Microsoft is announcing a new application in the Office suite: Sway. “An entirely different way to express yourself and bring your ideas to life”. Is this the end of PowerPoint?

A « Sway », that’s the name of the canvas created with the application, lives in the cloud and is easily shareable. It adapts itself to the different screen size: Web, tablet, smart phone.

Its intuitive interface and its automatic design is totally aligned with the need of our hyper connected world.

Is it an appropriate tool for a business presentation? Hard to say. Will it be possible to create or watch “Sway” offline? I haven’t read anything on that point.

Will Sway replace PowerPoint or will they both live side by side, each one addressing specific needs? We do not know yet.

Actually, Sway is on an invitation basis only. Will have a better opinion of the new application after having played with it for a couple of hours.

If it his as good as Microsoft says, it will be a success. With or without PowerPoint.

What’s your opinion?

Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

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What was the REAL cause of Michael Bay meltdown on CES stage and how he should bounce back from this.

Last week, Michael Bay, movie director, walked on stage at CES. He was supposed to talk about the incredible new Samsumg TV. Instead, something went wrong with the prompter. He got lost. Totally lost. And left the stage after a few seconds.

What happened?

Like a plane accident, it’s usually a combination of different errors or bugs that cause this kind of catastrophe. Lack of preparation, wrong teleprompter manipulation, no backup solution, etc.

But the real, real, real reason behind this situation, is a decision made several days before. They decided to use a teleprompter!. Whoever take that decision is the first one that should be blamed.

The teleprompter is the problem

A presentation is a conversation between a speaker and a crowd. The use of a teleprompter restrains your communication ability. You are less natural. You’re not totally focus on the topic or the audience. You are concentrating too much on your reading.

Try to read a text to someone and have a discussion with that person at the same time. Very hard.

Also, people need lots and lots of practice before being able to sound natural while reading from a teleprompter. Even then, most of the time, we can feel the difference. Just listen to politicians and news readers.

Whoever believes that by using a teleprompter you make sure the speaker won’t go off track, think twice. The speaker WON’T be on track at all. To be on track, you need to focus on the people and connect with them.

How Michael Bay should bounce back

Mr Bay, has you said on a TV interview, you have done hundreds of talks before. Don’t let this one stop you. We all have bad experiences. We have to learn from them.

The lesson here:

no teleprompter.
Know you stuff inside out.
Rehearse a lot.
Be ready for surprises. Murphy’s always around the corner.
The show must go on. You can’t yell « cut! ».
Don’t let those beautiful images of Quebec City distract you again (more detail further in this post)

Conclusion

Unless being trained, don’t use a teleprompter. Natural is better. Nobody listens to boring presenters reading stuff.

Falling is human and it’s not a weakness. Raising back is what distinguishes the strong one!

On the lite side :

Thanks to Samsung for the beautiful images of my home town Quebec City that were displayed on the TV.

Those gorgeous images are from Dominique Boudreault.

Seeing those images on the Samsung TV, Quebec City Tourism Office jumped on board and invited Mr. Bay to a free trip in Quebec.

*Personnal message to Mr. Bay. If you accept the Tourism Office offer, I’ll be glad to throw in a couple of hours of coaching for you 🙂

Posted by Denis François Gravel

P.-S. I invite you to read Jezra Kaye’s analysis of Michael Bay speech: How to learn from Michael Bay’s Public Speaking Panic Attack

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Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

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No surprise! Noah St. John won the Snap Judgement performance of the year. Watch his presentation and focus on the storytelling and the vocal variety. Pure mastery.

It’s a perfect example of how to use your voice. The rhythm, the pitch, everything changes to support the evolution of the story. 

Of course, this kind of performance is not suitable to every presentation situation, but we can learn from it and incorporate some variety in our own delivery.

Now, what are you going to do differently in your next presentation?

This presentation was recorded at Snap Judgement; a themed, weekly storytelling show.

Thanks to Emmanuel Ares for bringing this to my attention.

Posted by Denis François Gravel

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Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

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Must we kill our main characters to obtain a good story in our conference or presentation? Let’s take a look.

Stories are incredibly convenient to grab and maintain audience interest. Are all stories equal? Apparently not.

Benjamin Starr published “The Recipe for Writing Succes? Kill Your Characters” on visualnews.com about the plot lines used in the 13 novel who won the Man Booker Prize in 2011.

Most used plots? Death comes first. Followed by love and betrayal.

Does that mean that we must kill our characters to have a good story? Not necessarily. The graphic indicates that many plots are effective. Including the death.

We just have to choose the best one to illustrate our ideas.

Share your opinion

What kind of story you’re using ?

Source: The Recipe for Writing Success? Kill Your Characters.

Posted by Denis François Gravel

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Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post The Recipe for Presentation Success? Kill Your Characters appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.

Presentations power is only limited by our imagination. Here’s the story of a woman who believe that a presentation can change her life (and it did).

The story of Hanna Phan is a story of creativity and determination. She was looking for a job. Not any job. She was looking for her dream job. She decided to use an online presentation and social media to reach the CEO of the company.

The result? She got a call the same day from the CEO and she now works for SlideRocket. The beautiful part of the story…it was her birthday.

I was charmed by her use of a presentation, I ask her for an interview.

1. Why did you use a slideshow for curriculum vitae?

I decided to use SlideRocket to make my Présumé (“presentation resume”) for two reasons:

First of all, I was frustrated that the traditional resume could not showcase who I really was, including: my personality, creativity, energy and passion for presentations. Resumes are one-dimensional and really only allow for a one-way conversation—there’s no engagement or connection you can build with the reader or audience.

Secondly, I wanted to demonstrate my proficiency and creativity in using their product.

2. What was the thinking, the structure, the logic behind your slides?

Originally, it began as a “love letter” directed at Chuck Dietrich, CEO of SlideRocket.  I knew that he’s a busy man, so I thought to myself, if I had 30 seconds with him, what would I say? I had to get straight to the point and relay the message of why SlideRocket needed me as an employee, and why I wanted to work with their company specifically.

I wanted the design to portray who I was right from the beginning, so I kept it clean and upscale—black and white with splashes of color.  After I had the story down, I added some music (light and cheery) as a final touch. I also utilized SlideRocket’s auto-advance feature in an attempt to keep Chuck engaged longer than 30 seconds—I didn’t want any opportunities for interruption.

3. When did you post your CV?

I actually never formally posted my CV, although I was later asked for it as a formality when going through the hiring process with SlideRocket. (I’m not sure if anyone actually looked it though.)

If you’re referring to when I posted my Présumé, I actually tweeted Chuck directly by responding to his “SlideRocket is hiring” tweet and included the link to my Présumé—it was August 1, my birthday.

4. What happened after you post your CV on SlideRocket?

A few hours after I tweeted Chuck, I received a tweet back from him (see image), followed by a phone call. I found out after the fact that he had viewed my Présumé from 30,000 feet in the air, on an airplane en route to New York.

5. What advice could you give to people doing presentations?

Advice for Job Seekers:

1. Stay very focused on your target; otherwise, your passion may not shine through in your communications with them.
2. Research the company extensively. I know we’ve all heard this before, but it’s really true—Google them, watch them on YouTube or Vimeo, follow them on Twitter, like/friend their fan pages on Facebook, check out their blog, subscribe to their newsletters, read their press releases, etc. You can gain a lot of insight into their work culture and what the company stands for if you do that extra research.  On the other hand, if you’re unable to find any information about them online, that also speaks volumes about their culture. Ask yourself: do I still want to work for them?
3. Be prepared to fail. The worst that can happen is that they say no. Get up, learn from it and try again.
4. Here’s the confidence-booster you should start with: They need you, they just don’t know it yet—let them know what they’re missing if they don’t hire you.

Advice for Creating Presentations:

1. Know your audience. Do your research and find out everything you possibly can about them. (See #2 above.)

2.   Don’t get too fancy. Keep it simple so your message does not get lost to unnecessary distractions.  Decorations are simply distracters.

6. Here’s the chance to plug your employer. Why did you chose SlideRocket and why should we use it?

I chose SlideRocket as an employer for many reasons. Here are my top two:

1.  Their start-up culture. After doing my in-depth research, I felt like they would be a great fit and a company where I truly wanted to grow.

2. SlideRocket is a game-changing product that I believe in. I knew I could get excited about this product every day. I wanted to help make it even better with my skills and experience.

You should use SlideRocket if:

a) You want to stand out.

b) You’ve just had it up to here with using PowerPoint.

SlideRocket makes it easy to create powerful presentations in very little time. You can integrate dynamic features (YouTube videos, surveys/polls, twitter feeds, etc.) directly into your presentation without worrying whether it will work when you have to deliver it live, or when you send the link to someone. The fact that SlideRocket lives online in the cloud, means that you don’t need to worry if someone has the wrong software or uses an incompatible browser. SlideRocket is just so dead simple to share—it’s just a link!

This leads me to my absolute favorite features of SlideRocket:

1. When you discover a mistake in your presentation after sending out your link, you don’t need to hit the dreaded “Recall” button in your email (which doesn’t actually work anyway)—just make the edit and save, that’s it! The link you sent will automatically be your most updated presentation. It actually happened to me! I spelled “SlideRocketeers” incorrectly, but fortunately, no one knew because I had caught my typo quickly enough and changed the presentation. SlideRocket’s automatic update saved me from any embarrassment! Phew!
2. I also love the analytics features, which meant that I knew right away when Chuck actually viewed my presentation!  So while I was waiting nervously to see if he would respond, I could continue on with my day and just wait for an email notification for when my Présumé was viewed. As I’ve received over 10,000 views of my Présumé around the world, I eventually turned that notification off. 🙂

Conclusion

Presentations can have a dramatic effect on our lives and on lives of others when it’s well done. Hanna Phan is an inspiration for all of us who are doing presentations.

Thanks Hanna for accepting to share your story.

Original « Présumé » on SlideRocket.

Posted by Denis François Gravel

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Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post Do you underestimate the power of presentations? appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.