Latest Posts

It’s not a comic

The scientific evidence is clear that text on a screen is ineffectual and distracting. Images are perfect for supporting the message of the story. The temptation for speakers is then to attempt to illustrate every single step and detail in…
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That’s not how you spell prezentation

prezentation

The original website for this blog was at Blogger and the blog url was : preZENtationskills. This is in tribute to my Sensei, Garr Reynolds and his seminal blogsite Presentation Zen. His first post there was ten years ago and…
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Where, precisely are you going?

The key mistake made in preparing a presentation is in failing to identify purpose. “What is your objective, relative to this subject, in talking to this group, today?” The answer to that question can usefully be quantified in the elevator…
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Chicken or egg? Both are wrong

I recently had the privilige of being interviewed by Jesse Spurr for his Injectable Orange podcast. One of topics we chatted about was the ‘ole standard of “why do we have text in presentations?” There is a degree of chicken…
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Increase signal to noise ratio

One of the key concepts in improving your presentation is to increase the signal to noise ratio. This applies to all parts of the presentation; p1, p2 and p3. It’s like tuning the radio properly, the clarity of the message…
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Presentation Ninja tips.

I thought it might be nice to try and generate some more interaction on this blogsite so what I would like is for folks to add in the comments section below some presentation nija tips. Share those little thoughts that…
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Dirty secrets on your usb stick

I’ve been to a few presentations recently where the presenters have gone on stage to upload their presentation to the podium laptop. They innocently pop in their usb stick (or connect their mac) and the full stick is displayed on…
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In actual fact

One of my father’s dear friends used to say, “in actual fact,” a lot. In actual fact, he would say, in actual fact probably every paragraph, more in actual fact. He confessed himself that he felt unable, in actual fact,…
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Presentations fail because even more science.

You don’t even read the slides you are reading. Part of your brain soon recognises that it isn’t possible to read a whole slide and that the important information is contained in the title. The bigger bulletpoints contain something of…
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Presentations fail because science (2)

Presentations as they are routinely delivered fail because they break well established scientific principles.There are numerous studies that have compared student responses to a lecture given with identical audio tracks (p1) but comparing the standard “powerpoint” slides full of text…
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