Presentations, Comedians, and Point-of-View
Later this week I'm giving a presentation on giving presentations. (This'll be a tough gig 'cause one has to be truly on their presentation game if they are to share advice on how to give presentations. Yikes.)
Anyway, the basis of this presentation is sharing lessons I've learned from being an outsider looking into the world of stand-up comedians. There's a lot of great advice presenters can learn from how comics approach their craft.
For example, here are a few slides focusing on the importance of developing a strong Point-of-View when crafting and delivering a presentation.
Great post! I love this take.It supports my assertion that the best teachers are those who view teaching as a performance and the class or group as an audience to be won. Obviously, without forgoing content.
I am sure you'll be great. Just think of all of those awesome reports you gave for Gaskey and Armon...
Posted by:Betsy | May 19, 2008 at 05:29 PM
Awesome. It sounds like a great presentation. Best of luck!
"If you shoot a mime, do you need to use a silencer?" - Steven Wright
Posted by:Bill Gammell | May 19, 2008 at 05:49 PM
Besty ... ah, Coach Armon. Flashback. Whoa.
For those reading this, Coach Armon was my ninth-grade History teacher. I wasn't the best student but I was skilled at getting into trouble. Coach Armon would keep track of how many times he had to discipline his students. I got disciplined. A lot.
Each time Armon would write me up for doing something I shouldn't have done, he would say, "Moore, I gotcha." Of course this was punctuated with the nod of a #2 pencil in my direction and then some scribble marks in his master grade book.
It got to the point that I was being picked-on, or so I felt.
That all stopped when my Dad gave Coach Armon 4-tickets to a Dallas Mavericks basketball game. After that, there were no more call-outs from Coach Armon saying, "Moore, I gotcha."
Reckon, I should be saying, "Armon, my Dad got YOU!"
Posted by:john moore (from Brand Autopsy) | May 19, 2008 at 06:14 PM
Nice bro...
Two suggestions:
Suggestion 1: Consider losing the bottom thirdyou have on every slide, the title's ben established and from that point on it's just stealing scren real estate (there's a whole lot i could say about incidental processing and how your brain learns to ignore the static stuff, but I'd say just trust me).
Suggestion 2:
Consider popping in the Dimitri Martin clip on visual enhancers, it does a great job of marrying stand-up comedy and presentations.
Enjoy the talk dude...!
Posted by:Rich...! | May 20, 2008 at 12:47 PM
What up Rich...!? That Demetri clip is spot-on funny. Thanks for clueing me in.
Good advice on the slide design.
Here's hoping all is right with you in South Africa.
Posted by:john moore (from Brand Autopsy) | May 20, 2008 at 10:28 PM
Thank you for your presentation on presentations. It was insightful and inspiring. Really made me think of how I present myself and ideas on all levels no matter who the audience is.
From my POV this presentation can help many professionals no matter what line of work they are in. (Wish some of my college professors had heard it...I might have been more engaged).
Thanks again.
Posted by:Carrie | May 28, 2008 at 09:23 PM
Interesting perspective and comments. Your readers, might also find the resource listing for presenters that I've compiled that can be downloaded at my blog PPT - Powerful Presentation Techniques (http://www.connectingdots.typepad.com/ppt). It provides links to resources, articles, blogs, etc that can help make presenters deliver through better presentation preparation, content and delivery.
Posted by:Paul Gibler | May 29, 2008 at 01:07 PM