Want to move from mild-mannered geek to awe-inspiring tech presentation superhero?
After coaching almost 4000 presentations, I’ve realised that it’s quite simple to stand head, shoulders, abs and knees above the mediocre standards of most technical presenters.
Over the next 8 weeks or so, I’ll take you through what’s needed to become interesting, talked about, clear, relevant, clever and credible. Maybe even a little bit suave.
Here, then, is an overview of the 8 simple secrets to becoming a technical presentation superhero. Each step builds on the previous one, so you get the biggest bang for your buck implementing them in sequence.
A recommendation implies that:
- you are focusing on an action
- that action will benefit the people you are recommending it to
- you are not ‘selling’ this idea, or doing anything underhand or manipulative
- it’s out of your control whether we take you up or not
- you have a genuine desire to connect
In this way, your presentation becomes useful. (Don’t know how to decide what to put into a presention and what to leave out? This step will help you.) Read some more about this here.
Never have I ever had to get a presenter to speak faster. Never. Ever.
Nervous, subordinate people speak fast. Tricksy salespeople speak fast (‘fast-talker’ anyone?). People with status take their time.
Until you get this down, all that advice about using active verbs and pointing at yourself when you say ‘Fabulous’ ( you are, but please don’t) is useless. You can’t change the way you’re expressing yourself until you can hear the way you’re expressing yourself. That sensation of the sentences just falling out of your mouth goes away when you slow down. (Don’t worry if you think you are an irretrievable motor-mouth. Help is on the way.) More about this here.
Planning a sincere recommendation and slowing down until you hear each word
corrects 90% of what’s wrong with modern presentations. Read them again.
The next steps are the magic.
Structuring your session around our (silent, mental) questions is the key to being relevant. We have a few ‘what’ questions, but way more ‘how?’ and ‘Why?’ questions. Follow what’s going inside our heads, and we’ll wonder how you read our minds. Not as hard as it sounds. We won’t even notice this is what you’re doing – we’ll just think you’re smart. More here.
Speakers often confuse high energy with fast pace. The key is raised energy but slow pace.
Speakers also confuse passion with ridiculously high energy. 50% above where we are is too much of a mismatch, unless you want to be some weird ‘motivational’ evangelist. 5% gently wakes us up. As we wake up, you move 5% higher. This is how you warm a group up – gently and at our pace. More here.
5. Separate the slides, handouts and prompts
I have so much to say on this topic I can barely contain myself. Suffice it to say that the visuals we need to follow your talk are so radically different from the reference we’ll need afterwards and from the notes you need to remember your points that it is madness to combine them. Don’t worry – I’ll walk you through this. (And by handouts I mean all post-presentation reference material – but that’s a little less pithy.)
6. Don’t plan a presentation, plan a conversation.
I know, I know, a presentation is a pretty strange type of conversation. However, all sorts of questions about calibration (level of detail, of formality, of jargon) are answered when you think: ‘If I were in conversation with someone from this group, how would I speak?’
7. Plan to speak for half the time
If you think it’s going to take 15 minutes, it will take at least 23. You can use what’s left over to expand, to answer questions, or just to delight people with an early finish. Running out of things to say is so rarely the problem… And when you’re done, you’re done. People will love you for it.
8. Separate the situation from your thoughts about the situation
Almost all of the fear about presenting comes from our thoughts about the situation. Speaking to groups is totally safe. And you don’t need hypnosis, NLP or beta-blockers to sort this one out.
***
What do you think? What’s number nine? And ten?
Like what you’ve read? Want to keep up-to-date with my articles without having to remember to visit this website? Sign up for email updates to have every post arrive straight in your inbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed. If you’re not sure what subscribing entails, click here for my plain English explanation.
