Imagine you have been given a day to prepare an important presentation at work, you have all the data, complex charts and tables, but how do you deliver it in a compelling way? How do you choose the right words? How do you make your audience listen and become more interested, even entertained? Sounds daunting? It is daunting, however, these tips will help you weather this storm and have fun as well!

Your data and ideas need a story to come to life. Your story will be the spark that will incite action. We are all wired for stories, or as Brene Brown phrased beautifully “Stories are data with a soul”. Storytelling enables us to engage, inspire and influence our audiences. 

Dr Hal R. Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, in his McKinsey 2008 interview emphasised: "The ability to take data - to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it - that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades".

Focus your talk on what can be explained and brought to life with examples. Ideas and stories are fascinating and we love them! Make your presentations stick with meaningful and relatable examples, funny anecdotes, why not add some suspense? Let your audiences guess, wonder, predict, and maybe come up with their own solutions. Take them on a journey and enjoy the ride :)!

It's 2020. Why Are You Still Using PowerPoint? 

Seriously, why? According to the 2008 study of PowerPoint usage at the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue "students retained 15% less information delivered verbally by the lecturer during PowerPoint presentations”.

It’s time to embrace the new, super cool mediums. If you want to make your presentations interactive why not try Mentimeter? How about Prezi or Padlet to make them more engaging and memorable? 

If used properly and at the right time, these digital tools can increase interaction, build and sustain momentum and boost your confidence as a speaker.

Nerves are good, nerves can give us that extra energy to keep us more alert and sharp, nerves can actually help us perform better. 

“Without anxiety, little would be accomplished,” David Barlow, founder of the Centre for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, has written. “The performance of athletes, entertainers, executives, artisans, and students would suffer; creativity would diminish; crops might not be planted. And we would all achieve that idyllic state long sought after in our fast-paced society of whiling away our lives under a shade tree. This would be as deadly for the species as nuclear war.” 

Your audience expects you to be nervous, so embrace it, enjoy it and feel excited about delivering your killer-to-be presentation :)!

The Relationship Between Anxiety and Performance 

 

Do you know what a learning animal is?

Google only hires what they term learning animals – people with a high aptitude for learning. You might be having a headache about the impact of covid19 on your organisation’s learning as many of your employees are now working from home. But what if there’s a simple and cost effective idea? Your employees can still learn well from home. 

 

The solution is to go digital. It’s all about your mindset toward learning, the message you send and the learning environment you create.