November 30, 2009 by Jerry
Businesses trying to capture attention in today’s media-saturated marketplace have at their disposal a vast arsenal of bells, whistles and tools to support the delivery of their messages. They use high definition video, live web connections and theatrical staging to create “Big Tent” presentations that have taken PowerPoint slide shows to a new level. In the process, presenters have become programmed performers and their presentations have become canned. The end result is an event that has all the character of a fishbowl, where the presenter and the audience are separated by an impermeable glass wall. Unfortunately, this same separation
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November 18, 2009 by Nichole
The Power Presentations blog began a hiatus on Monday, November 15. We will resume on Monday, November 30 with a new article, All the Bells and Whistles: Human Touch versus Technology Touch. Subsequent titles of articles to come are: The Elephant The Whole of the Presentation Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts Human Interest Stories: A Double Advantage Two Ways to Use Anecdotes Effectively Human Interest Stories II: A Double-edged Sword When to and Not to Use Anecdotes
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November 13, 2009 by Jerry
Last Sunday, the New York Times ran an article by Peter Baker, their political correspondent, who questioned whether President Barack Obama’s widely-recognized oratorical skills were being diluted by overexposure. Baker tracked the increasing frequency of the number of times presidents speak publicly from Harry S. Truman’s average of 88 times in a typical year, to Ronald Reagan’s average of 320 times, to Bill Clinton’s average of 550 times. Obama, who speaks five or six times a day in what Baker calls a “hyperactive media environment…is on pace to match Mr. Clinton and likely exceed him.” Of course, the controversy
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November 11, 2009 by Jerry
In the previous post, you read that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg poured $90 million of his own money into his re-election campaign but, leaving no stone unturned, he also made three significant changes in his presentation style to overcome a reputation that the New York Times described as “blunt, dismissive and even crass.” 1. Body Language. New York City Councilwoman Letitia James claimed that “when the mayor spoke to her, his body language spoke volumes, she said: He would look up, down, around, anywhere but at her face…‘Now he looks at you…But it’s the season we’re in,
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November 9, 2009 by Jerry
Last week, billionaire Michael Bloomberg won his campaign for a third term as the Mayor of New York City, but only by a surprisingly close margin. According to the report of his victory in the New York Times, “Published polls in the days leading up to the election suggested that the mayor would win by as many as 18 percentage points; four years ago, he cruised to re-election with a 20 percent margin.” This time, however, his margin was only 5 percentage points. The Wall Street Journal’s report of the outcome quoted Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac
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November 6, 2009 by Jerry
One of the Wall Street Journal’s most interesting features is their weekly “Anatomy of a Masterpiece,” where noted authorities analyze classic works in their fields: literature, architecture, music, and art. Recent offerings have focused respectively on Samuel Johnson’s 1759 novel Rasselas, St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Dmitri Shostakovich’s “24 Preludes and Fugues,” and Théodore Géricault’s 1819 painting, “The Raft of the Medusa;” the latter inspired an earlier blog about pictorial composition as it relates to presentation slide design. A more recent analysis of classic art has inspired today’s blog but, this time, crosses the line from art into
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November 4, 2009 by admin
On October 28, Jerry Weissman was coached an encore session for the Entrepreneur Boot Camp: Build your Business in a Slow Growth Economy, hosted by Silicom Ventures. Jerry coached a group of 40+ entreprenuers on How to capture Your Audience Immediately. This hour long Boot Camp included several interactive excercises. One of his most well received exercises included coaching several participants in real time to develop and deliver their own Opening Gambits.
November 2, 2009 by Pearl
In Jerry’s previous blog, you read about a recent Wall Street Journal article titled “When Gen-Y Johnny Can’t Read Nonverbal Cues.” In it, Mark Bauerlein wrote about “the diffidence, self-absorption and general uncommunicativeness of Generation Y.” To better understand why Bauerlein made such a comment, please travel back in time with me to the beginning of the millennium: It’s close to midnight in the winter of 2000. While catching up on the day over the phone with her friend, a 14-year old girl swivels in a chair with her legs crossed on top of a desk. To the right
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