One big, brief thought while reading: Psychology | Inside a deal | Economist.com

Can you see the world, or at least *your* message, from the “audience” point of view?

The same perspective-taking and empathy skills that make people more effective in negotiations also make presentations much stronger and more persuasive. After all, a presentation is often the stepping off point towards engaging in negotiation.

Perspective-taking, “the cognitive power to consider the world from someone else’s viewpoint,” is probably the most important part of presenting more effectively.

(Via SigmaXi’s Science in the News.)

Client: “Should I have a PowerPoint?”

Pistachio: “Why?”

Client: “I don’t want them to be bored.”

Pistachio: “Then don’t.”

Pistachio: “Is there anything you need to tell them that you cannot do with your body or your voice?”

Client: “No.”

Pistachio: “There you go.”

Pistachio: “Uh, do you mind if I write this down for a blog post?”

I presented to BNCA, a women’s architecture college in Pune, India in November. The client wanted their female students to feel more comfortable voicing their opinions and ideas, presenting their work and even interacting with their instructors.

A big challenge was to connect “skill at presenting” to all areas of their lives, since realistically, not all students are terribly motivated about achieving top honors in school or even becoming successful architects.

The “secondary” goal (mixed audience) was to challenge instructors to make their material more engaging and appealing to students. I gave them all tools, motivation and enthusiasm to apply to developing their voices, taking risks and communicating well to achieve whatever goals matter most to them.

We did exercises to engage everyone with the material. Students “worked on” (yes I made them get out pen and paper and run scenarios) presentations ranging from totally personal (man thinking about his 1 year old) to career (woman who focused on her thesis project).

To get your audience to connect with your material, you REALLY have to suss out (and SHOW them) why they should care.

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*”Vivas” refers to important oral examinations.

Found in Anne Truit Zelenka’s links: But Miss, they’re not listening to me

Get your audiences thinking. Give them an active role in your presentation. Make them want to do more, learn more, get their questions answered. They don’t owe you attention, you owe them useful, relevant content.

We have to earn the respect of our peers. But remember, in a networked society, everyone is a peer. Your professors. Your children. Your subordinates. Your bosses.

Everyone’s a peer.

Live with it.

There’s also an intriguing generational contrast between “surreptitious” Backberry users pretending to pay attention, vs multi-taskers on laptops (and BBs) who don’t look like they’re listening but may be really engaged with notes, searches, etc. Not sure how universally it plays out, but interesting to consider.

Had a fun session this morning at PodCamp Boston 2, great discussion on understanding and conversing with your audience no matter what kind of media you produce. Think *you’re* not a media maker? Guess again. This stuff applies to everything from your emails, outgoing voicemail message, participation on blogs and other social networks, right up to full-blown mediacasts. And of course, to your presentations!

I will add some more commentary, but for now here is the deck:

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My good friend and social media guru Bryan Person was kind enough to host me on BlogTalkRadio yesterday, fielding questions and talking about how to do a great job presenting this weekend at PodCamp Boston 2.

From his blog:

Here’s the audio from my 58-minute conversation with Laura Fitton earlier today on BlogTalkRadio.

Laura was my guest on a show about “delivering killer presentations at PodCamp” and offered excellent advice for both first-time presenters and accomplished speakers alike. She also took several call-in questions from a listening audience that ranged between 15 and 18 for a solid hour.

Enjoy — and see you at PodCamp Boston 2 this weekend.

The show is archived at BlogTalkRadio, so please, take a listen and let me know what questions you have about your presentations!

UPDATE: I am deeply indebted to mdy for her careful notes on the show, and the excellent “key points” summary that she posted at her blog. Wow, if you want a gig writing up show notes for my speeches, you’re SO hired! She writes up detailed notes on:

• (1-to-1) Interactions can be presentations
• Be effective and useful for your audience
• Don’t lose sight of the purpose
• Stop worrying about what you’re going to say. Factor that in last. First think: who am I talking to?; What result do you want to achieve?
• Get to your room early and chat with people as they come in
• Prepare for a wide range of audience expectations
• Communications is 2-way
• Make things interactive
• De-personalize the experience of presenting
• Get the Q&A flow going
• Don’t end with Q&A
• Do not confuse the call to action with a call to buy
• Think of setting up a website around your whole presentation, so people have a place to go to continue the conversation
• One-on-one: Don’t ambush people with your 30-second pitch
• Start with the A-ha! The so what? The why do I care?
• Think about what you can control in the room
• Watching videos of your presentations
• Body Language: Walk. Smile. Care.
• Dealing with The glassy-eyed room

I’ve added in links to some articles on this blog that flesh out the principles in more detail.

It’s Blog Action Day, Gore & the IPCC just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and I sure as heck have something to say about how that happened. So I give you: What Good is a Presentation?

So you present. So what? Why? Because someone makes you? Because you have to? Seriously, why bother? PowerPoints are mind-numbing. Nobody wants to hear you stand around and talk talk talk. Can’t we all just get out of this meeting soon, anyways?

It doesn’t have to suck. Not if you’re really trying to do something, and not if you connect to that.

So, what good is a presentation? It’s a sh*t way to deliver a whole massive lotta content, concepts and ideas. It’s not even a good way to persuade if you make it all about you and what you think and you know. It has to be about the audience. It has to connect with them where they are today.

Watching Inconvenient Truth you can see how Gore used metaphors, comparisons, stark visual displays of information and appeals to emotion to show that — and why — the audience should be concerned about climate change. There was nothing in that movie that I hadn’t heard about while studying environmental science and public policy 15 years ago. The difference was in the connections he made with the things people care about. You can’t change people, but you can move their hearts and minds.

By now you’re laughing. Move their hearts and minds at the weekly (weakly) Monday morning status meeting? Ha. I’m lucky if they even look up from their coffee!

You’re not going to care about your next status report or even client pitch as much as Gore was concerned about the environment when he set out to start speaking on Global Warming, sure. But so what? Presenting is going to take up your time and “their” time, so it’s worth doing well. Figure out what you need to accomplish when you present?

How can you move hearts and minds, even just a little? That status update? Don’t just dump everything you’re doing and where you’re at. That level of detail works better in a list anyways, not in a presento. Take it a step further and consider why the team needs the update. What are the most valuable, pertinent bits you can shave off the top of your mass of information and deliver in a way that your audience needs? Share some excitement for what you do & why it matters. Make your report connect to their emotional & professional lives. Talk about what’s relevant, then shut up & sit down.

You don’t believe me? Your subject matter too dull to matter?

“This week I ordered paper, pens, sticky notes and toner. I checked that we have sufficient supplies of pencils, pens, binder clips, staples and white out…”

OR

“Since it sucks to waste time looking for office supplies, I made sure we have enough of everything. Here’s the list. Let me know if you need anything else.”

I haven’t engaged in discussions on it publicly and intellectually in a long, long time. But, I am extremely concerned about the disconnects between science, policy and the environment. There’s a great deal that we have known, for a very long time, that is very bad news. Lots of folks with an axe to grind will try to pretend it ain’t so, and do all in their power to undermine the messengers. Go ahead and hate Gore, hate the movie, hate the super-mega-international-jetfuel-burning lecture tour if that makes you feel better. But what that won’t do is change the message — the Inconvenient Truth of it all.

And the brutal truth is that it’s ultimately not about “Saving the World,” it’s about saving ourselves and each other. Looking long, long back through the scientific record it is plain that “The World” will survive no matter what we do to muck with it. Life’s like that. But if we muck with it enough, it will have “no qualms” killing us off and getting on with its day. So, um, yeah.

More links on the Peace Prize award: AP News, MSNBC , Newsday, Boston Globe

Two very different sounding posts. One universal presentations problem. Both of these recent posts by John Windsor at The You Blog are about crappy audience experience.

Watch out for the bag lady The Trouble with Webinars

Always avoid presenting a data dump that’s built around your needs. Be precisely focused on audience needs and engagement. If it’s not urgently important to the audience, don’t do it.

Think that doesn’t apply to your mandatory routine presentations? BS. If you have to include it, there’s a reason somewhere. Your mission is: yank that reason out, make it obvious and package it into your delivery so it grabs whoever’s watching. Challenge yourself!

The deck is the deck is the deck (not the “presentation”), but some decks stand out. Here’s a new, striking, smart example:

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From Chris Brogan’s talk on presenting at PodCamp Pittsburgh2.

The basic premise was that presentations are relationships, not to waste people

Link roundup: podcast on confident speaking; blogs entry on fear and likeability…

Blogging and Beyond: Public Speaking with Confidence Patsi and Denise interview Guest Expert: Dr. Larina Kase, co-author of The Confident Speaker. LOVE Larina’s points about being good at your own individual style of speaking, and agree strongly with the myths she busts. But? I was a little disappointed? by how much she used the Little Girl Voice?

Step Forward Scott Schwertly on fear. Key points: A fear of public speaking is healthy, Fear is your friend, Public speaking is abnormal

Create Your Communications Experience: The Likeability Factor money quote is a paraphrase of Dale Carnegie: “‘You will win more friends in the next two months developing a sincere interest in two people than you will ever win in the next two years trying to get two people interested in you.’”