Dahle Communication

15 Minutes - Including Q & A - A Book Review

Many of us have seen lousy presentations after lousy presentations. I am sure most of you have asked a simple question: "Why are these presentations so bad?" Well, there are a lot of reasons to be sure. I am sure that I could fill an entire blog post just listing the problems with PowerPoints - which I would have to do in bullet format of course.

There are a lot of people trying to change this however: Duarte Design, Garr Reynolds, Sticky Slides, your truly, Joey Asher and many others.

Joey Asher though has an interesting idea that he is trying to get people to believe in. His concept: no presentation should last longer than 15 minutes - and that includes the Q & A time as well. Revolutionary? probably. Will people do it? Maybe.

The book itself is quite short and to the point - which is exactly what Joey wants all of us to do with our presentations. However, the effectiveness of it is its simplicity. He breaks down exactly how to put together a 7 minute presentation and how to prepare for the Q & A at the end.

I'm almost wondering if Joey did Extemporaneous speaking as a high school student because his method is exactly what I have taught my students for the past 10 years:

1. Start with a hook

2. Give a preview of your main points (keep it to three)

3. Body of the speech

4. Review

5. Call to action

It's a great way to make sure your point gets across to your audience. Joey breaks it down a little bit more than I just did, but I don't want to give away all of his good tips and suggestions.

He goes through each area and helps you figure out how to take a presentation that used to be a long-winded, soul-crushing event to a short, persuasive and effective presentation.

If you are having trouble shortening your presentations then I would highly recommend picking up this book. It not only will teach you a lot of key ideas, but it is something that you can also keep with you for a reference guide in case you need some help.

The only question really is - will people have the gumption to follow his suggestions? It's a long shot, but one I'm hopeful for.

Know who you are following on Twitter - don't just use Keywords

A little over a week ago I was at a beautiful outdoor wedding. The entire wedding party was dressed nice and very classy. Sadly, one of the guests was not. I won't describe the outfit, but let's just say it wouldn't be appropriate for anything but going to a club (and even then, I'm not sure).

After the service, I made some comment about the dress in response to a friend of mine who talked about what she wanted to wear to the wedding she was going to. Keep this in mind: this was the first time I have probably talked about weddings the entire time I've been on Twitter. I'm not in the wedding business, I don't have any kids who will be getting married for quite a long time and I just don't care that much about weddings (don't get me wrong, I like weddings and enjoy them, its just not something I think about on a weekly basis).

Because of my one comment on wedding, over the next week I had about 10 people follow me who dealt with weddings! Every time I just got irritated because I know that they were following me because they probably have a program that find people who mention 'wedding' and then automatically follow them. Needless to say, I didn't follow back.

This is one of those areas that it really does directly relate to public speaking: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!! You have to know your audience if your speech is going to be effective. If your audience has the background knowledge already, you can skip some basic things - if not, you need to include it. Are they young, old, what business are they in, etc. All of those questions are key to tweaking your speech so you can be more effective.

Twitter is the same way: make sure you understand who you are following if you want to engage in the community. Are you a communicator? Are you in Sioux Falls? Do you know me personally? Do you read my blog regularly? If you answered yes to any of those, then it might be a good idea to follow me. If you are following someone just because I used one keyword, chances are, I won't follow back and its hard to have a discussion with people, when they don't engage back in conversation.

I Hate Public Speaking Song

Thanks to Megan for sending me this video yesterday. It sums up what a lot of people feel when they are getting up and speaking. It comes from a public speaking company. I have no idea how good they are, but I liked their video and wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!