing mud or branding oneself positively, does Trump offer lessons to PR pros?
The consensus is that such tactics can work, but mudslinging is “risky,” a word Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton uses in an effort to brand Trump.
“Trump has a knack for coining just the right moniker, the perfectly dismissive and catchy thing,” The Times writer stated. “‘It works, it flows,’ Trump said, admiring his latest work.”
Why do some presentations and speeches rock, while some others suck? We set out to find the answer
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Just like in sports, being motivated at work is crucial for your performance. This rings especially true when you have a looming deadline, an important presentation to give, or colleagues or customers depending on your performance. To help you stay motivated, no matter what your job throws at you, we decided to compile 22 of the best motivational speeches from business, sports, entertainment, and more. If you want to get fired up for a project, watch these videos. Trust me, I was ready to write a 5,000 word blog post after I saw them. And while the messages vary from speech to speech, they will put you in the optimal frame of mind for tackling and crushing your next big challenge.(Disclaimer: Some speeches -- *cough* Al Pacino *cough* -- may contain NSFW language.)...
A snoozer slide deck can tank the best presentation no matter how strong your message. By including a short video in your slide deck, you can both clarify key points and spark an emotional response in your audience. Here are three ways to add video to a Google Slide.
Donald Trump doesn’t always speak with proper grammar. And he doesn’t always speak with facts. But he does speak with two other powerful tools: anger, and even more so, volatility.
The data visualization firm Periscopic lays it out in a new data visualization called On The Trump Emoto-Coaster. "If it felt like you were on an emotional roller coaster during this past Presidential election, just look at what was happening to Donald Trump," the team writes. "As shown in 10 of the major speeches he gave from July through December, there’s a rise and fall of intense emotion." As Trevor Noah so cuttingly put it last year, Trump has the unmodulated mentality of a toddler....
How to Start your Presentation or Story... Some recommend to tell the 'agenda' of the presentation right away. That might work is some specific situations (urgency)… But there's a better and much more effective way to start your story....
PowerPoints are awful. Long and uninteresting, they are the corporate drone of visual media—synonymous with endless meetings, academic conferences, and corporate retreats. For graphic designers, however, slide-based presentations like PowerPoint are synonymous with "client decks," and they're necessary for pitching a design to a client or potential client. These are not your typical boardroom slide show presentations. They can be impeccably designed and visually engaging because, if done right, they'll persuade the client to go the direction the designer wants. Presentations can be a designer’s best tool for selling an idea. Admittedly, it’s not graphic designers' favorite part of the job, but there is a lot that others can learn from how they do it. We asked five designers from four top studios and agencies for tips on creating slide-based presentations—whether on PowerPoint, Keynote, or some other program....
“You will live 7.5 minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk. ”This was the claim that video game designer Jane McGonigal presented to the crowd during her June 2012 TED talk. As the camera panned over the members of the audience, their faces showed universal skepticism: Was this lady serious? There was something else interesting about that crowd. Despite their doubtful visages, everyone in the audience was drawn in by McGonigal’s words. No one was checking their email, talking to their neighbor or looking at the camera circling in front of them; all eyes were fixated on the (potentially crazy) speaker. Great hooks, like McGonigal’s provocative opening statement, get audiences on the edge of their seats and give them a sense of what’s coming. They allow you to win a crowd’s attention right away and give you a legitimate chance to have a lasting impact....
It’s no secret that our digital communication tools are overwhelming us. A Deloitte study found that U.S. workers (in aggregate) look at their phones almost 8 billion times a day, and research shows that U.S. productivity has waned since the introduction of the smartphone. But the world of business needs a way to bring people together to share information and explain ideas, and to get them to reach for the same goals. So what’s the happy medium we’re looking for? I’m going to suggest a classic, underappreciated solution: presentations. They often get a bad rap because they’re often badly made. A good one takes many hours to build: It requires research and clarity of thinking, and great care must be given to word choice, image selection, and flow. Yet when we do that important work, presentations can help us do something more effectively than almost any other communication tool at our disposal (which is saying a lot, because there are many). They enable us to make a compelling, persuasive argument — without overwhelming people with disjointed messages or a fire hose of information. When I was on the high school debate team in the 1970s, we studied the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance, and I’ve since used it to create thousands of speeches and inspirational talks. The idea behind it is very simple: If you want a group of people to adopt your point of view, start by describing some difficult or painful issue they’re faced with. ...
Zeetings is a unique web app which allows an event present to broadcast his slides to all of the event attendees in realtime without requiring them to install or login into any specific app. Attendees (both at the premises and remotely) can see the slides as they progress in real-time, and can ask questions, provide feedback, vote and be polled as well as take notes and network with other participants. With the free version it is possible to upload unlimited PDFs and PowerPoints as well as image files and to have unlimited events with up to 30 participants while integrating also unlimited interactive content such as polls, Q&A sessions, videos, embeds, web links and basic analytics reporting data. Free version available. Pro version info: https://www.zeetings.com/pricingMy Comment: Great tool for live events. It allows you to keep everyone on the same page, ask questions, run polls, moderate feedback, and select most voted questions from the audience without forcing them to install anything. Try it out now: https://www.zeetings.com Check out this introductory presentation to Zeetings features: https://www.zeetings.com/awesome/1861-0001#fullscreen...
Guy Kawasaki shares the layout for a perfect pitch.
Pitching your startup to investors just might be the most nerve-wracking aspect of starting your new business — well, besides the prospect of losing your shirt.
I get it. The last thing you want to do when you’re sleep-deprived and edgy and suffering startup angst is pitch it over… and over… and over again. It’s actually a pretty helpless feeling, asking strangers to decide on the fate of your new venture. If it’s your first or second venture, there can be a real learning curve, too. It takes time and feedback to get it right.
Presentation guru Guy Kawasaki has put together an infographic that can help make your pitch both more effective and less painful....
People are usually surprised to hear that I don’t have a problem with Mary Meeker’s huge, yet very unattractive, annual deck of slides. People come out of the woodwork each time it’s released asking me to make them over. Last year, one Paris designer did just that. But dolling up her data took away some of the meaning. For me, the usefulness of how she collected and ordered the information trumps the need to finesse the design of her charts. (Instead of redesigning Meeker's slides, we chose instead to focus on one data visualization problem child: pie charts. Meeker's deck doesn’t have many pie charts, but all of them warranted commentary....
Many websites now offer the facility of being able to host PDF files for easy viewing. The PDF file remains open inside a widget and you can scroll up and down while you read. From the latest Supreme Court rulings to a recipe for chocolate cake, you are likely to find all kinds of PDF’s hosted there.
These kinds of tools are also used to show leaked documents. Famous examples include an early draft of Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight“, and 7,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Other tools enable you to easily convert to PDF. For example, if you have a PowerPoint presentation, you can export it to PDF, end up with better looking slides, and avoid the dreaded “Death By Powerpoint”.
So which are these sites and how do you use them?
Glad you asked. Read on to see some you will already know and use, while others will be less familiar....
For many people, even the thought of public speaking can lead to panic. The crowd. The lights. The dreaded Q&A session. It's a lot to deal with. But allowing these apprehensions to silence our voice can be crippling to our careers. If we want to be seen as smart and articulate professionals, we need to walk the walk and talk the talk. After all, our intelligence is often best conveyed not in what we say but in how we say it, according to a recent study from the University of Chicago. Rather than keeping quiet to avoid saying something foolish, it's important that we're actively identifying ways to overcome self-doubt. To help get you started, check out this infographic from the folks at WriteMyEssays. They've compiled some awesome speaking habits designed to make you sound smarter....
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Learn how you can create a great presentation using narrative structure!