Prevent distractions during your presentation
by Cliff Atkinson, Sociable Media
The physical environment in which you make your presentation is just as important as the story you tell. The quality of your hard work is affected if the room is physically uncomfortable, no electrical outlet is within reach of the projector, or your microphone doesn't work. You'll need to prevent distractions that will diminish the impact of your presentation.
Successful Speech Making
Eye contact is a wonderful tool to convey sincerity. It is also useful to help you to stay aware of how the audience is reacting to you. Stay aware and adapt by changing your presentation style and content to keep their attention and interest.
From the SpinningSilk's Understanding Blog :
"I mentioned in a previous post how I learned some skills in scouting better when I had to teach them. They just stuck in my mind better. I urge you to try prepare a lesson to teach if you are struggling with a subject. Something amazing happens when your purpose is to help someone else. It's as if the specifics of the skills are forced into your brain because you have a mission."
Read the whole post
Public speaking tip - Remembering new jokes -- Jan McInnis (Jan@TheWorkLady.com)
happy, positive, smiling, confident woman on warm tone background with space for text
As a comedienne, I usually kick off my corporate show with 20 or more new jokes I've written for the group which means I have to have good, fast memory skills.
A couple of ways I remember these new jokes:
* Starting a few nights before the show, I review 5 or 6 jokes each night before I go to sleep. When I wake up, I know the jokes. (A friend of mine at a university is actually researching sleep and its effect on memory. It really works.)
* I go over them out loud as fast as I can. I also do this with the jokes in my act. It sort of "ingrains" the joke into my head so that when I say it, it rolls off my tongue without my having to stop and think about it.
* I group the jokes according to subject -- all jokes about the people together, all jokes about the industry together, etc.
* I use notes. I carry them up to the stage with me, but I make sure I know the first 2 or 3 jokes cold, so I don't have to refer to the notes in my hand. Then if I do, it's not as obvious as pulling the notes out of my pocket and I just glance at the sheet, saying, "I took some notes on you guys." I'll have a key word or two written on the sheet. And, even if I wrote the jokes ahead of time, it looks like I just wrote them that morning.
From Dorai's Learnlog
Blogs are a great source of ideas. Some of the bloggers are the smartest people I know. They comment about products. They track trends. They predict future products. They compare and categorize. And they share it all free.
So how about mining ideas from blogs? And using them to improve your products, projects. For example if you look at a list of mashups, you will certainly get ideas for other mashups. If you enjoy using Web 2.0 products, you already know a specific user interface you like. By tracking the most popular Web 2.0 products, you are getting some free market research.
All these are talked about in the blogosphere.
