6 Ways to Quit Bullet Points with Style

Practical tips from this slideshow and well illustrated.

6 Ways to Quit Bullet Points with Style from Podium Wisdom

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Four ways to reach the visual learners in your audience

The majority of people are visual learners. This means they need to see it before they understand your message and believe it.

In my experience most people need to see some part of your message to make it stick. The question is “How do they see it?”

Three important clarifications

1. Visual means the images that we process in the visual cortex of the brain. 
2. The eye is only one source of visual input. 
3. Not everything seen by the eye is processed in the visual cortex.

Here are four ways to convey visual messages to your audience.

Display images on the screen
Use PowerPoint or other software to display photos, drawings, diagrams, charts, sketches, cartoons or video.  These are images.

Warning!
The most common mistake is putting text on a slide and believing that is visual. Text on a slide is not a visual. It’s simply text which is processed in a different part of the brain (Wernicke’s Area).

Some speakers don’t really care if it’s visual. They blatantly use text slides as their notes – not to help the audience.

Tell Colorful Stories
I believe that this is the most effective way to convey visuals. Tell your stories effectively and you plant strong visuals into the minds of your audience. Test the effectiveness of your stories by asking people what they saw. Tell colorful stories and people will always see your message.

Your Body Language
The most important visual in the room could be you. Your dress, posture, movement and gestures transmit powerful messages about your passion, credibility and confidence. Those feelings are the foundations of persuading your audience to act. Your audience will often remember an image of you that either supports your message or destroys it.

Use Props
Steve Jobs pulled the MacBook Air out of an envelope for the visual imagery. Magicians use props to misdirect attention. You might use a model to illustrate your project. I admired a presenter as he bounced a basketball to transition to his talk about computer animation.  An abstract concept can often be clarified with the help of a simple prop.

When preparing your presentation, plan how you will visually convey the most important message.

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Pause More - Say Less to Achieve More Drama

In this TED talk, sculptor Reuben Margolin, exhibits his work and his perspective. Notice the extended pauses, short phrases and powerful visuals.


A presentation is about conveying your message. It's not about filling every second with you talking.

Pause more often and longer when you speak.

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How to Make Stats More Interesting

Watch this video to discover:
1. how to take stats from boring to brilliant and
2. how to make charts on your slides more entertaining and instructive.

This video is from a TED talk by Hans Rosling. When I first heard the topic and saw the typical chart displayed I expected a boring lecture. I was delightfully suprised. I enjoyed the presentation and understand his message.

If you thought that a presentation packed with statistics has to be boring, watch this and enjoy.






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Save Us From Ugly PowerPoint Slides

How can you change this ugly PowerPoint typical bar chart slide ...

...into this simple and more visual pleasing PowerPoint slide?

Notice that the second slide is more visually pleasing. It's also much easier to understand the key point - that Australia leads the world in this study.

If you are ready to display better PowerPoint Slides with your next presentation and you would like to learn how to create these slides faster yourself - then check out this guide:

Slides Made Simple

There's no need to spend thousands of dollars hiring a design company to create your slides.

There's no need to embarrass yourself by using boring and ugly slides.

There's no need to waste day's learning how to be a graphic designer.

Download this practical guide to creating simple and effective visual slides and you will immediately start re-programing your brain to design better slides every time.

Click here to grab your copy of Slides Made Simple

PS: It comes with a money back guarantee.


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Move from Left to Right

English and other languages originating from Europe read left to right. That means that those people naturally move their eyes from left to right when reading.

They prefer to absorb information in the same manner.

When you speak before an audience you can use that principle to enhance the acceptance of your message.

First you must realize that it’s the audience’s perception of left to right and not your on-stage left to right that counts. It’s not what you thought you said. It’s what they thought you said that is important.

How can you use this principle in your presentation?

Timeline

Ask these folks to draw a timeline of a project and they will likely draw it from left to right. The left represents the beginning while the right represents the end or the future.

Here’s how to move while presenting about your project or proposal. Talk about the past while standing on the extreme left side of the stage (your right). Stand in the middle of the stage when talking about the present and move to the far right of the audience when describing the desired future.

You could also simply gesture to your right when talking about the past and to your left when talking about the future.

Progress

Use the same methods to place problems in the past and solutions in the future.

This is not natural so you will need to rehearse these movements. But the audience will be more willing to accept your ideas when they can SEE progress.

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Eye Movement for Your PowerPoint Slides

Eye Flow Test

Check the design of your slides with the eye flow test.

1. Where is the first place the eyes of your audience will go when the slide appears?

2. After a few seconds where do the eyes go next? 

3. With a well designed slide you should know the third place their eyes go to.

If you are not sure where the eyes go when the slide comes up – then you don’t know where your audience is looking or what they might be thinking. How can you be on their wavelength if you don’t know their wavelength?

If your slides don’t pass the eye flow test, go back and redesign or remove that offending slide.

How do you know where the eyes go? Test yourself. Look at advertisements in magazines. Notice where your eyes stop first. Ask yourself “why?” Eye flow is easy to predict because of important principles that determine how our eyes move.

Some things to understand about our eyes

• They jump from point to point.
• They are attracted to light.
• They are attracted to motion.
• They tend to start at the top left of the screen/ page because of the way we learned to read.
• They look to images before text.
• They seek familiar patterns.
• They notice the unusual.

You can learn more about simple graphic design from the book, "The Non-designers Design Handbook" by Robin Williams. This book explains four fundamentals of graphic design which are essential to creating effective visuals.

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How to Attract the Eyes in Your Multi-Media Presentation

Two Key Principles of Eye Movement

Let’s look at two important principles of presenting with a computer and screen.

Our Eyes are Attracted to Light

Perhaps you have noticed when walking or driving at night that your eyes flash to the source of the brightest light.

You can use this attraction to light principle in the development and delivery of your presentation. When presenting you should always stand in the brightest light so people focus on you. Have the lights slightly dimmer at the back of the room. Bright lights at the back or side of the room will continually distract them.

On a screen it is easier to read lighter coloured letters on a darker coloured background. Our eyes are naturally attracted to the lighter letters – just where we want them to focus. (But don't use white on black. It's eye catching but difficult to read.) 

In contrast black letters on a white background is punishing to our eyes Because it is a light-emitting source our eyes are naturally attracted to the light background. Meanwhile we are forcing our eyes to focus on the black letters. This creates an internal conflict, which tires and annoys. The other pain this type of slide inflicts is that the eyes spend most of the time looking at the bright white light – which tires first the eyes and secondly the person.

Our Eyes are Attracted to Motion

For our cave-dwelling ancestors this was probably an important survival trait because movement signified either food or danger.

When you are speaking don’t have things moving on the screen because people will watch the movement and ignore what you say. Our brain can generally do one thing well at a time – watch or listen. Watching seems to take precedence. When you want people to look at the screen, gesture towards the screen then stand still. To recapture their attention after they have been studying the screen – take a step, stop, and then speak. Your movement draws their attention back to you. This principle explains why we easily get distracted by the speaker fidgeting or pacing. 

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When and How to Use Props in Your Presentation

Props

Props have the sensory appeal of making your presentation more visually pleasing and different. Difference is what interests us and what we tend to remember.

For example, if you travelled to work today – the same as always – you tended not to notice things nor remember anything specific. If something different happened – you woke up – noticed it and remembered it. You might even have told others about the different thing today. But you probably never told someone about your boring commute.

Similarly if your presentation is just as boring as all the rest, your audience night not wake up and remember any part of it – let alone tell others about it later.

A prop can provide that visual difference. Your product could be the prop you use or you might use a prop as a metaphor. This can be especially effective when explaining a service or concept. Laying your props out on a table can also serve as your speech notes.

Here are some sample props and possible messages.

Baseball – teamwork

Shovel – setting the groundwork

Tennis racket – importance of returning calls

Balloon – fun

Sundial – technological change

Another type of prop that can work very well is a simple magic trick. Don’t saw the boss in half. Just a simple card, rope or ring trick can help anchor your key message at the appropriate time. Be sure to rehearse it well and have a saver line ready in case the trick doesn’t work.

Use a prop if it helps clarify or anchor your message. If the prop does neither – don’t use it. You don’t want people wondering – “What was that all about?”

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Watch the Body Language of Magician Marco Tempest

Perhaps magicians understand and illustrate body language best of all stage performers. When you want to improve the way you look during your presentation, you might be wise to observe a master magician perform. Why? Because they depend heavily on the messages that their body movements convey to support the perceptions of the audience.

Watch and enjoy this TED talk by illusionist, Marco Tempest as he talks about Augmented Reality. Notice how every body movement seems to enhance his performance and strengthen the effect. That's what your body language should do during your presentation. Instead many business presenters ignore the impact of their body language which often distracts or annoys their audience.

To get the full impact of Marco Tempest's body language watch at least part of this presentation with the sound off.

The second thing you will notice is the powerful use of visuals.



PS: As a presentation coach, the one thing that Marco Tempest might change in this presentation is to include a stronger closer line - instead of simply "Thank You".

He missed the opportunity to reinforce his message in his close.


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Impressive PowerPoint Presentation for a change

Enjoy this PowerPoint presentation with lots of powerful visuals - along with tips of how to do it yourself. As you view this, remember that PowerPoint is best when used as a visual medium. Text is not a visual even when displayed on a screen. Text is simply text and that does not reach the visual learners.

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION!

View more presentations from @JESSEDEE

http://www.slideshare.net/presentationCoach

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