Tag Archive for: presentation

Presentation Science Tip 4 — Disguising Our Bullet Points

In my online-anytime workshop, Presentation Science, I make over one hundred recommendations for giving more effective presentations, based on the science of learning. You can learn more about the workshop by clicking here.

Below is Tip 4 in my workshop marketing effort. Please share with others if you think they’ll find it useful. This Tip 4 video is a bit longer than Tips 1, 2, and 3, because it takes a bit more time to explain. It’s still only four and half minutes, but this content is really critical.

Bullet points bore and cause pain for our audiences. We need to get rid of them. In the video I share one of the most powerful ways to do that!


Tip 4 — Disguising Our Bullet Points

 

Presentation Science Tips 1, 2, 3

Embedded here are the first three tips in my marketing campaign to let people know about my Online-Anytime Workshop, Presentation Science, which you can learn more about by clicking here. I would be grateful if you shared this with those who might be interested.

The Presentation Science online-anytime workshop is designed for anybody who gives presentations, especially for those who want their audience members to walk away remembering and acting on the ideas in their presentations. Also suitable for Train-the-Trainer introductions, providing a science-of-learning approach to presenting content.


Tip 1 — ELRA!

 

Tip 2 — The Microphone

 

Tip 3 — The Podium/Lectern


Presentation Science Workshop — First Graduations

, ,

Last month I released a new online, self-paced workshop called Presentation Science: How to Help Your Audience to Engage, Learn, Remember, and Act. The workshop is comparable to a two-day workshop and comprises about 12.5 hours of work, including videos, scenario questions, reflection questions, discussions, and a final assessment.

 

People are beginning to “graduate” from the workshop. Here’s what the first two graduates had to say:

Powerful content here! I love this course. It’s the best online course I’ve taken–ever! I only see one problem with the course. You’ve set the price too low based on the actual value of the course! It’s worth much more than what you are charging, considering the quality. I’d set the price at $1,000 minimum personally! In my opinion, it is worth $10,000 in the first 6 months once a person has successfully applied this to build new trainings!

— Gale Stafford, executive coach and learning architect at County of San Mateo

Will Thalheimer’s Presentation Science Workshop provides a TON of strategies, tactics, and tools backed up by learning science that will help you transform your bullet-riddled, mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations into meaningful, memorable, motivating, and (yes!) magnificent learning events.

— Holly H., senior instructional designer at global energy technology company

 

 

As you can imagine, I’m thrilled with this response. At the same time, I feel a responsibility to continue making the workshop better and better. At a later date–when I’ve gathered more data–I will write about how I think the new online-learning technologies are now poised to enable great learning designs. I’ll also talk about how to utilize these tools to follow research-inspired recommendations. For now, I’m just going to brag a bit! SMILE

And encourage you to consider taking this course for yourself, or recommending it to your organization, your subject-matter experts, trainers, teachers, professors, managers, salespeople, executives—anybody who has to give a presentation that has to be maximally effective.

 

The Presentation Science Workshop:
Learn More by Clicking Here!

 

 

Stop Using Slide Templates

Too many organizations insist on using slide templates (slide decorations) in their training slides and presentations. This is a bad idea, and I've created the following narrated slide deck to make a research-based case against these bedeviling adornments:

Present Like Steve Jobs? Yes, BUT…

Here's a nice presentation about what makes Steve Jobs a great presenter.

Check it out, then read my comment below:

Here's my comment on this:

Okay, Steve Jobs is great at giving a product-sales presentation. No
doubt about that. But let's not generalize this too far. In my field,
the learning-and-performance field, many of the recommendations made
here are spot on (for example, keep slides simple and relatively
undecorated), BUT some are not relevant (for example, "and one more
thing") and some important things are not mentioned (for example,
provide people with practice opportunities, etc.).

Jobs also
has a big advantage that most of the rest of us don't have. He's a
celebrity. For some reason, deep in human evolution, this gives him our
loving attention.

Presentation characteristics depend on the
audience, purpose, etc. If you acted like Steve Jobs at a scientific
convention, you would not be trusted. If you acted like Steve Jobs in
training people, you would not create long-term remembering of key
learning points.

Again, I'm not criticizing Job's presentation
skills. He's perfect for his audience and purpose. I've even used him
as an example for some of my training-and-development clients. It's
just that we have to be a little discerning in deciding what we can use
of Jobs' repertoire for our particular purposes.