A Provocative Recommendation: Stop Presenting!

Presentations aren’t always the best idea. Unless a presenter is phenomenally dynamic and engaging in her own right, audience members are going to have to consciously choose to pay attention and process the information. This takes effort, and it’s almost guaranteed that more interesting distractions will find their way into the space. If the presenter is presenting information that is remotely complex, dry, or worse, poorly organized, the audience is surely checked out.

Most of the time, when working with clients, the belief is that “net new” information needs to be presented first, and the only opportunity for interactivity is in the application of that knowledge. This is simply not true.

ArticleStephanie JuddJuly 8, 2024workshop, breakout, presentation, engagement, inspireComment

Adding Pitch and Pace to Your Delivery Skillset

Voices have rhythm, beats, texture, and timbre… all qualities of music. By thinking about our vocal chords as if they’re instruments to practice playing, we can open up an entire world of vocal delivery techniques that are both learnable and measurable in their impact.

ArticleStephanie JuddFebruary 12, 2024leadership, storytelling, delivery, presence, presentation, pitch, pace, voice, charismaComment

Capitalizing on Your Conference: What to do next

Fall is conference season. For many professionals, at some point in the fall, they’ll pack their bags, head to a hotel and mix with industry peers. There’s a lot to gain at conferences—knowledge, skills, relationships—but it can be hard to capitalize on all that conferences have to offer in the moment. Here’s a step by step approach to maximize the conference value when you’re back at your desk the following Monday and have a chance to take a breath.

Process Conversations are great opportunities for leaders to inspire others, generate buy-in, and drive engagement. AND they’re an access point through which to engage and inspire UP the chain of command as well.

ArticleKara DavidsonOctober 2, 2023meetings, leadership, conference, conferences, keynote, presentation, speakerComment

Three Common Mistakes When Developing a Learning Experience

Just as not every individual contributor will be a fantastic manager, not every leader will be a fantastic teacher. Fortunately, these are skills that can be developed and there are rules of thumb that can be applied to ensure that content experts can jump into the role of inspiring and engaging a new generation of folks in their area of expertise.

Here are a few of the common mistakes we see leaders fall into when creating learning experiences.

ArticleStephanie JuddSeptember 11, 2023presentation, meetings, learning and development, learning designComment

Tips for Developing Your Conference Talk

Presenting can be intimidating, even if you’ve done it many times before. Based on what we know about how to be a compelling presenter, here are a few suggestions for how to prepare to take the stage (or screen) for the first time.

ArticleKara DavidsonAugust 14, 2023talk, public speaking, speaking, keynote, presentationComment

How to Add Stories to Your Next Presentation

A key point relevant to stories and presentations is that stories must follow story structure while a presentation doesn’t have to. In fact, presentations often have a very different narrative structure. That being said, because human beings respond so well to stories, it can be helpful to embed short stories that follow this structure into a broader presentation narrative.

ArticleStephanie JuddJuly 24, 2023storytelling, presentation, coachingComment

Transforming Your Presentation into an Interactive Workshop Part 2: Making Your Workshop Effective

The best workshops put the learning into the hands of the participants at every stage of the learning process, but sometimes the timeline—both for development of the workshop or the runtime of the experience itself—can result in more of a hybrid experience that contains both presentation-style and interactive moments. When we work with clients transforming their presentations into workshops, this is how we typically break it down.

ArticleKara DavidsonJuly 10, 2023storytelling, presentation, coachingComment

Transforming Your Presentation into an Interactive Workshop Part 1: Know When a Workshop is the Right Call

We help leaders engage and inspire others. A lot of the time, that ends up meaning that we help leaders be better storytellers and presenters, but once in a while, we have a client that’s truly interested in taking engagement to the next level, and they’re looking for help transforming what was going to be be a presentation into an interactive, engaging, and compelling workshop.

ArticleKara DavidsonJune 12, 2023storytelling, conference, presentation, coachingComment

The Making of a Conference Theme

As Story and Presentation Coaches, we partner with organizations planning conferences. Conferences have always been a way for people to gather outside of their day-to-day routine, share insights, learn, and grow. In a time when fewer of us are gathering in person, it’s even more important than ever to ensure those conferences are thoughtful and productive experiences for attendees.

ArticleKara DavidsonMay 25, 2023storytelling, conference, presentation, coachingComment

Public Speaking Tips for Non Native English Speakers

At a recent coaching session, Kara was asked, “Do you have any tips for non-native English speakers at an English speaking company? I’m worried about how I come across.” There are so many considerations when it comes to working, presenting and speaking in front of audiences that are linguistically or culturally different from you.

ArticleKara DavidsonApril 10, 2023presentation, presentations, storytelling, presentation designComment

Make People Feel Seen, Heard, and Understood - Part 2: Coaching Tips for Leaders

Making people feel seen, heard, and understood is an important leadership skill. Here we offer tips from our executive coaching training that we think are particularly powerful ways to do just that: restate what you hear, ask powerful, future-oriented questions, trust your conversation partner has it in them to find the answers, and be mindful of your purpose.

ArticleKara DavidsonMarch 20, 2023presentation, presentations, storytelling, presentation designComment

Using Lessons from Storytelling to Design Your Presentation

A presentation is not a story, they are not interchangeable, but you can certainly use lessons from storytelling to make sure that your presentation has an organized narrative and leaves them with the takeaway(s) you want them to hold onto.

ArticleKara DavidsonFebruary 6, 2023presentation, presentations, storytelling, design, presentation designComment

Clarifying Success for Your Working Group Meeting (with Downloadable Tool)

TOOL

Because working groups are often established to work through aspirational and shifting goals, and because participants are usually loosely organized, it’s critical that participants understand why they’re meeting, what they are expected to contribute, and what they can expect in return. Although you may already have a cursory idea of agenda topics for meetings, getting clear on your “why” will take your meeting from the typical boring event to a powerful gathering with better outcomes.

ArticleKara DavidsonOctober 31, 2022agenda template, agenda, meeting design, meeting design and facilitation, presentation, planningComment