The Presentations Japan Series

Screen Based Strong Messaging Techniques   Most people have trouble getting their message across when they are in front of others and doing it in person.  Being on screen while everyone is working at home, makes the whole proposition so much more difficult.  A mediocre presenter becomes a shambles in this new medium.  There is the tendency to imagine that the screen based delivery medium makes lou...

Covid 19 And On-Line Presentation Skills   GIGO is a useful acronym from the past, which we can employ for the current problem we have conducting business meetings and presentations on-line.  Garbage In Garbage Out on-line interactions is not what we want to be promoting in this current Covid-19 driven business and health crisis.  Note that I put business ahead of health in this discussion.  This...

Covid-19 Challenges Leaders' Communication Skills   Most leaders tend to underestimate the importance of communicating with their teams even in normal times.  We are now definitely far removed from "normal times".  Panic buying, lockdowns, quarantine isolation, working from home are just some of the features of the response to the virus.  The health issue gets most of the focus, but the real dange...

Should I Recycle My Content Between Presentations?   We go to a lot of effort to prepare for our presentations.  We find the best quality information, assemble the slides to showcase that data and we make big efforts for the successful delivery of the talk. Once it is over, then that is the end of it.  It was a lot of effort for a one time event.  It reminds me of that esoteric Japanese art Sunae...

Owning Your Material When You Didn't Create It   The minions are swarming around the venue.  There are people setting up cameras, sound equipment, teleprompter invisible screens, and additional hangers on and assorted riff raff just standing around watching the chaos.  In swans the big shot to rehearse the delivery and the tension in the room rises.  This is Japan, a no defect, no mistake, no erro...

How Much Selling Should You Do During Your Presentation?   The organisers of public presentations are usually not very happy for the presenter to start flogging their company's products to the audience.  They are looking for good information for the assembled masses and no propaganda.  This makes sense because if you are sitting in the audience and you start to hear what sounds like a commercial f...

Advice For Your First Major Presentation   At different stages in our careers we are asked to give a presentation.  It may be a simple reporting on progress on a project or the state of play with the current results.  The audience usually starts with our colleagues and bosses.  Over time, as we rise through the ranks, the scope of the presentations we have to give increase in complexity and the au...

Who Are You Presenting For?   My regular Rotary meeting held every week at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo has a featured speaker.   Our speaker this time was a celebrity in his eighties and very well known to the audience.  Rotary runs like clockwork and every section of the hourly meeting is choreographed and the meetings always finish on time. Not this time though.  Our speaker gave a rambling talk...

The Big Idea When Presenting   The podium is a powerful place for powerful ideas.  The audience has no idea what you are going to say and where you are going to take them during your presentation.  In Japan, at least, they will politely hear you out until the end and then perhaps offer up a question oR two.  For the thirty or forty minutes allotted to you, you are the master of the universe, omnip...

Small Target Tactics For Hostile Audiences   Presenting isn't always adoration, adulation, regard and agreement.  Sometimes, we have to go into hostile territory with a message that is not welcomed, appreciated or believed.  Think meetings with the Board, the unions, angry consumers and when you have sharp elbowed rivals in the room.  It is rare to be ambushed at a presentation and suddenly find y...

Dress For Success When Presenting   How should we dress when presenting and does it actually matter?  It matters - particularly in Japan.  Japan is a very formal country, in love with ceremony, pomp and circumstance.  Always up your formality level in dress terms in Japan, compared to how formal you think will be enough.  This was a big shock for this Aussie boy from Brisbane, who spent a good chu...

Using Micro Stories When Presenting   Storytelling is one of those things that we all know about, but where we could do a much better job of utilising this facility in business.  It allows us to engage the audience in a way that makes our message more accessible.  In any presentation there may be some key information or messages we wish to relay and yet we rarely wrap this information up in a stor...

2020 Here We Go – Let's Build Our Personal Brand As A Presente The New Year's resolutions concept is ridiculous, but only because we are weak, lazy, inconsistent and lacking in discipline.  Apart from those small barriers to execution of desires, the concept works a treat.  The idea of a new start is not bad in itself and we can use the Gregorian calendar fantasy, to mark a change in the year wher...

Reflecting On Your Past Presentations   As the calendar year slowly winds down, now is a good time to review and reflect upon the presentations you have given this year in over the past few years.  What have you learnt not to do and what have you learnt to keep doing?  Those who don't study their own presentations history are bound to repeat the errors of the past.  Sounds reasonable doesn't it. W...

Leading An Intentional Presenter Life In 2020   Are we going slowly glide in 2020 carrying all the bad habits and bad baggage from everything we have thought, done and procrastinated on up until now?  Or are we going to seize the opportunity of a man made temporal illusion to divest ourselves of the sins and misdeeds of the past and strike out anew?  The change of the calendar for some signals a n...

How To Use Video In Your Presentation   Video is the refuge of rascals when presenting.  The unskilled Japanese President tries to shift the attention off his miserable presentation skills, by diverting the focus of the audience to the video.  Actually, it is a mighty relief in many ways from his dirge like, monotone, monochrome delivery. He was killing us slowly with his lifeless words.  The idea...

The Winning Formula When Speaking   I was invited to an English Speech contest for Middle School students.  The students must have home grown skills and are not eligible to compete if they have spent more than six months abroad, in an English speaking environment.  This was pretty grand affair.  The organisation running it is run by students at university, who took part in the contest themselves w...

How To Review Your Presentation   Athletes and coaches spend a lot of time watching their team's performance.  Strengths and weaknesses are sought in order to amplify the former and eliminate the latter.  Close scrutiny is applied to key moments, crucial transitions and pivotal points.  Presenting should be no different.  Cast your mind back though, to the last twenty presentations you have attend...

How To Give A Motivational Speech I was attending a Convention in Phuket and the finale was the closing inspirational speech for the week of events.  I had to deliver the same speech myself at the Ho Chi Minh Convention a few years ago.  This is a daunting task.  Actually, when your audience is chock full of presentation's training experts from Dale Carnegie, it is simply terrifying.  The length o...

How To Personalise Your Presentation   Are we talking at our audiences or with our audiences?  There is a vast difference between the two.  Most of the time, the talks we attend are in the talking at category.  The speaker has some information to impart and proceeds to go into the detail with us.  There is a very one way approach, broken only by the Q&A section.  The degree of detail and advice ca...

Should I Go Over The Top When I Present?   In our High Impact Presentations Course we have exercises where we ask the participants to really let go of all their inhibitions and let it all hang out – and "go over the top".  By contrast, we are all usually very constrained when we speak in public.  Our voices are very moderate, our body language is quite muted and our gestures are rather restrained....

What Is The Best Way To Introduce Yourself  When Presenting?   Usually when we are speaking we are introduced twice.  Once at the very start by the MC and then during our segment of the talk.  The MC's role is quite simple.  It is to set the stage for the speaker, to bring something of their history, their achievements and various details that make them a credible presenter for this audience.  Thi...

How To Control Your Reactions During Q&A   Creating and delivering the presentation sees you in 100% total control.  You have designed it, you have been given the floor to talk about it, all is good.  However, the moment the time comes for questions, we are now in a street fight.  Why a street fight?  Because in a street fight there are no rules and the Q&A following a presentation is the same – n...

How Many People Should Present?   Often, we are presenting as a team and more than one speaker may be involved.  Is that ideal or are we better off to have only one speaker?  Usually we are talking for around 40 minutes, so the time isn't all that long to split over multiple speakers.  Are we better to limit it to one or two, or does it actually matter?  Personally, I prefer one speaker if possibl...

Okay, So How Should I End My Speech, Make It My Triumph?   This is a tricky part of designing and delivering our presentations.  Think back to the last few presentations you have attended and can you remember anything from the close of their speech?  Can you remember much about the speaker? This close should be the highlight of their talk, the piece that brings it all together, their rallying cry...