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Find Your Walk-Up Song: How Music Can Boost Your Confidence
It’s a simple but fun tradition. The batter walks to the plate, and the crappy stadium sound system blares AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” Or The Troggs' “Wild Thing” made popular in the movie Major League. Or Metallica's “Enter Sandman.” If you don’t have a walk-up song,...
Take a Sad First Impression and Make it Better: The Right Way to Kickoff Your Presentation
So, um, ah, [clears throat] hi, hello. How’s everybody doing today? [Tepid applause] C’mon, you can do better than that. HOW’S EVERYBODY DOING TODAY? [Forced enthusiastic applause and whoops] That’s better. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m John. I’m an expert...
If It’s Not Communicating, It’s Irritating: How to Reduce Noise In Your Presentations
I hated electrical theory – it was the hardest-earned B- of my college career. But one concept stuck with me, the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). It’s a simple concept, which might explain why it’s the only thing I remember from that course. If you’re listening to a...
What Amtrak Can Teach Us About Presentation Standards: How to Create Professional Presentations in Less Time
I took the train from Richmond to New York twice last summer. It’s doesn’t take much longer than flying, it’s a lot less hassle, and you can get more work done. But there’s one thing that drives me crazy. When you get to Washington, DC, you wait in the dark with no...
Is Clip Art a Fireable Offense?: How to Use Illustrations Effectively
About 15 years ago, I worked in a department where my skip-level boss held a quarterly business review (QBR). In these QBRs, my peers and I presented our accomplishments for the last quarter and our plans for the next quarter. One quarter, one of my peers, “Mike”...
Death to the Category Header: How to Write Effective Slide Titles
The single most important thing you can do to improve your presentations is to use sentence titles that give the main point of each slide. Sentence Titles vs. Category Headers Let’s start with some definitions. Title: The words you put at the top of your slide....
The Golden, No Wait, Platinum Rule of Presentations: Assess Your Audience, Purpose, & Setting to Determine Your Design
While my wife, the Chemical Engineer, insists I’m not a real engineer, my Virginia Tech diplomas do have the words “Industrial Engineering” on them. And while I haven’t had the word “engineer” in my job title for the last 20 years, I still see the world through engineer-colored (safety?) glasses. So, when I started teaching presentation design 16 years ago …
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