To Claude Malaison and his team at Webcom Montreal, congratulations on a successful conference and thanks kindly for the privilege of speaking.

I spoke (no shock) about microsharing, interpreting some of the “big picture” business potential for this audience of Canadian business and government leaders.

My slides are below. I’ll add the video as soon as I can get it to offload from my camera.

This variant of my “2.0″ overview slide deck supported an interesting chat with some of Boston’s leading nonprofit executives at the Phillips Forum Non-Profit Cafe luncheon hosted by Colette Phillips Communications in Boston today.

I emphasized how important it is to listen and shared some anecdotes about how nonprofits can use social media. We did not go terribly in-depth on specific tools because even more important to organizations entering the space is understanding the principles and strategies that inform how to employ tactics effectively.

The last few resources and tools slides point to the real experts and resources (provided by NP2.0 guru Beth Kanter) in the “nonprofit 2.0″ space.

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Your comments and questions are most welcome, whether you were at the talk or not!

View from the conference venue
in Ouchy: Image via WikipediaI gave a talk this morning in Lausanne at Stephanie Booth’s Going Solo conference for freelancers.

Stowe Boyd live-twittered the talk. Suw Charman-Anderson blogged amazingly complete notes, and Urs Gattiker wrote this post about the principles covered. Jaap Stronks is liveblogging the entire day using CoverItLive.

The slide deck is below:

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Big thank you to Stephanie and all of the attendees. We had a really enjoyable discussion (see Suw’s post for detailed notes on the Q & A also.)

(If you would like to follow these folks on Twitter: Stephanie is @stephtara, Stowe is @stoweboyd, Suw is @suw, Urs is @commetrics, Jaap is @Jaapstronks.)

UPDATE: Video of the presentation itself is already live. Wow, conference video guy! Thanks.

I am lecturing twice today at Bentley College in Waltham, MA for Professor Mark Frydenberg’s IT101 course: Introduction to Information Technology. Mark is extraordinary in the degree to which he incorporates, teaches and uses web 2.0 tools (wikis, blogging, popfly mashups) in his class.

The morning class was delightful and of course, we live streamed the entire thing on Qik.com/pistachio

I told my Twitter followers to follow this link to remain abreast of the students’ conversations and remarks via Twitter during the class. It is just a www.tweetscan.com search for “pistachio” so that everyone can follow all of the replies together and see the students’ individual introductions. It kept us all on the same page. Fun.

Next class is in a few minutes, I’ll return later to embed the video… Follow us live (if chat doesn’t work, there is probably just a time lag on the upload) at www.Qik.com/pistachio.

Why aren’t presentations becoming generally better despite so much great thinking on how to fix them? Is it because many come together at the last minute?

Presentation Zen (which is awesome) got me thinking. What can you fix if you only have a few moments? Say you don’t have time to master the concepts in Garr’s book, you haven’t been reading presentations blogs, your company didn’t invest in training or coaching, and you’re on the spot. What then?

10-minute overhaul to improve any presentation:

Audience & Objective
Put your slides (or script/visuals/etc) away and get out a piece of paper. Imagine that you just gave the presentation. Now write down answers to:

1. Who was in the audience? What motivates them? (2 mins)
2. How did my presentation connect directly to their interests and motivations? (1 min)
3. What did I achieve? What is the audience going to repeat from my presentation? How will they answer “What did you just learn?” (1 min)

These answers determine your purpose. They show your “audience-specific objective.” Know who you’re talking to and how to connect their needs to your goals.

Get Darwinian
Back to your slides. Delete or hide any that do not support your audience-specific objective. (2 mins) (If you MUST, promise you will click swiftly through with little comment. If knowing it’s there makes you calmer, well, calmer is better.)

Reorder
Start and end the presentation with your big idea expressed as “what’s in it for them.” Tie it to your audience’s interests and motivations. At the end of the presentation, connect your big idea to what you want to achieve. Your presentation should start something. It should stimulate an active response from the audience. (2 mins)

Extra time? Arrange your entire deck to build up the case for your big idea. Illustrate with simple stories. Sort concepts and stories into coherent sections and use clear transitions between them. Find a sequence brings the audience to your conclusions.

Lightning Round
Race through your presentation using no more than one sentence to explain each slide. Take no more than five seconds per slide. State the point in just one short remark. If you can’t, kill the slide. If you can’t kill it, “maim” it until it has a point. (2 mins)

Extra time? Go through the presentation several times in “lightning round” mode, and do significant edits between rounds. Work in teams to collaborate on the best “main points” of the presentation.

Come see this in action. Join me on ooVoo (sign up at www.MyOovooDay.com/signup.php) at 4 PM on 2/12, 2/14, 2/19 or 2/21. We’ll experiment with the ooVoo videoconferencing software (download required) by discussing how to use this fire drill. The seminar is FREE and benefits the Frozen Pea Fund.

I use the word “slide” in this drill. Most formal presentations still use slideware. They DO NOT have to. If yours does not (YAY!), substitute “paragraph” “supporting point” “story” “example” to best suit your presentation.

TED | Talks | Isabel Allende: Tales of passion (video)

PLEASE watch this for two reasons:

1) Most of all, just, wow. Listen and reflect on the power of stories, the strength of passion and the need to change the world. Listening to this called me to action on the Nine Million children living as refugees worldwide. It made me dream about what I want my life to become and what most matters to me to DO. Meanwhile, here’s more on the NineMillion:

• Nine-Million on MS Spaces.Live
• Media Resources

2) Because we learn to communicate well by listening and watching. “This is how you do it” folks, this talk (and any number of TED talks) is a gold standard to learn from.

(Via Chris Brogan.)

“Beyond Blogging: PR and Today’s Social Media Revolution”

Tech PR Gems: Panelists for next week’s PRSA event. Hope Boston area folks will come out for this evening of Social Media discussions (panel and breakouts) with:

Make your team more influential and successful in 2008 by improving how they present their ideas. Providing tools, experiences and motivation to communicate more effectively will get more business accomplished. Here are 10 basic things you can do to keep this resolution and help your team.

1. Begin at the beginning:
Better explain each project in the first place. No presentation exists to BE a presentation, they exist to get business done. Always define the audience and objectives in concrete, actionable terms when the project first gets assigned.

2. Tell mom:
Have employees explain ideas, and even whole presentations, to a layperson (a parent, child, spouse…) This works even if, especially if, the laypeople don’t understand the subject. Inability to explain the significance of an idea is a sign of fuzzy thinking. At a minimum have them articulate - to a layperson - who the presentation is for and what needs to be achieved.

3. What not to say:
Presenter writes down “everything they know” about the topic and then sets this aside for as long as practical. Coming back to it fresh, they cross off everything the audience doesn’t HAVE to know. Next, put at least 1/3 of what’s left into another format (email, handout, Q&A) that will do a better job conveying the information in the way it needs to be applied to accomplish the goal.

4. Work it out:
Like good athletes, effective communicators get lots of practice. Sing karaoke, go to toastmasters, volunteer to speak at community events, talk to yourself in the shower. For more frequent practice, apply the “audience + results” framework anytime you have an idea to convey. master the skills you need for effectiveness.

5. If you build it:
Create a space in your work area where presentations can be practiced. Include gear, videocamera, etc.

6. Listen up:
Listening well is CRITICAL to speaking well. Foster listening skills by having your group discuss/report on presentations they see. Share great presentation videos from You Tube or the TED Talks, and look at what works well when presenting. Encourage your team to look for good and bad examples of presentations “in the wild.”

7. Batting practice:
Encourage your team to practice routine mini-presentations in front of each other at least weekly. They’ll establish workable rapport and good habits for when something high stakes comes up and rehearsing with a team really matters. Bonus: team meetings get way more concise and enjoyable when everyone’s conscious of presenting their best.

8. Put your money where their mouth is:
Walk the walk by providing time and resources for team members to improve their communications skills. Invest in training and coaching that gives them tools and support to continue to improve.

9. Read. Share. Read:
Seek out books and blogs about making ideas stick and spread. Tipping Point, Made to Stick and even Dale Carnegie’s classics will stimulate their thinking. Check out our website for more resources.

10. Stick to your guns:
Need help sticking to this resolution? Calculate the cost of the next unproductive meeting or PowerPoint you’re stuck in. A rough cost per participant/per hour is (salary x 1.7)/2000. If you make $75,000, your supervisor is paid $100,000 and 3 of your team at $50,000 each join you for a weekly 2 hour meeting, you’re spending $23,000 a year just on that meeting. Lost opportunities cost you even more.

This was presented to an SEO/SEM audience at www.PubCon.com 2007, but holds the kernels of a bunch of stuff I’m working on right now.

In fact, expect the name of this blog to change soon, and the focus to include a lot more writing about social media. That’s where my brain is living these days. It’s also what I am being asked to speak about, 2-3 times more often than I speak about, err, speaking.

Watch this space

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Notes are coming. I swear.

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.