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Ten top tips for presenting from Jacqui Harper MBE

I was going through some old notes today and came across these top ten tips for presenting. Although many are familiar suggestions, numbers four and eight are less so, and worthy of attention.

They come from a Top Tips for Presenting workshop delivered by Jacqui Harper MBE, M.D. of Crystal Business Training, way back in November 2006, but are just as relevant now.

1. Start by identifying the purpose of the presentation for your audience.
The key thing to ask yourself is ‘what’s in it for the audience?’ Once you know the answer to this you’re on your way to creating a great presentation.

2. Use key messages and a simple structure to convey your points.
The best presenters communicate clearly and concisely with key messages that are easy to follow.

3. Make your material relevant and interesting for your audience.
Keeping an audience’s attention is quite straightforward if your material is adapted to their specific needs and interests. Audiences like to know you’ve done a bit of homework for them.

4. Rehearse your presentation at least twice.
It’s even better if you can tape your rehearsals with a camcorder. This speeds up familiarity with your material and dramatically improves your fluency.

5. Make sure your presentation has a strong impact at the beginning.
Your audiences are most attentive at the beginning of a presentation – if you engage them at the start you’re most likely to keep them.

6. Show the audience you care about your material and them.
Showing passion for your subject and a genuine interest in your audience always goes down well.

7. Use light touches of humour when you can to build rapport.
It doesn’t need to be a stand up routine. Occasional humorous comments instantly build rapport.

8. Only use PowerPoint when you absolutely have to!
PowerPoint will generally send audiences to sleep unless it’s really well used. It’s far better to ditch the slides and speak directly to the audience.

9. Dress in an outfit that makes you feel good and is appropriate.
A smart, well-groomed appearance will boost your confidence and impress your audience.

10. Get training!
All good speakers have had training. The cheapest way to train yourself is to buy a self-help guide like ‘Voices of Experience: The Expert’s to Making Great Presentations’. The quickest way to learn is to do a public speaking course with specialist companies like Crystal Business Training.

I also remember her advice to practice vocal exercises before every presentation.

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What’s not to like about LIKE?

LIKEIn a year that has seen cuts in commercial library and and information services resulting from the UK recession, and the sad demise of the City Information Group in the summer (CiG – RIP), it is good to have something new and positive to talk about.

LIKE (London Information and Knowledge Exchange) is a networking group for Library, Information, Knowledge and Communication professionals, who meet on a monthly basis to share stories, learn and exchange knowledge in an informal and relaxed setting.

According to one of their fans: “The best thing about LIKE meetings is that they attract interesting and friendly people. It’s rather like a very good dinner party.”

They are already up to their tenth meeting, to be held on 28 January in The Perseverance in Lamb’s Conduit Street, featuring Liz Scott-Wilson Head of Information Management at Tube Lines talking about Information behaviour & culture change.

At their previous get together in December they looked forward to the coming year, and recorded some LIKE members’ New Year Resolutions.

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Business and IP Centre launches New Business Podcast featuring… me

I have to say I was somewhat nervous about being interviewed for Business Bytes. This our new monthly podcast narrated by business journalist Jamie Oliver, and designed to give inspiration and practical advice with the challenges in setting up and growing your own business.

Actually, I just do the inroduction and the really interesting content comes from designer Sebastian Conran of Conran & Partners, business expert Jane Khedair from Business Plan Services, and Dee Wright  founder of The Hair Force.

Each month, Jamie will be interviewing entrepreneurs, business experts and some of the Library’s success stories, who are just at the start of their entrepreneurial journeys. But we have hit he ground running with a mention on the Telegraph newspaper website.

Episode one: From idea to business
19 October 09
In our first pilot episode, Jamie introduces himself and the Business & IP Centre, and interviews a range of experts and entrepreneurs about the importance of ideas, how to take them to the next stage, and why you should protect them.

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Starting a business is like playing at Pooh Sticks

Bryan Mills

During a recent training event I was fortunate to hear Bryan Mills speak. Bryan has had a long and successful career creating and managing IT related businesses (although without an IT background himself). His particular claim to fame is building CMG from a two person business, operating from the founder’s homes in 1965, into a multinational FTSE1oo business.

During his fascinating talk recounting lessons learnt from a lifetime as an entrepreneur he used the analogy of playing Pooh Sticks for business start-up.

As both a fan of the game from early childhood, and having grown up very near to the home of Winnie-the-Pooh the inventor of the game in Hartfield, West Sussex, Bryan caught my attention.

When you are planning to start a business you look down into the swirling river below (the market place for you product or service), you try as hard as you can to see where the current is flowing strongest and is least turbulent (assessing the market opportunity with published and field market research). You drop your stick in as carefully and accurately as you can (detailed business plan preparation). And once it is in, you follow it with Eagle eyes, watching every bob and weave (you track every activity minutely in your newly founded business).

However once the stick goes under the bridge it moves both out of your control and out of sight, and there is nothing you can do to influence its route down the river, across into a bank of reeds, or dropping down to the bottom of the river bed. This is very much the situation once your business is up and running. All kinds of unpredictable events can knock you off course, or sink the business altogether.

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Perserverance and the achievement of goals

I don’t usually get too philosophical on this blog because I know most people are looking for practical solutions to problems.

However, on my recent holiday up in the beautiful Langdale Valley in the Lake District, and then on to the Highlands of Scotland, I managed to achieve something I first attempted 25 years ago.

Although climbing Ben Nevis does not compare to the serious mountains of Europe and the Americas, it does feel good to have finally conquered the highest mountain in Britain. Especially as my two previous attempts had to be abandoned due to bad weather, leading to dangerous conditions on top.

It made me think about how much perseverance entrepreneurs need in order to succeed in business. They will need to overcome a great many obstacles and challenges on the way if they are to succeed in the long term.

To quote Roy Castle from his Record Breakers days,  “what you need is dedication”.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Ben_Nevis_south_face.jpg

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CiG – RIP

Irony is a tricky topic as Alanis Morriset discovered a few years ago.

And perhaps ‘tragic’ is a more appropriate term for hearing the news halfway through Wednesday night’s SLA Europe Summer Soiree to celebrate 100 years of the Association, that the City Information Group was no more.

As a member of the group for nearly 20 years, I was saddened to hear of its demise. As Tim Buckley Owen points out in detail, they had a distinguished past. I certainly found their educational sessions to be of great interest and relevance to my career development. And of course their summer and winter parties were legendary.

Melanie Goody (one of the founding committee members) also recalls its glory days when it boasted over 1,000 members, on the TFPL blog.

On her View from the Hill blog Sue Hill says it is ‘A time to weep for the departed and to celebrate the survivors.’

It will be interesting to see if the existing GiG membership decide to join one of the remaining information bodies and associations.

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Start-ups who think big

On my way home the other evening I noticed an unusual poster advertising the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The poster consisted of three of the photos below, and was a salient reminder of the humble beginnings of what are now household names.

Some of the entrepreneurs I meet have no greater ambition than becoming their own boss and making enough money to be comfortable. However, some have global ambitions right from the beginning. Last week I saw a client who has patented an invention which if successful could be in every home in the world which uses electricity.

It pays to think big. Branson?s first store: Richard Branson?s first foray into business was a mail order record company.

It pays to think big. Before it became a computing power house, IBM used to manufacture and sell machinery ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders to meat and cheese slicers.
BM 1930: Before it became a computing power house, IBM used to manufacture and sell machinery ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders to meat and cheese slicers.
It pays to think big. Lamborghini started out as a tractor-building company in the Italian village of Sant'Agata Bolognese.
Lamborghini 1955: Lamborghini started out as a tractor-building company in the Italian village of Sant'Agata Bolognese.

It pays to think big. When Nokia was first formed they produced a number of products including bicycle tires, aluminium and Wellington boots.

It pays to think big. William Harley and Arthur Davidson built their first motorcycle in a friend?s wooden shed, in Milwaukee.

It pays to think big. Ingvar Kamprad, aged 17, set up Ikea in a shed in Smaland, Southern Sweden.
IKEA started here. Ingvar Kamprad, aged 17, set up Ikea in a shed in Smaland, Southern Sweden. From here he distributed Christmas cards, packets of seeds and pens.
It pays to think big. Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up Google as a research project while they were Ph.D students at Stanford University. In 1998 they moved into Susan Wojcicki's garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.
Google started here. Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up Google as a research project while they were Ph.D students at Stanford University. In 1998 they moved into Susan Wojcicki's garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.

It pays to think big, The Daily Telegraph, Britain’s Broadsheet
It pays to think big is the Telegraph’s major new advertising campaign to promote Britain’s best-selling quality daily paper. It pays to think big, proudly celebrates the fact that the Daily Telegraph is the only quality daily paper in the broadsheet format – giving readers more coverage of news, sports and business.

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The kindness of strangers… and acquaintances

Although not in the same league as Lucy Kellaway’s recent trauma, and resulting life affirming experience (How a thief gave me 10 reasons to be grateful), my newly acquired torn calf muscle has led to unexpected kindness from strangers.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_01/Upson0112GETTY_468x432.jpg
Not exactly how I sustained my injury - but a nice footy photo

As I have limped around a sometimes hostile (or frequently indifferent) London I have come across instance after instance of help and thoughtfulness. My first experience was a ticket inspector at the entrance to my train station. Instead of his usual approach of not even bothering to make eye contact, this time as I struggled to retrieve the ticket from my pocket, he rushed forward to open the automatic gate for me. Later on, as I crept at snail’s pass a red London bus waiting to begin its journey, I asked if they were going my way. The driver’s initial response was a rather shirty, ‘this isn’t a bus stop you know’, but after seeing my painfully slow limping progress (painful and slow), she relented and invited me on board.

Friends and acquaintances at work have also expressed great concern as they see me leaning heavily on my walking stick. And even when they discover the injury was sustained during a veterans football match, and their initial laughter has died down, they still ask what they can do to help.

All in all a very positive feeling which has gone some way to ameliorating the stinging pain of the injury itself.

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A role model for sustainable business

As mentioned in a previous post, more and more new business are setting up with various shades of green when it comes to their impact on the environment.

However the real challenge, and the real scope and need for change, is with existing traditional firms. For example carpet tile manufacturing. Well, having just watched an inspiring TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) video, I think I may have seen the answer. Ray Anderson the CEO of global carpet company Interface outlines his vision for sustainable commerce, with their Mission Zero commitment to eliminate any negative impact Interface has on the environment by 2020.

He shows how they have increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head.

Not only are they acting as a role model by proving how this can be done successfully, they are helping other corporates by developing a business model for them to follow.

The Interface model for sustainable business has emerged, one that guides our journey and from which other businesses can draw inspiration and design their own journeys. As we put the model to work within Interface, we set forth our vision and, imagining all it would take to realize it, developed the Seven Fronts™. We then put in place measurements, called Ecometrics™, to monitor our progress and keep us on our journey’s path. Learn more about the 7 Fronts of Sustainability.

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Learn the basics of copyright in less than 7 minutes

Copyright.com

Copyright Central

This is the enticing title of a recent email video campaign aimed at information professionals.

Given the level of confusion around copyright, and the fact that librarians and information specialists are often in the front line, I was pleased to be able to increase my awareness.

In fact even though the legal aspects cover US law and includes the their concept of Fair Dealing, it covers a very complicated topic in surprising detail in a short space of time. I like the way they include sources of content that are not covered by copyright, such as ideas, facts, data,  and publications created by the US Government.

Needless to say, given the source of the video (the Copyright Clearance Center) the information tends towards compliance and the reasons why.

Sadly, they don’t make any reference to Creative Commons and the choice of licences available there.

http://soa.utexas.edu/vrc/blog/wp-content/copyright.jpg

Corporate workers share information every day, but what percentage get copyright permission?

Most people don’t knowingly violate copyright law, they are simply unaware of their copyright responsibilities. To help increase awareness, CCC has created a FREE video that provides the basics of copyright in a fun and informative way.

In less than 7 minutes, Jim T. Librarian explains why copyright is important, what is and isn’t covered
under U.S. copyright law, and why attribution isn’t always enough.
Copyright Basics – The Video
Thank you for your interest in CCC’s
Copyright Basics

This Program is made available for your use by the rights licensing experts at Copyright Clearance Center. We welcome you to view the video here and/or download it for non-commercial use in your organization (terms and conditions apply).