Archive for May, 2007

Top meeting frustration? Keep motormouths idle (print subscription required). Boston Business Journal reports Opinion Research USA’s findings about what makes meetings suck:

1. disorganized, rambling meetings
2. interruptions
3. cell phones
   

BBJ readers express peeves from motormouths to disorganized meeting leaders, all amounting to “wasted time”.

Every word you speak in a meeting is a presentation. The art is to filter well. The long list called “what you know” must become the concise and effective short list called “what they need to know.” Be confident and organized.

Of course the meeting’s leader is most on the spot. As leader, get sharp about your objectives and your audience. Prepare thoroughly and steer the meeting according to well-defined objectives. I don’t mean be a control freak. Even a wide-open brainstorming session has objectives. If a meeting must occur, it has at least one objective to be satisfied. Get to it and move on. A BBJ reader points out:

“If the meeting was important enough for a bosses(sic) to schedule, then it should be important enough for them to take the time to be prepared.”

Meetings are truly little clusters of presentations. The most presentations you will ever make are most likely the ones you make in everyday meetings. Organize your thoughts before you speak, and listen carefully. Like most presentations, the part most often missed is the “return path” of listening well. Use your next meeting to practice better listening, and as you do, think about how to apply better listening to better presenting in many realms.

Going after VC? “Must-read” posts from Attorney/former VC Suzie Dingwall Williams at Venture Law Lines and Rick Segal at Post Money Value:

Why VCs Take Meetings; The “Great Meeting” With Money

Why’d you get the meeting? Fine-tune your objective, and ergo, your pitch.

Notice how little they talk about your company’s story, and how much they talk about your audience. Be smart about this to use even throwaway “favor” meetings to your advantage (or to skip un-strategic ones). Suzie:

Many of these meetings resulted in longer term relationships, even if our interest was not in making an investment. Good business development? Yes. But a useful part of your search for near term money? Probably not.

Rick’s gem:

Prepare, practice, rinse -n- repeat. And here’s a tip if you really want to do extra credit homework: Speak to people who have pitched and gotten a formal no. Ask them about the experience as that data is even more telling then the funded CEO who is (duh) singing the high praises of the VC firm.

Both Rick and Suzie will talk VC Pitching at MESH tomorrow. Watch this space for more…

“Rehearsal Video” Videotape yourself practicing your next high stakes presentation. Now, watch it 3 times:

• Normal speed, normal volume
• Normal speed, no volume
• Fast Forward

Normal speed, normal volume: First, stop hating yourself. No, really, everyone thinks they sound and look weird, let it go. Do you think you got your ideas across? Good start. Do you think you meant business? Hmmm. Watch the video with someone else. Do they agree?

Normal speed, no volume: What story is your body telling? Does your movement have purpose? Do your gestures ADD to what you are doing, or distract?

Fast Forward: Who doesn’t love Benny Hill? It’s kind of fun to watch this way. But if FF elicits too many laughs, do you need to alter movements/gestures? “Funny” how glaring your quirks are, viewed like this. Watch for nervous movement, movement without a point and distracting gestures, all of which will jump out at you even better on FF.

“Performance Video” Videotape yourself speaking every chance you get. Get used to watching and learning from these tapes. Enlist a friend’s help, and ask them to write down:

• What they think you were trying to achieve
• What they can guess about who you were talking to
• Your 3 most important points
• Something you did well
• Something to improve

Well, how did you do?

Even if you don’t get up the nerve to view these recordings right away, keep at least a tape a year to review your progress.

Media Influencer reminds us of a classic proverb on learning and teaching:

Tell me, I’ll forget
Show me, I’ll remember
Involve me, I’ll understand

OK let’s face it, I picked this because I love the Sox!*

Ben Fry’s got some mad chops, so we shouldn’t be surprised he did this well… Hey Ben, add another column showing team profitability vs. salary $ spent, then we’ll really see who is pissing money away and who is an investor?
The Mets look like duma$$es for top spending and, err, rank performance. BUT, what are Pedro & pals bringing in at the box office?

*if you have to ask which Sox, you need to read this blog more carefully.

Read this blog and you’ll see a lot about audience + objective = message, what that means, and why it’s important for ALL presentations (from an outgoing voice message to a giant keynote).

This post is about what that focus on the audience doesn’t mean.

Putting the audience “first” is not pandering. You’re not up there to please, make them like you, or even, necessarily, make them want the kool-aid you’re selling. It’s not a popularity contest. You don’t even need their approval. You need their response.

When you factor the audience into your planning, you do it strategically and you factor it together with your objective. The two play off each other and that’s what determines your message (and your approach). Yes, you look at who the audience is, what their needs and wants are, etc., but then you apply that knowledge to your goal.

Sometimes you want the audience to agree with you and repeat your ideas to others. Sometimes you want the audience to disagree with you and churn up a good debate about it. Sometimes you want them to be convinced by what you say, and others you need them to play off you and take it in a new direction.

Presenting with the audience always in mind is not about giving them “what they want,” it’s about reaching them where they are in order to bring them towards your objective. You’re showing character, not compliance.

How’s it work in practice?

Professional speakers are notorious for pride in their “audience feedback ratings”. Hint: they don’t matter. When I’m paid to speak, my job is NOT to get high feedback ratings. My job is to help whomever hired me accomplish what they hired me for, because the person who hired me is the real audience and my business objective is happy clients and referrals.

When I teach a seminar, I love building a close relationship with the participants, and hold my “audience” in high regard. But I’m not playing to the audience hoping they will end the day “really loving” the seminar they took, (or even agreeing with everything I said). My objective is for them to end up better at their jobs because they’ve become more effective presenters.

Incorporate the audience into planning your message, but remember you’re trying to give a presentation that kicks ___, not merely trying to kiss the audience’s ___.

Check out Ben Casnocha’s new book, My Startup Life.

The more I read Ben’s ideas and see what he puts into things, the more I believe Chris Sacca’s (Google) blurb for the book — that sooner or later we’re all going to work for Ben.

This book will be big. Be the first in your office to read it and be part of its success by buying it on day one (Monday, May 21).

I’m looking forward to reading the book, and personally recommend it to anyone who wants to become an entrepreneur or just be CEO of their own life. If you’re on the fence read these. You can also read an excerpt here or listen to interview podcasts here. And if you don’t want to take my word for it, read Auren Hoffman’s.

UPDATE: …or Jeff Nolan’s …or Kavit Haria’s …or his guest column at Brazen Careerist. Even Valleywag bothered to snit about it, and since they’re always nasty, their wag is its own endorsement. And if you’re still on the fence, go do some competitive haikuing for a signed copy from Ben via Brad & Amy Feld.

I just bought my copy.

Dear PowerPoint critics, Edward Tufte, et al,

(Cartoon by Hugh McLeod, hat tip to Adriana Lukas, Media Influencer)

Scott at Presentation Revolution offers this very true-funny post:

“…after four years we still have not seen a drastic change in the way presentations are built, designed, and delivered today. The bottom line: most presenters are insane…

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Now, I love what Ethos3 is doing. Meet Henry is brilliant. AND, I do enjoy this post about insanity.

BUT (Yeah you saw that coming. Sorry Scott.)

To play devil’s advocate, why WOULD there be drastic change on the whole? We’ve been mediocre at presentations for millenia. Cicero, Carnegie, lots of smart folks been chipping away at it. Same for how people overall put together memos, writings, music… Drastic improvements don’t follow just because we realize things matter, or even how to improve them. Some can, and do, make drastic improvements, but overall?

As much as communicating well matters, it’s just one thing successful people need to be good at. Presentations “built, designed and delivered” by individuals probably won’t get drastically better anymore than emails will on the whole improve. Or fitness. Or personal finance. The many who know what they *should* do, don’t. And most books on the topic offer little beyond formulaic “rules” and tricks.

When it really really matters, well, that’s when Scott and I earn our keep. We help people do their jobs better by communicating effectively.

Now, if an individual kept schlepping into meetings with the same awful slides and never understood why they weren’t making progress, sure. Insane. If an organization could not break through its “sliditis”-dependent tendencies, well… ok, maybe a lot of large organizations are pretty insane.

All this said, YES, a thousand times, I wish everyday presentations were evolving faster. But I do think the major presentations, the big conferences, we have seen some pretty cool stuff. We just gotta keep plugging away at it and showing where excellence can take us.

You know exactly what you mean to say. Do they?

Theoretically not safe for work in a French-speaking office, but I very much doubt it.