Hear him, hear him. Jeff Nolan (punctuated with a hilarious suggestion from Anil Dash) on how counterproductive corporatespeak is.

See also: Bureaucraspeak, featuring links to Josh Hallett & Brazen Careerist primers on Jargon and What Not to Say.

Good tips from Mike Elgan on how to use your presentation laptop for good and not evil. Money quote (paraphrased):

…generic suit… (with) fake smile and a clicker stands uneasily… people who would rather be somewhere else. …He slogs laboriously through slide after boring slide, glancing at them to remind himself what he’s talking about… The audience fights narcolepsy… The slides… make a long series of points mainly irrelevant to the audience. The presentation exceeds its time, despite the fact that he glanced at his watch several times during the talk.

This account describes 90% of the PowerPoint presentations I’ve witnessed, and I’ve seen thousands.

So true. WHY? WHY? WHY?

Mike shares how to use your laptop as 1) a notes display, 2) a timer, or 3) a coworker cue system(think the neck slitting “wrap it up” gesture from the back of the room, without the neck slitting gesture from the back of the room), all while presenting your slide deck.

Hat tip: Steve Rubel

UPDATE ah-ha, Lifehacker found it too and as usual, there are some really strong ideas in the comments section.

Social Media Consultant Josh Hallett offers this great primer on what NOT to say, couched as a translation tool for corporate press releases and statements. Avoid meaningless crud in ALL your communications, from press releases to presentations and beyond.

(As seen on Global Neighbourhoods)

UPDATE: And this just in, brilliant excerpt on jargon — Leverage Your Core Competencies by Off-Loading Jargon – from Penelope Trunk’s new book The Brazen Careerist. Don’t skip jargon because you “should,” skip it because of what it communicates about you. (And what it fails to communicate.) Meaning (and response) are the whole point of communication, so you’d better know what meaning and response your words really generate.

Presenters, PLEASE remember, you’re not in 4th grade anymore, trying to use your book report to prove to the teacher that you read the entire book (you know you didn’t) by including every possible fact.

In every presentation, even project and performance reviews or status checks, you need to work to accomplish a well-defined business objective.

(HINT: Not “tell them every piece of data possible about the project”)

All joking aside, even when the presentation/objective requires significant detail, deliver it in comprehensible ways. Handouts, supporting documents, heck even white papers = good, presentation visual aids = bad, fillibuster-style speaking = bad. Your presentation guides the audience through the material, as opposed to shoveling it onto their heads until they’re smothered.

Pretty easy back when that song was released, but what about now? Raise your hands if you’ve ever accidentally or hastily sent an email you never should have sent. Some ways to avoid this:

1. address the body: go ahead and hit reply or address the email, but then before you write a word, cut and paste the recipient address/es into the body of the email. this saves you from accidentally hitting “send” on a half-baked missive.
2. serve it cold: emails written in the heat of any emotion — anger, enthusiasm, etc. may not be written well at all. if you were emotional in the writing, you need to take a step back (even if it is a trip to the coffee machine and back and then a re-read) before you send it.
   • don’t serve anger-ever: angry emails are never going to serve you well. even in the most outrageous and aggregious circumstance, you can probably accomplish a lot more using humor or other more positive tactics to respond to something that justifably made you angry.
3. take it outside: if it’s particularly explosive and really needs a lot of time in drafting, reconsidering, etc. don’t even write it in your email software, just open wordpad and spew away. the ideas are captured, and it’s just seconds to cut and paste it into your browser if you really need to.
4. the circular file: sometimes you just need to write it and NOT send it. period.

UPDATES: Similar advice quoted on Web Worker Daily 4/24/2007

Pretty easy back when that song was released, but what about now? Raise your hands if you’ve ever accidentally or hastily sent an email you never should have sent. Some ways to avoid this:

1. address the body: go ahead and hit reply or address the email, but then before you write a word, cut and paste the recipient address/es into the body of the email. this saves you from accidentally hitting “send” on a half-baked missive.
2. serve it cold: emails written in the heat of any emotion — anger, enthusiasm, etc. may not be written well at all. if you were emotional in the writing, you need to take a step back (even if it is a trip to the coffee machine and back and then a re-read) before you send it.
   • don’t serve anger-ever: angry emails are never going to serve you well. even in the most outrageous and aggregious circumstance, you can probably accomplish a lot more using humor or other more positive tactics to respond to something that justifably made you angry.
3. take it outside: if it’s particularly explosive and really needs a lot of time in drafting, recondsidering, etc. don’t even write it in your email software, just open wordpad and spew away. the ideas are captured, and it’s just seconds to cut and paste it into your browser if you really need to.
4. the circular file: sometimes you just need to write it and NOT send it. period.