If you haven’t had the chance to be present for one of Bronwyn Saglimbeni’s workshops, you must. Bronwyn is a seasoned communications professional and works with clients to improve their public speaking and media relations skills, challenging them to bring out more of themselves in their communications.
At the First Annual Girls in Tech Retreat for GIT Managing Directors, Bronwyn and Kristine Shaefer, lead a workshop on public speaking and it was such a success and so helpful that I invited her back down to Santa Cruz for a workshop on ‘perfecting your presentations’ – lucky for me she obliged and I thought I would share some of her key points and takeaways with those of you who weren’t in attendance:
Now, who hasn’t spent countless hours putting together an important presentation only to have your audiences eyes glaze over? Are you as guilty as I am for being one of those to get sleepy in the middle of a PowerPoint? I thought so.
So let’s change the game.
- Honor the way adults learn
- Show, don’t tell
- Novelty
- Relevance
- Emotion
- Master the art of storytelling
- Turn off your computer.
- Decide what kind of story works best given the subject and your goals.
- What do I want them to… Feel? Think? Do?
- What do they need to remember?
- Practice restraint
- Be yourself
Now, next time you go to put together a slide deck, think about these simple, but key, points. If you still can’t get it right then maybe you should reach out to Bronwyn for some additional direction 
February 11th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Thank you for the great presentation tips Seana! As a “PowerPoint abuser”, I can relate to seeing the glazed-over look, and really appreciate this advice.
On a related note, there is a really cool new presentation group called “Ignite” that is springing up around the country. Ignite is concept where as a presenter you have 15 minutes, 20 slides, and 5 seconds per slide to get your point across. The events are amazing to watch and it is a cool way to practice making your slideshow presentations exciting and more dynamic. After attending these events, I’ll never look at PowerPoint presentations the same way.
Check it out here:
http://igniteboise.com/
http://www.igniteseattle.com
February 11th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Great pointers! — Thanks, Seana, for the recap – It looks to be an outstanding workshop!
February 15th, 2010 at 6:26 am
I agree, these are great pointers. My daughter always tells me I have so much trouble teaching my peers, adults, because I choose to teach them differently than younger students–but adults want to SEE things as well as be a part of storytelling. Thnx Seana!