You can easily download videos from YouTube and Google and use them in your PowerPoints. You can go to other video sites too, although the millions of videos available on YouTube should be enough to enliven your presentations.
These two programs are inexpensive and easy to use:
Meetings - can't live with 'em, and can't live without 'em. BNET just did a video interview with me on some key points to communicate more effectively through meetings.
Here are some additional tips we give to our clients at Decker - I call them the 10 Steps to Better Meetings:
1. Cut the meetings you have in half. Cut the time of the meetings that remain in half.
This assumes you are the leader of the meetings. Unproductive talk and time will fill the space of long meetings - The Peter Principle in action.
2. Have an agenda.
Bullets only, direction driven, not "update" driven. It also helps to distribute in advance by email if you have time and access.
3. Be on time.
Start on time. Model your time at the beginning so people know you respect their time. Don't wait for stragglers, and don't catch up items for late comers (unless it happens to be the boss.)
4. Be controversial.
Not outlandish, but stimulate robust dialogue. The reason most meetings are boring is because most meetings are boring. As the meeting leader, it's up to you to make it interesting.
5. Have a focus, a Point Of View.
Meetings should not be primarily for updates and information exchange, but for action, discussion and direction.
6. Use intentional eye communication.
As a leader, look at everyone or they won't feel included. And when you want someone to speak up more, glance at them. Skillful eye communication can direct and influence without words.
7. Be energetic – voice, gestures.
The Shadow of the Leader. Your enthusiasm will drive others. And if you're not the leader, the more energy and interest you show the more likely you will become one.
Be interesting. If the meeting and you are interesting, people won't go to their IM's and emails on their PDA's. You can have ground rules, but they should be secondary to relevance, vitality, energy and interest.
9. Drive to action steps.
Meetings should create actions, not informational data dumps. Be intentional.
10. End with a bang, not a whimper.
Most meetings peter out. Not only end with an action step(s), close it off with an upbeat quote, story or video clip. Be creative - and your meetings will be too.
Bonus #1: Record your meetings on video or DVD - put one up in the back of the room to see how you and others interact and behave. Observed behavior changes.
Bonus #2: Buy and read "Death By Meeting" by Patrick Lencioni, a great speaker and consultant. There is a plethora of good advice and concepts in his book that will change the way you run your meetings.
We usually talk about talking here - but God made us with two ears and only one mouth, so listening must be a big part of the communication experience.
Here's a funny video that reminds us to listen carefully - and even if we speak clearly, we might be misunderstood.
Shocking and disappointing that Melinda Doolittle was voted off American Idol tonight. She is a great singer, and was the best on the show (in most everyone's opinion - not to just my musically untrained ear.)
Way back in her first exciting tryout I put up a post here, and also this YouTube comment, hoping then that she would gain in personal confidence and power in order to match her voice. When she performs, she IS confident and powerful. But in person she shrinks up - and even after her successes in these last 11 weeks she did not own and display the personality of a star - which she is. Grow yes - bloom no. People treat you exactly as you ask to be treated, and Melinda did not step up to be the star she is.
Too bad, and there's a lesson for all of us as speakers, communicators and leaders.
Be all of yourself - and when in doubt, act as if.
In speaking, communication rides energy. People are interested in people who are interesting - vital, powerful and energetic. That's also the way the majority tends to vote in politics, and it seems on American Idol as well.
Years ago I was an original member of the "Mac Pack" - those Macintosh addicts who loved it. Then with lost market share, and almost all of our clients on Windows, I switched to the PC and, liking all things tech anyway, have been happily figuring things out in the less fun and easy Windows interface - until now.
Wait on Windows
Last week I had to upgrade memory and power with a new light Sony VAIO, and that meant Vista as an Operating System - since it sold with it. What a headache - and what's worse, I was shocked to see that many programs were not yet compatible a few months after launch, and particularly some key Adobe ones (can you believe when I called Adobe they said Acrobat didn't even have a date yet when it would work with Vista.) Wasted much of a day.
So I returned the whole computer - and have decided that when I get my iPhone in June I will switch back to the Mac. It's time. (Normally I don't rant on my blog, but thought that several of you will be upgrading computers in the near future and thus be stuck with the Vista OS, so wanted to warn you of the pitfalls. Check your software for compatibility beforehand - or switch.)
One of the best of many good tips - always bring a Flash Drive of your PowerPoint and support materials separate from your laptop - (and be sure any video clips you embed in the PowerPoint are in the same file in the Flash Drive.)
All professional speakers should know/do these things automatically, (particularly never to stand behind a lectern/podium,) but it is a terrific comprehensive list to remind all of us of some of the things we forget.
Slideshare has just announced the winners of the first World's Best Presentation Contest. OK, these are not really presentations, because they do not have the critical human element - but they are standalone PowerPoint decks - and useful to see what the best are doing.
What was exciting was that these were not just pedantic slide shows, but were visual and arresting. If only one of the entries had a "black slide" or an explanation of what went along with the visual support - they would have had me applauding! Most of us are still missing the point in what makes an arresting presentation - it's not the PowerPoint but the People.
We judged them on design, impact and message (or at least I did.) Guy Kawasaki,Garr Reynolds and Jerry Weisman were the other judges - and I think we pretty much agreed on the best of over 400 entries.
What I was delighted in was the originality and visual quality of almost all of the entries. And next I hope we can figure out a way to have videos of the actual presentations - then we will have a "Presentation Contest" worthy of the name. But this is a great start.
As speakers, we can hone our overall communication skills by heeding the advice of masters of the written word. For example, note the rules for clarity laid down by George Orwell in his classic essay “Politics and the English Language”:
“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence he writes will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
For the speaker, Orwell’s recommendations suggest:
A strong Point of View
Concrete, specific language versus abstract
Anecdotes, analogies and quotes to illustrate key points
An attention-getting opener and strong conclusion for impact
And finally, brevity. It is a rare audience that will fault you for building your case in thirty minutes instead of one hour.
You can easily download videos from YouTube and Google and use them in your PowerPoints. You can go to other video sites too, although the millions of videos available on YouTube should be enough to enliven your presentations.
