From interview with Teresa Taylor, chief operating officer of Qwest:

It’s amazing, there will be eight people in the room and they all have a different answer of what’s going on there. I’ll also say, once we’re clear about what we’re doing: “Does everyone need to be here? If anyone feels like they want to leave right now, that would be fine.” Every once in a while a couple of people will say, “Yeah, I could use this time back,” and they get up and leave.

Q. But you could chew up 10 minutes just going around the table.

A. Sure, I think it’s a good 10 minutes. I really do.

Q. What about presentations?

A. I use a little saying, which is, “Be brief, be bright and be gone.” It’s also not uncommon for me to say, “Why don’t we put the PowerPoint aside for a minute and why don’t you just talk to me?”

Q. What’s the maximum number of PowerPoint slides you want to see?

A. Six. But I actually prefer no PowerPoint. To be honest, I’d rather just talk. A really great meeting, to me, is someone who is just talking to me and might give me a piece of paper or two to support something, but that’s it.

The 25 Public Speaking Skills Every Speaker Must Have

by Andrew Dlugan

Oct 31st, 2007

Inspired by 25 Skills Every Man Should Know, I pondered a list of the 25 essential skills every public speaker should have. How did I do?

Every public speaker should be able to:

1. Research a topic – Good speakers stick to what they know. Great speakers research what they need to convey their message.
2. Focus – Help your audience grasp your message by focusing on your message. Stories, humour, or other “sidebars” should connect to the core idea. Anything that doesn’t needs to be edited out.
3. Organize ideas logically – A well-organized presentation can be absorbed with minimal mental strain. Bridging is key.
4. Employ quotations, facts, and statistics – Don’t include these for the sake of including them, but do use them appropriately to complement your ideas.
5. Master metaphors – Metaphors enhance the understandability of the message in a way that direct language often can not.
6. Tell a story – Everyone loves a story. Points wrapped up in a story are more memorable, too!
7. Start strong and close stronger – The body of your presentation should be strong too, but your audience will remember your first and last words (if, indeed, they remember anything at all).
8. Incorporate humour – Knowing when to use humour is essential. So is developing the comedic timing to deliver it with greatest effect.
9. Vary vocal pace, tone, and volume – A monotone voice is like fingernails on the chalkboard.
10. Punctuate words with gestures – Gestures should complement your words in harmony. Tell them how big the fish was, and show them with your arms.
11. Utilize 3-dimensional space – Chaining yourself to the lectern limits the energy and passion you can exhibit. Lose the notes, and lose the chain.
12. Complement words with visual aids – Visual aids should aid the message; they should not be the message. Read slide:ology or the Presentation Zen book and adopt the techniques.
13. Analyze the audience – Deliver the message they want (or need) to hear.
14. Connect with the audience – Eye contact is only the first step. Aim to have the audience conclude “This speaker is just like me!” The sooner, the better.
15. Interact with the audience – Ask questions (and care about the answers). Solicit volunteers. Make your presentation a dialogue.
16. Conduct a Q&A session – Not every speaking opportunity affords a Q&A session, but understand how to lead one productively. Use the Q&A to solidify the impression that you are an expert, not (just) a speaker.
17. Lead a discussion – Again, not every speaking opportunity affords time for a discussion, but know how to engage the audience productively.
18. Obey time constraints – Maybe you have 2 minutes. Maybe you have 45. Either way, customize your presentation to fit the time allowed, and respect your audience by not going over time.
19. Craft an introduction – Set the context and make sure the audience is ready to go, whether the introduction is for you or for someone else.
20. Exhibit confidence and poise – These qualities are sometimes difficult for a speaker to attain, but easy for an audience to sense.
21. Handle unexpected issues smoothly – Maybe the lights will go out. Maybe the projector is dead. Have a plan to handle every situation.
22. Be coherent when speaking off the cuff – Impromptu speaking (before, after, or during a presentation) leaves a lasting impression too. Doing it well tells the audience that you are personable, and that you are an expert who knows their stuff beyond the slides and prepared speech.
23. Seek and utilize feedback – Understand that no presentation or presenter (yes, even you!) is perfect. Aim for continuous improvement, and understand that the best way to improve is to solicit candid feedback from as many people as you can.
24. Listen critically and analyze other speakers – Study the strengths and weakness of other speakers.
25. Act and speak ethically – Since public speaking fears are so common, realize the tremendous power of influence that you hold. Use this power responsibly.

The ART of Effective Face to Face Business Communication

This 4 hour course teaches techniques and skills required for effective face to face communication.

This includes speaking and listening skills with groups or one-on-one situations.

“It is fun, fast paced and informative.”

You will learn how to

• Speak effectively before any size group
• Become an active listener
• Sell yourself and your ideas
• Improve job performance and production
• Control anxiety and inhibition
• Heighten interest when you speak
• Conduct and control Q & A sessions

DATE AND LOCATION

October 22, 2009 (Thursday)

8:00 AM – 12:00 PM

The Hilton Garden Inn – 205.503.5220

2090 Urban Center Parkway, Birmingham, Alabama  35242.

Hotel is located in the suburban Liberty Park business district.

I-459 Exit #23

Attendance is limited

$95.00

For Enrollment Call: Nancy 205.706.0975, Moe 205.915.0630

www.davisexecutivetraining.com

A personal message from Moe Davis

The ability to say what you think with confidence can open doors to a richer, happier, and more productive life. Effective communication pays off immediately with improved job performance, but when you become a more confident personal communicator you will also notice definite changes in the quality of your personal and professional relationships. This is only natural because when you are successful in getting your ideas across to other people, you have a stronger self-image and a greater awareness of your potential for creating change.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to sharpen your personal communication skills is by attending one of our intensive training programs. You’ll learn new skills and techniques which have helped thousands of men and women become successful communicators. And you’ll have fun while you learn! Give us a call to reserve a seat at our next seminar.

Moe Davis

DAVIS EXECUTIVE TRAINING (205) 915-0630

PowerPoint Is Evil

Power Corrupts.
PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely.

By Edward Tufte

Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn’t. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall.

Yet slideware -computer programs for presentations -is everywhere: in corporate America, in government bureaucracies, even in our schools. Several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint are churning out trillions of slides each year. Slideware may help speakers outline their talks, but convenience for the speaker can be punishing to both content and audience. The standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.

Of course, data-driven meetings are nothing new. Years before today’s slideware, presentations at companies such as IBM and in the military used bullet lists shown by overhead projectors. But the format has become ubiquitous under PowerPoint, which was created in 1984 and later acquired by Microsoft. PowerPoint’s pushy style seeks to set up a speaker’s dominance over the audience. The speaker, after all, is making power points with bullets to followers. Could any metaphor be worse? Voicemail menu systems? Billboards? Television? Stalin?

Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something.

In a business setting, a PowerPoint slide typically shows 40 words, which is about eight seconds’ worth of silent reading material. With so little information per slide, many, many slides are needed. Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another. When information is stacked in time, it is difficult to understand context and evaluate relationships. Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is shown side by side. Often, the more intense the detail, the greater the clarity and understanding. This is especially so for statistical data, where the fundamental analytical act is to make comparisons.

Consider an important and intriguing table of survival rates for those with cancer relative to those without cancer for the same time period. Some 196 numbers and 57 words describe survival rates and their standard errors for 24 cancers.

Applying the PowerPoint templates to this nice, straightforward table yields an analytical disaster. The data explodes into six separate chaotic slides, consuming 2.9 times the area of the table. Everything is wrong with these smarmy, incoherent graphs: the encoded legends, the meaningless color, the logo-type branding. They are uncomparative, indifferent to content and evidence, and so data-starved as to be almost pointless. Chartjunk is a clear sign of statistical stupidity. Poking a finger into the eye of thought, these data graphics would turn into a nasty travesty if used for a serious purpose, such as helping cancer patients assess their survival chances. To sell a product that messes up data with such systematic intensity, Microsoft abandons any pretense of statistical integrity and reasoning.

Presentations largely stand or fall on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content. If your numbers are boring, then you’ve got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won’t make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.

At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm. Yet the PowerPoint style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content. Thus PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play -very loud, very slow, and very simple.

The practical conclusions are clear. PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector. But rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking: Respect your audience.

Edward R. Tufte is professor emeritus of political science, computer science and statistics, and graphic design at Yale. His new monograph, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, is available from Graphics Press (www.edwardtufte.com).

All too often we are overwhelmed with the challenges of the day.  We hear nothing but negative news and soon we become negative too.

But stop for a short moment and consider just how blessed you are.  You have a life full of interesting people.  You are talented beyond the measure that you likely consider.  Each day brings new opportunities and experiences.  Simply put, you live a blessed life!

Often in the hustle and bustle of the day we fail to plan for the things that really matter.  We get our kids to soccer practice, our reports for work in on time, and the oil changed in our cars.  But what about a scheduled attitude change?

Each day should begin with time to reflect on your life, your loves, your relationships, and your day.  Consider prayer and meditation as the essentials your mind and spirit need to successfully function.  Each day they should be tuned up, changed, and filtered.

Try setting aside the first five minutes every day to pray, read, meditate, or reflect.  Do this every day for thirty days and you’ll see your attitude improve.  You are what you think, so think about how blessed you are!

BELOW IS AN UNSOLICITED, “REAL- WORLD”, TESTIMONIAL FROM A PARTICIPANT IN A RECENT WORKSHOP.  WE MAKE THE POINT THAT FOR OUR TRAINING TO BE REALIZED, IT MUST BE UTILIZED!  THESE ARE SKILLS THAT ARE NOW PERMANENT.

Hello,

Just wanted to give you all some “real-world” feedback after our first

Professional Development session recently.

I had a GA Restaurant Association function which we were sponsoring.  The

function was called “On the Menu” Best Practices Forum and it was the first event of it’s kind being tailored for restaurant members of the GRA and

hosted by a successful, local chef.  As Chair of the GRA’s Membership

Committee, I am often asked to present “a slide or two” from a powerpoint

presentation that either the GRA and/or myself put together for the

Quarterly membership meetings.  What that means is that I usually stand up

in front of 100 to 150 people and read bullet points off the screen – not

much of a challenge, and the powerpoint is an easy crutch, but pretty good

experience none the less.

The “On the Menu” event was much smaller and there was no projector or

Powerpoint presentation to read from.  I knew ahead of time as one of the

event sponsors that I would be asked to present a minute or two about Royal

Cup and what we do.  What I did not know was that I had also been put on the

agenda as Membership Chair to give a testimonial about the GRA to the group

(about 40 people.)  I found this out about (30) minutes or so before I had

to deliver the testimonial while I happened to be rushing around the

restaurant brewing coffee and setting up our display as meeting sponsors.

In addition, the added stress of having to give two talks with no supporting

notes made keeping my nerves at bay a bit more challenging.

I did not have too much trouble coming up with my testimonial thoughts on

the fly, but the thought of having no prep-time to organize my thoughts was

a bit disconcerting and in the past might have translated into nerves before

and during my talk.

I immediately thought back to Moe and Nancy’s session

and told myself to try and remember just a few things from it:

- the spontaneous and “no prep time” manner in which Moe and Nancy asked us

to come up with our one minute talks during the sessions gave me the

confidence to relax and do it in this situation with relative ease.

-  holding eye contact with individuals around the room for five seconds at

a time, controlling my hand movements, posture, and speaking so that

everyone could hear me (we had no microphone.)

I can tell you that focusing on these simple things kept me from being

nervous (or at least greatly reduced my nerves) and greatly improved my

overall delivery.  I was focused on the topic and effectively delivering the

message and I believe that thanks to the session on “Effective

Presentations” I was able to do so.

Looking forward to more good stuff in

future sessions.  Thanks!

Jason

Jason Howell

Atlanta District Manager

Royal Cup Coffee, Inc.

TO SCHEDULE A WORKSHOP FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION, PLEASE CONTACT US.  WE WILL CUSTOMIZE A PROGRAM FOR YOUR NEEDS AND BUDGET.

THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS WERE SENT TO THE TRAINING MANAGER OF A NATIONAL COMPANY  BY THE PARTICIPANTS WHEN HE ASK THEM FOR FEEDBACK ABOUT OUR PROGRAM.  HE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO FORWARD THE COMMENTS TO US.  RESPONSES LIKE THIS MAKE IT ALL WORTHWHILE!

—————————-

I really enjoyed the session on Public speaking as I have had many

occasions to speak in front of crowds and always want to improve.

This is an area that can really help us with the professional perception of our company.

——————————-

The Presentation session with Moe and Nancy Davis was excellent. I think it

had everyone step out of their comfort zone, I know I did.

This was something that I have never had in all of my leadership classes. I

find myself practicing at home or at work when I have multiple people around

me. I can see this helping me out tremendously when I have large coffee

proposal or speaking at my District meeting.

—————————-

The Presentation portion was my biggest challenge. At first I was not

overly excited about speaking and having someone critique me, but as the

class went on, I found it to be easier and realized that we all had things

that we could work on. No one in the room started out perfect, but I can

say that as the day went on, I realized that we have some very

effective speakers in the class.

—————————–

The speakers/trainers in this class were great. They made you feel at ease,

yet could really explain things in a way that didn’t make you feel

incompetent.

—————————-

The final session with Moe and Nancy was quite an adventure. In this day an

age with new business, communication with customers and vendors, and our

personal life public speaking is paramount.

————————–

Moe and Nancy Davis provide good training on ways to polish an individuals

professional appearance. In sales and business appearance can mean the

difference between success and failure.

—————————–

I found the “Effective Presentations” session to be of great value as well.

That was exactly the type of session I was looking for when I saw it on the

agenda. The fact that there was an element of surprise was beneficial

because it really made me think on my feet.  Also, the fact that our

presentations were videotaped and that we had three or four separate

presentations to give that required us to use what we had learned from the

previous presentations and subsequent evaluations made it a great learning

experience. Lastly, I really think that the immediate feedback from the

instructors and our peers was very impactful. I look forward to applying

the techniques that I learned in this session as I am very confident that I

will able to improve my presentation skills as a result.

——————————–

This was definitely the most enjoyable session for me. It was very

enlightening to see yourself on video and how you appear to others when you

speak. EVERYONE stayed involved with this class. We were all out of our

“comfort zone”, which is a good thing. You could see the progress that many

of the participants had made during those few hours on
Thursday morning.

——————————–

The intimate setting of the room made it even more challenging, because you

work with these folks. I have spoken in front of 10,000 people before at

the BJCC, and was nowhere near as nervous as I was to start the day Thursday.

I personally feel that Thursdays class with Moe and Nancy Davis will be the

most beneficial to me at this point. The keys to giving an effective

presentation and capturing the audience that you’re speaking to are vital

tools that I can put to use very often when speaking to tours, or even to TM

classes that may come through.

———————————-

Yesterday’s session on public speaking was outstanding. I wish I would’ve

had this training 15 years ago. I learned several techniques that have

practical application.

——————————-

Effective Presentation (Moe Davis) – At the end of class Thursday, I felt

much more confident and

aware regarding speaking in public.

————————————-

Moe and Nancy helped me identify what I needed to work on, and by the end of class I could honestly see an

improvement. I will continue to practice what I learned to improve my presentation skills and my confidence

——————————

If you want to know more about the workshop these folks participated in please contact us!

One story you might want to tell is one you are asked to tell often. Sharpen your story or skills via this blog. Try us we are all ears.

Thanks for blogging with us today, we look forward to hearing what you have to say. Any comments questions or concerns are always welcome.

By: Seneca