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Presenting Pt 3 – Ditch the Slides

You’ve been asked to deliver a presentation.  What’s the first thing you do?

Open PowerPoint, choose your template and look at the first slide.  You take a moment and then enter your name on the first slide and perhaps a title.  You pause for another moment and maybe add a slide with the title ‘Agenda’.  Then there is of course there is the final slide, you add that too.  All along you want your presentation to stand out, to be great, to be memorable.  If you really do want your presentation to stand out and be memorable you need to ditch the slides.

How To Be Successful

In most walks of life people want to be successful or have some degree of success.  Pretty much everyone has success in varying forms whether that is personally, professionally, privately or publically.  But what makes someone successful, more importantly what makes someone more successful in a specific field or discipline than someone else?

Presenting Pt 2 – Acronyms, Abbreviations and Terminology (maybe not that bad after all)

Acronyms, abbreviations and terminology – none of these are inventions of modern life; they’ve been around as long as the spoken word.  Why do we use them?  Well we use acronyms to help us remember terms, abbreviations for convenience so we don’t need to keep repeating a string of words and terminology is useful when talking about subjects in a specific field or discipline.  But how about using them in presentations?

Most books or training sessions tell you never to use terminology, always avoid jargon, cut out all acronyms and explain all abbreviations.  Often this is good sound advice and it is advice I would also give unless…

MBTI – Getting It Right

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a very powerful tool that is very flexible and robust and can truly help to move individuals and organisations. Yet too often I come across poor implementation, execution and rollout of MBTI that at best achieves nothing or at worst leaves the client confused or taking inappropriate actions.

Get Ready For Next Week - Choosing Your State

Here’s a quick exercise for you.

Partner up with someone, a friend or a colleague.  You are both going to tell a real story and read each other’s mind!  The story is simply a short 60-90 second story on how you arrived here today, your journey.

When telling your story I want you to pick a playing card in your mind without telling your partner what the card is.  You both do this.

Next I want you to tell your story in the style of that playing card, Ace is high and is positive, upbeat, confident, etc., 2 is downbeat, low, uncertain.  All others playing cards are somewhere in between with the appropriate styles.  Now tell you story in the style of the playing card you chose.  All your partner needs to do is guess what playing card you have in mind.  Once you’ve done this one way, switch over and let your partner tell their story while you guess their card.

How did you do?  Did you guess their card or at least guess just one card out?  Easy isn’t it.

Easy to guess the card and read other peoples state and even easier to choose your state at will.  In fact you were so good at choosing your state your partner guessed it within 60 seconds.

As you prepare for next week take time to consider the optimum state you want to be in the key meetings, projects, conversations, emails, commute, etc. next week.  Which playing card do you want to act out for each of these?  Once you have it, do it.

Be Your Own Superbrand – Leadership

We know that superbrands have three common traits – clarity of vision, consistency in what they do and finally leadership.  Take a moment now to consider what leadership is and to do this think of the following:

Which global organisation do you consider to be a leader?

Who did you think of?  Why them?  In what way(s) do they lead?  Ask others the same thing and see if they come out with the same things?

I would guess that with such a simply question you get many different answers.  There’s no surprise there, but did you argue with anyone?  Did anyone come up with an organisation in the same business area that was different from yours?  Can they both be leaders in the same field?

Be Your Own Superbrand – Consistency

Consistency is the most simply thing to do and be – simply be consistent.  How hard can it be?  Well actually it could be quite hard if not very hard.  Why?  Because we change our moods and states of mind almost every second.  Being consistent when there is an ever changing starting point can be tricky.

Be Your Own Superbrand

The UK recently announced it’s Top 10 Superbrands:

1.       Microsoft

2.       Coca-Cole

3.       Google

4.       BBC

5.       BP

6.       British Airways

7.       Lego

8.       Guinness

9.       Mercedes-Benz

10.   Cadbury

I’m sure you are aware of all or at least most of these companies and of most or some of their products.  You probably even have or use some yourself.  But what is a superbrand, what makes a superbrand?  Perhaps more importantly, could you be a ‘superbrand’?

Can New Year Resolutions Teach Us Anything About Setting Goals?

I really wanted to avoid an article about New Year Resolutions, at this time of year they are everywhere.  I was going to avoid the subject but then I came across some interesting research on the subject of New Year Resolutions and characteristics of those that are successful.  This led me to wonder if these characteristics could be used in business or learning, as the characteristics are very simple I believe they can.

Values

We all have personal values and we think about them consciously or unconsciously.  They influence or actions, decisions, relationships, and they shape the way others see us.  Most people like to believe they have values that are clear and honourable and that they live and breathe those values.  But what are your personal values and what role do they play in business?