The Presentations Japan Series

Presentation Advice for Japanese Politicians     Vince Staples, American Hip Hop Rapper, was recently quoted in a Financial Times interview, "You have to paint the picture because everyone doesn't come from the same background". Even a humble Long Beach rapper gets the point of engaging our audience with stories when we are the speaker. Japanese politicians have to do a lot of public speaking, but...

Speaker Final Impressions     Final impressions at the end of a speech are what determine our memory of the person.  Life is throwing so much information at us and at such a manic pace we are easily overwhelmed. We are unlikely to recall too much of the detail of the talk, because there are so many other details in business and life competing for our brain space.  I remember reading that Albert Ei...

Evidence Rich Presentations     There are a number of common structures for giving presentations and one of the most popular is the opening-key points/evidence-closing. We consider the length of the presentation, the audience, the purpose of our talk and then we pour the contents into this structure. Generally, in a 30 minute speech we can only have a few key points we can cover, so we select the...

When Presenting You Gotta Have Rhythm   Usually a speech or presentation is somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour long. Obviously, the longer the talk, the harder it is to keep the audience's attention. Even worse, today, everyone has their internet connection to email, social media and apps in their hand, right there under the desk, while we are speaking. We have all become fervent multi-taske...

The "55% Of How We Communicate Is Visual" Myth  Professor Albert Mehrabian's 1967 study of communication concluded that 55% of the presenter's message was received visually, 38% from voice tone and only 7% through the words. As we all know a little bit of knowledge is dangerous and these numbers have been widely misinterpreted. As a result a number of gurus and pseudo experts have built businesses...

The Design Stage Of Presenting   Many people don't start out with a design for their talk.  They launch straight into the details, especially working with the slides.  The lack of design shows as the structure isn't tight enough, the points are nor clear enough and mostly the talk is totally forgettable.  They feel happy however because the talk was completed and they can tick that box.  This is o...

The Presenter's Mindset   Our mental approach to our activities determines our success.  We know this in sports and in business, but when it comes to speaking in public, we somehow manage to forget this vital point.   We know we have to make a presentation, so we get straight into the details and logistics, without spending even a moment on our proper mindset for the activity. Given we are putting...

How To Prepare For Your Talk   Before jumping straight into the slides to build your presentation, identify your likely audience. It might be an internal meeting report to your team, a presentation to your immediate boss or to the senior executives of the firm. It might be a public talk. How knowledgeable are the attendees on the subject matter? Are you facing a room full of experts or are they am...

Showtime - Are You Ready?     The hush has now swept across the room. All eyes are fixed on the MC, breaths are being held, awaiting the announcement of this year's winner. Amazingly, it registers that it is your name they are calling to the stage. Emotion wells up. Your team join you for handshaking, shoulder hugs, high fives and backslapping. The prize is now firmly ensconced in your hand and yo...

How To Kill Your Brand With Public Speaking     Seriously sad really. Our speaker had some excellent points to convey but due to silly basic errors, killed his organisation's messages. I believe there is no excuse for this anymore. Today there is so much information available, so many role models, so much video instruction, so much access to insight, so much training, you really have to wonder how...

Stage Fright Got You?     Hands and legs quivering, knees knocking together, face turning red, pulse racing, mind whiting out – this is stage fright. The term is associated with the total melt down people experience when they get up on stage in front of an audience to speak. In Japan, there is even an association of stage fright victims who wish to suffer no more. Our exposure to the "stage", broa...

Don't Tell Me, Show Me   Japan is an interesting place where there is a lot of respect for people's job titles and position in the company. Sometimes though, you are left wondering is this person really one of the elite or is this the best the elite can produce? American friends tell me Missouri is famous for it's "show me, don't tell me" mantra. When you can't back up who you say you are with the...

Dale Carnegie's Three Iron Rules Of Public Speaking    Not everyone should be a presenter. We don't need higher levels of boredom or disinterest than we have already. A big "No thank you" to those conspiring to waste our precious time. This does not mean that only a few super talented individuals can be presenters. We can all learn to become competent and become better presenters. This is "nurture...

Goodbye Presentation Nerves   Unexpectedly, twelve time Grand Slam Tennis tournament winner Novak Djokovic has some good advice for public speakers. "I believe that half of any victory in a tennis match is in place before you step on the court. If you don't have that self-belief, then fear takes over. And then it will get too much for you to handle. It's a fine line. The energy of those moments is...

Rockin It Women Presenters In Japan   The presentations world is still a male bastion in Nippon. I attend lot of events in Tokyo and probably the vast majority of even the internationally oriented business audiences that I see here, have a 70/30 male female ratio. The number of women presenters though is about 5%-10%. In the case of very domestic, Japanese language based events, the female ratio o...

Persuasion Power Trump Style     Donald Trump isn't a textbook presenter. He breaks many of the rules of presenting, but nevertheless he has been effective in getting his message across. Love him or loath him as a contender for the Republican Party Presidential race nomination, as the Republican candidate and as the President, he won against the expectations of the vast majority of American politi...

Wow Them At The End Of Your Presentation     It is rare to see a presentation completed well, be it inside the organization, to the client or to a larger audience. The energy often drops away, the voice gradually fades out and there is no clear signal that this is the end. The narrative arc seems to go missing in action at the final stage and the subsequent silence becomes strained. It sometimes r...

That Vital Two Second Window     Question: how long does it take you on average to form a first impression of someone? My presentation training participants tell me "two seconds". Wow, I nearly fell over when I heard that the first time. I was thinking, "what does this mean for the speaker?". It could be in the boardroom, the meeting room, at the networking event, a public presentation or at the p...

Find Your Leader Voice     Why are so few business leaders good communicators, given all the education they have received, starting at varsity and then later, through their workplace organisations? Leaders – let's stop kidding ourselves, the reality is, if we can't talk to people, we can't lead successfully.   The TED talk phenomenon, which has spawned TEDxEverywhere, should be having a positive i...

How To Market Yourself In Under One Minute     Meeting new business contacts, expanding personal networks, promoting a reliable, trustworthy "Brand You" are the basics of business. By the way, even if our job title doesn't explicitly mention "sales and marketing" we are all in sales and marketing. In modern commerce, even professionals in non-traditional sales roles like accountants, lawyers, dent...

How To Command The Rabble   The Master of Ceremony (MC) goes to the microphone to get the programme underway but the audience are simply oblivious, caught up in their own riveting conversations. The situation is much worse at receptions where alcohol is already flowing and the people down the back are generating a roar, a positive din, that drowns out the speakers. Apart from bona fide members of...

Storytelling For Business    Best intentions, higher callings, righteousness – all good stuff but without good communication, our efforts fail. Instinctively, we all know storytelling is a great communication tool, but the word itself is a problem. We associate it with bedtime stories and therefore the idea sounds a bit childish. In the modern era, Hollywood talks about the arc of the story or in...

Making Yourself Clear Public speaking throws up many fears and challenges for all of us. As part of High Impact Presentations, one of our public speaking courses, we have been surveying the various participants for the last four years about the types of things they most want to improve. The most common request, from both Japanese and English speakers, is to "be clear when presenting". What do they...

How To Destroy Your Reputation In 60 Seconds   It is a big crowd, yet the conversation suddenly dies and a hushed silence now sweeps through the room. All eyes are fixed forward, as the MC tears at the envelope and announces this year's award winner. Polite applause fills the air as the proud selectee stands up, glances around smiling, shakes hands and navigates between the maze of tables and chai...