from blank page to powerful presentation
‘I’ve been struggling for days with this presentation. I don’t know where to start or stop. How do I make it powerful? How do I make it memorable?’
Many clients ask for my assistance in creating powerful presentations. Though each case is unique, I thought I would share a little bit about the process I go through in going from blank page to powerful presentation.
blank page
I know this can be scary, but it is important that you start fresh. You need a blank page. Use a white board, a piece of paper, a text document, or a blank slide in your presentation software. The tool does not matter, the white space does.
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This post has been moved to azione scopo’s new project: PresentationYOU.com (click here to read the rest)
5 Responses to “from blank page to powerful presentation”
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Hi Linda
I have two thoughts. One is that I agree with the aim of KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE. About ten years ago a guy called Barny gave a slide show to our paragliding club in the Isle of Wight in England. It was about flying cross-country. (Most paraglider pilots stay close to the hill or cliff they take off from.) Although he has flown in many countries, as captain of the British team, he limited his slides to Israel … novelty value for most of us! Also, he chose ONLY SIX SLIDES. One of them was a photo of clouds and he asked us to choose which cloud to steer towards next and give our reasons. It was a truly memorable presentation. He is such a modest guy. He gave us none of his own advice, but quoted advice from three of his team members, to show that there is not one standard approach to winning competitions.
The other thought is that your “make it powerful” paragraph is going to be useful to people who communicate in other ways (letters, blogs, e-mails, conversations). I will work at keeping its points in mind when trying to write a persuasive blog post. THANK YOU.
Jenny,
Thank you for sharing the paragliding example. As I was reading about the cloud slide, I started to think about which cloud I would steer toward!
By the way, how was the paragliding experience? Maybe a blog post about that would be a great place to practice powerful presentations.
Ciao
~Linda
Hello again, Linda
Our homework this term, in the French conversation class I attend on a Wednesday, is to give a presentation on “my passion”. The focus is on explaining what it is about the passion that makes it so gripping rather than describing the what and when day-to-day aspects. I will be using your article to help in the planning stage.
I thought about your idea of writing about paragliding on my blog but it doesn´t really fit with the blog´s topic of language learning. Maybe I can add it to my “about” page at a later date. Did you see Leah´s “about” story on PEACEFUL PLANET? Powerful stuff. She added further material behind the main short story with links. Then you got links to yet another level of depth.
Back to the real live presentation now,
J
Jenny,
Let me/us know how the presentation turns out!
By the way, do you have the link for Leah’s post? I’d love to share it here.
Good luck with your presentation.
Ciao
Hi Linda
Re Leah´s post, I will look up the link and send it to you.
Re this morning´s presentation:
It went extremely well, people were butting in all over the place, asking questions in French (they are German). That is what I wanted, rather than questions as the end, which is what the teacher asked for!
Your “how to” guidelines were extremely powerful, as promised. My problem was that paragliding is such an overwhelming passion for me and I have been flying for ten years in three countries. There was simply too much material jostling to be talked about. In the end I never did manage to reduce the presentation to a well-behaved two pages of text, to be read out in class, which is the format that most of the others have gone for. Instead I just typed my headline points out onto an A4 sheet, in various colours and distributed it, so that people could follow the structure.
Thanks again for that valuable article.
Jenny