TJ Walker argues presenters waste time on fancy slides and apps before knowing what they want their audience to do. Start with audience action, then ideas and stories, then practice on video. Technology comes last.
Chapters
Folks, I'm not an anti technology guy. I'm using technology right now. But here's my challenge to you. Every single week, sometimes every day in a week, someone emails me some new app that's supposed to make presentations much more lively and interesting. Engaging, better video for your presentations. Something to rival PowerPoint, a new video app you can use, a new projector. You're there's always more and more technology available to help people with presentations. Am I saying don't use any of them? No. But what I am begging you to do is before you spend a second on the technology part of your presentation, first figure out what is it you're trying to get your audience to do. Then what ideas are going to motivate your audience to do that? Then what stories do you have for each one of those points? Then practice your presentation on video until you like what you see. Then and only then do I think it makes sense from a time management standpoint to start diving into learning and using and creating new technology for your presentation. Let's talk real world. The real world. Nobody does what I just mentioned. What people do is they get some new gizmo, some new technology, some new website to help them create video or PowerPoint slides for a new type of presentation or a new special effect where things go like this. Before you know it, they spent 1 2, 512 hours typing and clicking and cutting and pasting to create a presentation in some technology format. Meanwhile, they haven't practiced once. They haven't really isolated what they want their audience to do. They haven't truly isolated their handful of important ideas. And of course they don't have the first story. So my message Use technology. Stay abreast to new technology trends, but don't let the technology crowd out what's most important. Use you having something interesting, compelling to say. I'm TJ Walker. I help people speak more effectively. If you'd like to improve your own speaking skills, go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and download some of our free books and also learn about our upcoming workshops and online training courses.
