It is an interesting exercise taking apart a one hour speech and repackaging it as a five minute talk—Twitterizing.  It goes to the quote, “I would have written less if I had more time.”  The corollary for presentations may be, if it does not fit one slide, it’s not properly thought out.

I think what a lot of presenters miss is having an understanding of what makes for a good presentation.  Here are a few of mine.

Presentation Rule 1—never bore the audience.  They are pulling for you to do well for your sake and theirs.

Presentation Rule 2—the audience can read.  If your slides are filled with text and bullet points, their natural inclination is to read what you’ve written.  They are doing this while you are reading aloud the very same text.  If they are reading, you become superfluous.

Presentation Rule 3—the audience cannot walk and chew gum at the same time (they can’t read your words and listen to you.)  For those presenters who favor text on their slides there is two choices; read from the slides, or try to offer commentary about the slides.  For those who do not read directly from their slides and want to offer commentary it gets even more awkward.  You look at the audience and see them reading the slide.  Your natural tendency is not to interrupt their reading because you are trying to be polite and you do not want them to miss your words of wisdom.  Then your mind starts to wonder if what you are about to say is so important if you should have written it on a slide.

Presentation Rule 4—if you wear wild looking socks, you had better be delivering one heck of a good talk.

Seth Godin’s philosophy about presentations is not wanting people taking notes based on what is on his slides, hence he uses pictures to convey an idea.  I have adopted his approach, choosing to hand-draw concepts from which I can then speak.  Since there is nothing of import on the slides, people start staring at you, something which will make a lot of presenters even more nervous.

The downside of this approach is that since everyone will now be listening instead of reading or writing, you better have something to say.  The issue then becomes how to craft your words in a way to get your audience to remember your message.

I favor analogies, examples, and the occasional cliché.

Will these steps work for you?  I hope they do.  I felt they were working pretty well for me last night right until the end.  An attractive woman approached me and said, “You look like Jack Nicholson, only not as unattractive”—so at least I’ve got that going for me.

Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

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Savory Unicorn & Heirloom Tomato Bruchetta Recipe

• 14 ounce can of Unicorn Meat
• 6 or 7 ripe plum tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 6-8 fresh basil leaves, chopped.
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 baguette French bread or similar Italian bread
• 1/4 cup olive oilChop the tomatoes and mix with garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and basil leaves. Toss well. Slice baguettes on the diagonal about 1/2″ thick. Brush each slice with olive oil and add a full rounded tablespoon of Unicorn Meat, spreading over each piece. Toast in a 450 degree directly on over rock for 5-6 minutes. Do a little funky dance by yourself until it’s toasted. Serve with tomato mixture and some flaming Absinthe.

I wrote this reply to Kent Bottles’ post on whether the Internet is good or bad for you.  http://icsihealthcareblog.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/kent-bottles-is-the-internet-good-or-bad-for-you/#comment-354

That’s quite a mindful—my email just beeped and my MP3 died, so I am going to put this on hold for a second.

Where were we?  A few observations if I may.  Instead of concluding we have difficulty being in the moment, since the way we’ve lived since the infusion of all digital all the time, perhaps the meaning of being in the moment has changed.  Were there similar discussions at the invention of the phone, the radio, the turntable, and the television?  Goodness knows did not we go through many of the same changes—listening to the radio while doing homework, watching TV while conversing with family?

On the issue of multi-tasking, studies suggest we are able to function less effectively while being mutli.  Does that not depend somewhat on the nature of the task?  Let us consider the question, function less at what.  If it has to do with a task of doing ones taxes while checking email and speaking on the phone; that may be true.  If the same functions are considered in light of someone who hates doing their taxes, and has no pressing deadline, no hard stop, perhaps the diversions make the onerous task seem a little less so.

Perhaps there are certain tasks we were unable to do before the internet engulfed our approach to our waking hours.  Perhaps, there are tasks made easier by multi-tasking.  I can be in a group discussion on Google Wave, giving assignments.  The group can be updating and discussing a presentation stored in a cloud—all in real-time.  While downloading a .rar file of a chapter of an audio book for a key deliverable, instead of having to rush to Borders and read it, I may have Pandora running in the background, and may get a text message from someone in the group about a comment they did not wish to share with the group.

That same group can be assigned individual tasks to be completed within the next twenty-four hours.  Members will be assigned to “post” their deliverables to the group at various times for individual comment, and a final meeting invite will be sent by the last person to finish their task.  Pretty efficient.  Certainly better than the days when we felt fortunate simply to be able to FedEx a draft of the deliverables to each of the members, some of whom are overseas, and wait 48 hours to view their feedback.

Perhaps the relevancy of good versus bad internet depends more on what you are trying to do.  Some people who have self-diagnosed ADHD—I barely have time to focus on having AD, let alone all four letters—may find this a blessing.  I have the attention span of a half-life of a fruit fly.  I bore easily, and on occasion bore others easily.  Stuck in this digital cornucopia, I am able to function at a higher level.

As I write this, I have eleven browser windows open, am synching my cell phone, downloading music on LimeWire, am working on a new blog post—not this one, and writing the first two chapters of my book on leadership.  This approach relaxes me.  If I had to do just one of those knowing I could not do something else until the first was complete, I’d be in therapy.

Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

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Contact me: paulroemer paulroemer paulroemer