Presentation Advisors Blog

Social Media for Business Takes Third in World's Best Presentation Contest

I'm quite happy to inform all of you that my presentation, Social Media for Business, was awarded third place overall in SlideShare.net's World's Best Presentation Contest!

In its seventh year, SlideShare.net's World's Best Presentation Contest fielded 1,822 entries in five categories.  First, second, and third place overall were awarded, as well as six individual category winners.

A big congrats to Empowered Presentations, located in the state of my honeymoon (Hawaii), for their incredible presentation, SMOKE - A Convenient Truth.  It was without a doubt worthy of first place.

I especially want to thank each and every one of you that voted for me, ReTweeted me, and supported me thorughout this contest.  I was overwhelmed by how supportive, helpful, and simply awesome my readers, colleagues, family and friends are.

Take a look at the full list of 2010 winners.

If you haven't seen it already, you can view my entry below:

Social Media for Business

View more presentations from Presentation Advisors.

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Chris Brogan Shines Up Your Mediocre Presentation

I recently came upon a post by Chris Brogan over at the AmEx OPEN Forum (a fantastic branded initiative, btw) about how to tune up your presentation.

Damn.

Not only is Chris a marketing and social media rockstar, creator of "your second favorite blog", and a sought after speaker, he goes ahead and leaps into my genre and writes a very useful post for anyone who presents.

The nerve!

Faux anger aside, Chris hits some super-important points to help presenters of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels create and deliver a memorable presentation.  And if you consider my writings to be any shred of useful, then his is pretty much gospel, as he has given close to a thousand presentation over the years to rave reviews and constant speaking requests.

Start with a Plan

One of Chris' tune-up tips was to start with a plan and know it by heart. He notes that while many people think they have a plan, that's not necessarily true.  Chris writes, "They have slides, and those are arranged in an order, but if I shut their laptop lid, there is absolutely no plan."

Your story structure is paramount in creating a memorable and effective presentation.  Always make sure your presentation boils down to a singular main point that may expand to two or three sub-points, but that's it.  Make sure you know EXACTLY what you want your audience to walk away from the presentation with.  You've got to know this by heart, because if your equipment fails, it's just you and your thoughts...

From there, work to create an effective but relatively brief introduction stating where we are now and where we will/can be.  Tie the presentation together at the end by recapping your main/sub points, and make sure to leave the audience with the final thought of what can/will be, or what's possible.  I'm greatly oversimplifying it, but even formatting your presentation (this doesn't just mean "slides" either) to fit this type of story framework will help you create a coherent and engaging presentation.

And of course, don't start your presentation in PowerPoint.

Below are the other three tips Chris covered, which you can read about in his article, so I've hyperlinked them to related posts of mine that you may find useful.

• Your part in the presentation (appearance matters)
• Structuring your presentation (including WIIFM?)
• Your promise to the audience (and this post too about loving your audience)
• Practice is EVERYTHING!

Let me know what you thought about the article? What points did you like?

Image courtesy of Jimmy Baikovicius on Flickr

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Book Review & Giveaway: UnMarketing by Scott Stratten

Rarely do I read a book and highlight the footnotes. Yes, UnMarketing was that good.

Scott Stratten, better known as @UnMarketing on Twitter, has written a book about Marketing that didn't seem like it was about Marketing at all. I read it. I loved it. You will too.

You see, this isn't a book about Marketing in the traditional sense, where you're given all the tricks you need to boost sales, lower customer churn, drive website traffic, and automate half your marketing tasks, all in only four hours a week. On the contrary, Scott vehemently argues against all things automated and describes how his "overnight success" actually took him years of building strong relationships based on trust.  Success in business isn't for the weary, folks.

John Coleman Takes Bull Sh*t to a Whole New Level

I'm so excited to bring this to you.  I came across this video just the other day when Olivia Mitchell tweeted a video of Tim Washer avoiding a presentation disaster through the use of improv humor.   That's a great video as well. 

I'll set the scene and give my thoughts after the jump.  This video features John Coleman, an MBA/MPA student at the Harvard Business School who is tasked with delivering a 7-minute venture capitalist presentation as part of the school's first annual "B.S. Contest" (Yes, that stands for bull shitake) sponsored by the Harvard Business School's Public Speaking club.  The trick, though, is that he's NEVER seen the PowerPoint.  He doesn't even know the "product" he is pitching until AFTER his introduction (which is unfortuantely cut off).  In his case, his product is Robot Vending Machines - whatever that means.  I like it better than the 2nd place presenter's product - Removable Mustaches.  The class presentations are part of the Harvard Business School's Public Speaking club.  The lessons are plentiful.

Stand Out in the Job Market with a Visual Resume

With the emergence of online presentation creation and delivery technologies like Brainshark, Kineticast, Prezi, SlideRocket, (yes, I know I'm missing a ton) and of course SlideShare, PowerPoint and Keynote presentations have expanded beyond just boardrooms and classrooms.  People have found many interesting and intriguing ways to utilize slide software and online presentation technologies to tell their stories. 

One interesting trend has been the combination of slide software and SlideShare to create a visual resume.  With the economy the way it is in the U.S. and the jobless rate at nearly 10%, job seekers need to do EVERYTHING they can to separate themselves from the other candidates.  While a paper resume sits in a stack of others with similar paper type, color, and font, how can a potential employer really get to know you?

I came across a great visual resume by Saad Ahmed Shaikh, who submitted his presentation for World's Best Presentation Contest 2010.  Check it out below - more after the jump.

My Visual Resume - Saad Ahmed Shaikh (PLEASE VOTE if you like)

While there are a few things he could have done to make his presentation a little better, overall he does a great job. Saad uses a great blend of original fonts, imagery, interesting graphs, originality, and even a little humor.  I don't think there's any argument that a visual resume like this is far more engaging and memorable than a standard resume. 

Have you created or seen a visual resume?  If so, let me know in the comments. 

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Scott Stratten Proves PowerPoint is Not a Presentation Prerequisite

Photo courtesy of Sean Zinsmeister

Recently I had the priviledge of sitting in on a talk by Mr. UnMarketing himself, Scott Stratten, hosted by the Connecticut chapter of the American Marketing Association.  If you don't know him, you should - he's kind of a big deal on Twitter.  I drove through rain and crazy amounts of traffic for two hours (each way) just for the opportunity to hear him talk about his new book, aptly titled UnMarketing (seriously...I didn't do it just for the iPad raffle and free drink ticket, I swear).  I'll have a review of the book up very soon, along with a free UnMarketing book to give away so keep an eye out.

Be Like Walt Disney - Turn Your Presentation Into An Experience

Photo courtesy of Joe Penniston

My apologies for the blog silence this past week. You can usually count on two posts per week from me, but last week I was in the Happiest Place on Earth – Disney World.

It was an experience like no other. While my wife and I have yet to enter the joyous stage of parenthood, my two brother-in-laws both have young children ranging from 8 years to 6 months old. My goal for this post isn’t to document our trip (probably not what you’re looking for) but it’s important to note that we went with children, since it completely changed the way we experienced Disney, particularly the way they present themselves as both a magical place and a well oiled machine of a business.

We Were All Better Presenters in Kindergarten

Kids say the darnedest things, right?  I'm sure if you sit an think for just a minute, you can remember something quite funny or interesting a child has said to you recently.  Kids are quite unique, especially around the 5-7 year old range where they start to get really curious and outspoken.  Not to say that 15 year olds aren't outspoken - I pretty much knew everything there was to know at age 15 - but 6 year olds have a cute way of saying it.

But as we grow old, we lose some of that childishness.  We also lose our fearlessness, and our creativity (to a point).  Sir Ken Robinson has a wonderful presentation on the TED site where he talks about how schools kill creativity.  It's one of my all-time favorite presentations, and he brings up some valid points. 

This Soda Pop Eccentric is a Content Marketing Genius

I recently wrote a post about a marketing genius, and I'm not even sure he knows he's one.  His name is John Nese, and to say that Nese is passionate about his job is an understatement. When Nese, the proprietor of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles, was asked to describe his product in one word, he simply replied: “Happy." How about two words? His second answer was “Smile." So who is this wacky soda man who speaks like Frankenstein? Turns out he's a brilliant storyteller. And he had the cajones to stand up to Pepsi.

Read the rest of this post over at the Post Advertising blog, where I'm a contributor.

Image courtesy of Darwin Bell on Flickr

Using Presentation Design to Simplify the Complicated

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Common Craft.

My friend Clay Hebert (pronounced "A-Bear") of Tribes Win turned me on to Common Craft - a company whose product is "explanation".  Of course this seemed right up my alley, so I checked out what it means to "produce an explanation".  Basically, Common Craft creates short, simple videos using paper cut outs and drawings to explain commonly complicated ideas.