Summary of Ignite Berlin 23rd May 2012 – and a list of 6 pieces of advice to others.

Format

What is Ignite? An Ignite talk is similar to Pecha Kucha  but harder still: 20 slides automatically forwarding after 15 seconds each – which sums up to a 5 minute talk.

The speakers’ list of Ignite Berlin had international guests on it – and there was an audience of about 70-100 people who gathered at the now officially opened Supermarkt, an event location and co-working space  in Brunnenstraße.

Compared to the Pecha Kucha Berlin the audience was smaller, the speakers’ list shorter and the atmosphere among members of the audience very relaxed, communicative and open. I met ‘new’ people apart from the usual suspects as it was easy to chat up others. The ‘layout’ of the stage was more speaker-friendly than at Pecha Kucha Berlin, as they were able to stand close to the laptop and could use it as a ‘teleprompter’ (or rather picture prompter). Unfortunately, the projection of the beamer was not very ...

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An easygoing storyteller calmly presenting his audience with one great piece of advice after the other.

(auf diesen Text klicken um den Artikel auf Deutsch zu lesen)

Jeremy Schoemaker is a celebrity in his line of business – an online marketer or rather the affiliate marketing expert. In the second week of January he held the keynote at the Affiliate Summit 2012 in Las Vegas. In preparing this keynote Jeremy did the obvious thing and asked himself “What is key in affiliate marketing?” – and then presented his answers to the question in his speech.

If you want to understand this blogpost you will like to watch his keynote – thankfully also showing his slides – on the Shoemoney blog (it takes 37 minutes).

For the first few minutes Jeremy seems shy, later on he’s sometimes self-ironic in what he says. He goes on stage with his hands in his pockets speaking in a low voice, standing (or hiding) behind the lectern almost all of the 37 minutes. ...

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New series on this blog – starting today  

R.I.P. Steve Jobs – when he was still alive clients and friends repeatedly told me they wanted to be able to “present like Steve Jobs”.

That’s aiming high and in the right direction as not only were his keynotes always memorable (at least for Apple fans) but reportedly he rehearsed a lot.

However, two facts oppose the possibility of being able to present like Steve Jobs did: To begin with anyone I have known so far presented a product or concept that everyone in the audience wanted anyway (as much wanted as new Apple products are wanted by their fans). This means that only those who have really sexy and hyped products or concepts have a chance of getting close to Jobs. But the second obstacle is insurmountable: We’re not Steve Jobs.

The series of blogposts will have analyses and portraits of presentations, keynotes and their respective speakers who are far from being as famous for their presos as Steve Jobs was. By and by, the posts will form a gallery ...

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Improve Your Presentation – Part 2. (Here’s Part 1. Hier geht’s zur deutschen Fassung.)

Friends and clients often ask me how much information they may and can put on a PowerPoint-slide (PowerPoint just being an example for any presentation software). It comes as quite a shock to them when I answer: One statement per slide.

I revised the following slide (it was set in another type and the bars had a different colour) for a client. As you can see and feel immediately that the amount of information which is clearly more than one statement is confusing.

7 products, 7 long numbers (accurate to the Cent), the unhappy choice of a bar chart layout – all this means that the presenter and his audience have to tackle 14 bits of information (plus the headline) all at once. (By the way – this customer did not sell sweets – the products they really sold are made anonymous.)

Changing the axis in the chart (columns instead of bars), a clear and meaningful choice of ...

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(Interactive talk at BDVT-workshop, Petersberger Trainertage on 23 April 2010)

Go to German Version

‘Empathy’ was one of the three topics at the workshop ‘People make markets – future qualifications’ at Petersberger Trainertage, and the empathy-part looked for answers to the questions: What significance has empathy as a future qualification for people acting on markets? And what exactly does empathy mean? The ‘people’ at the workshop on that day were training and business consultants and coaches, HR and marketing specialists. Being a presentation consultant my focus lay on empathy in presentations. Presentations – in my view – also comprising those short ‘pitches’ that we do when introducing ourselves to somebody else at a conference like Petersberger Trainertage, for example.

First step when confronted with a word like “empathy” is to look it up in a dictionary: “Empathy – ‘strong passion’” – hey, that sounds exciting and even sexy. Moreover, empathy is defined as “the willingness and ability to adopt the attitude of others”. So, empathy is the “as if” (I had somebody else’s attitude) and means ...

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What do a Sesame Street song-classic, a good presentation and impro theatre have in common? (deutsche Fassung)

They’re fun and they only work if you feel like doing it, if you’re completely present and if they’re based on interaction. “We could sing a good song if we have one more person to sing!” – if you replace “song” and “singing” by “presentation” and “presenting” then you can learn how to do a good presentation by watching the singer (is he meant to a Joe Cocker twin?) in the following Sesame Street classic:

[youtube=http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=hTkGXuiT55w#]

So here’s a person/puppet who does something happily, eagerly, putting his heart into it. You might remember boring presentations, however, in which the presenter was not at all happy, nor was he eager and neither did he put any heart in what he said. In this song the lead singer’s “Manamana” would be boring and incomplete without the “bah-bee-bee-bee-bee” of the female singers! So, if you want your audience to participate in the presentation, to have them stay “tuned”, to make them “join in”: What interactions ...

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