Great session this week by our creative director, Mick Mooney, on the Essential Art of Presenting. Here's Mick's top insights from the presentation: Some of the key insights shared included: 😎 The more patterns the audience recognises, the more likely they will let their brains run on autopilot. People have been in countless presentations. That equates to a huge amount of pattern recognition. You need to scramble these patterns to help them reset and have a more active attitude. Start with icebreakers that are fresh and different to the norm. Get people moving. Aim to evoke emotion in your audience to draw them into a more active decision-making mindset. 😎 Presentation success is defined by 'connection, not completion'. It's not about getting through all your slides. It's about how successful you were in making a connection with your audience. 😎 Metaphors are the single greatest communication tool you can use to make your message easily understood and sticky in the minds of your audience. When planning your presentation, ask yourself, can I use a metaphor to explain this complex idea/point? 😎 Use stories to reinforce the ideas and metaphors you use. If you introduce a metaphor, think of what personal story you can share that brings more context to the point and helps build rapport with the audience. Stories help people feel they like, know, and trust you a little bit more (and as a result, will feel a little bit more inclined to do business with you). 😎 Be brave. This comes back to the 'connection, not completion' focus. If you want to connect with an audience, you have to really put yourself into your presentation, focus on connection, feel when it's working, and also feel when it's not! The better you get at feeling the connection in the room, the stronger a presenter you will become over time. 😎 Finally, adopt the mindset that your slides are not the presentation; YOU are the presentation. How you turn up matters more than how fancy your slides look. Your energy, intentions, and how you engage, connect, and lead the room are what people will remember. 🙄 There were some other essential insights into the art of presenting, but I'm about to run out of room in this post! Thanks again to everyone who attended and to those who are already putting into practice what they learned. That's a great outcome.
I just wrapped up a great afternoon speaking at the Australian Technologies Competition in Sydney on the Essential Art of Presenting. It was great to share some insights and stories with some incredible startups/scale ups in the tech space. I brought along some of the crew from Scale Up Media so I'm sure we'll share some video snapshots of the event soon. Big shout out to Giles Bourne and the team for inviting me add some value to a day already jam packed with value.
