Presentation Advice for Trainers / Educators

Every good presentation is a result of following 3 S’s:

Steps

Simplicity

Story 

Steps give your presentation a smooth flow – a result of proper planning, preparation and practice. 

Find out about your target audience and customise your presentation for them. Decide what information to present, then prepare any visuals, handouts, materials, and equipment that you will be using. 

Familiarise yourself with the content by practising your delivery and timing. Any instructions should be clear, concise and specific. Remember to allow time to carry out your instructions.

Simplicity ensures that your session is understandable but not ‘dumbed down’, challenging but not too difficult to grasp.

To do this, use:

1) Short sentences

2) Everyday words instead of jargon or technical terms

3) Personal pronouns, like ‘I’ and ‘you’

4) Active verbs instead of passive verbs

5) A little humour

Story helps make your presentation memorable. After all, we are all wired to pay attention to (good) stories.

A typical story flow goes:

1) Connect (with audience)

2) Create (scenes in audience’s minds)

3) Characters

4) Crack

5) Conflict

6) Climax

7) Clearing (of prior messes)

8) Conclusion

Apart from full-fledged stories, you can share anecdotes and human interest stories. Just make sure that they are relevant to the topic of your presentation.

Meeting Dean Shams - Communication Strategist - Again

I first met Dean at an APTS meeting in July last year, when he was the speaker.

I wrote about what he taught us here:

At the end of that evening, I got his book - Speak Smart, Make Your Mark - and found it very useful. It presents the process of getting your mindset right about communication before going into the details and methods of making your communication more impactful and effective.

We've been in contact since then and I met him again as a speaker at the Up Your Game Conference late last year.

His topic was 'Up Your Profile', for which he taught the audience how to raise their profiles and build credibility and trust with others.

He spoke as a Communication Strategist, shared his experience in the industry of PR, and reminded the audience that the media doesn't necessarily improve a person's image or brand. It merely amplifies it. 

What that means is that we are responsible for improving our own images / brands.

He gave 4 Key Points:

1) Know your message
2) Know your audience
3) Know your space
4) Know your style

One of the memorable points he made was 'Don't Be Humble'. Specifically, it means to stay away from false humility and to have confidence in your own ability and expertise - a point that I definitely agree with (a topic for another post, I imagine).

At the end of his presentation, he reminded us that a great public profile begins with us managing ourselves.

Dean's style of communication is direct and practical. We share a common belief that substance doesn't need to be fluffed up to be appealing, and I unhesitatingly recommend his expertise to anyone looking to improve their or their company's public profile.

You can look him up here:
 

Meeting Vivek Iyyani - Millennial Consultant & Coach

I first met Vivek last December at the Up Your Game Conference. He was one of the speakers and introduced himself as a Millennial Consultant when he took the stage.

He proceeded to share his thoughts and how, despite the negative perceptions surrounding them, millennials are creative, resilient and a driving force for change.

Briefly explaining how we got to this ‘era’, he gave insights into a millennial’s point of view, the better to understand the thoughts and behaviours of these up and coming movers and shakers of the world.

Being a millennial and a bit of an info junkie, I was familiar with some of the things that were shared but it had disparate bits and pieces of information. Vivek had taken all of that and clicked them together into a coherent, easy-to-follow flow.

I got a copy of his book: Empowering Millennials and couldn’t help myself thinking, “If only I had all of this information 10 years ago.”

Well, no time for ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. My time will be better spent digesting the numerous nuggets of wisdom and answering the thought-provoking questions that Vivek has sprinkled copiously throughout the book.

Fast forward a few weeks, I got an e-mail from Vivek asking how I’d been and expressing his wish to know more about what I do, owing to the too-short time we had at the conference to converse.

So, we arranged a meet-up, during which, we shared about what we do and discussed numerous things.

I learned that Vivek had started as a trainer in a similar way to me and that he moved on to building up his own company – a path that I intend to follow.

I told him that I had been wandering a bit since my book launch, not quite sure about what to do next. To that, he advised me to focus on one aspect of what I’m doing at a time – advice that I sorely needed to hear – and he very kindly offered to help me get going on this.

It isn’t every day that you meet someone so willing to spend time and energy to build up a near-total stranger.  Thank you, Vivek, for your generosity and for offering your advice and experience despite your busy schedule. I look forward to our next meet-up.

If you’re looking for a excellent speaker on practically any aspect of the millennials, Vivek is your guy. I unreservedly recommend his expertise on the subject.

You can look him up on: www.vivekiyyani.com

Because I know that quite a number of you who are reading this (especially you who are my ex-students) are millennials, if you’re looking for someone to show you the ropes of entrepreneurship and designing a life that you seek, connect with Vivek through:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/millennialexpertasia

or

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/millennialexpertasia

An Interview with STYLEGUIDE

A couple of weeks ago, I met Timothy and Carol at Central (Clarke Quay) for a media interview with STYLEGUIDE.

After some introductions, during which we realised we knew a few of the same people (Eugene and Maarten, you guys are clearly influencers), we talked about our respective industries, they in media and I in education. 

It turns out that Timothy has a vast array of experience in various aspects of business and marketing. Carol had joined him in STYLEGUIDE not too long ago and told me that she had already learned a great deal from him. 

Sounds like Timothy is a good teacher!

After a drink (non-alcoholic, of course), we went to a coffee place at Capitol Piazza to record a video for the interview article.

Halfway through, however, a rather large family arrived and they (along with their children) weren't exactly the quietest people around. They also, for some reason, decided to sit well within the frame of the video.

We decided to go somewhere else and ended up at SMU (Victoria St), where we shot the rest of the video in relative short order.

It was quite an experience and, though I'm still not too comfortable standing in front of a camera, it has at least shown me that there is less to fear about it than I originally thought.

Thank you, Timothy and Carol from STYLEGUIDE for the excellent conversation and the opportunity to get my story out there! I look forward to working on our next project together.