“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward!” - Rocky Balboa

I have never watched a single Rocky movie even though my room mate and dad are huge fans. However after Monday’s presentation by this phenomenal speaker, I will most likely watch ALL 6 of them. (Read on to find out why)

In the previous article, I shared about four best practices that the speaker adopted which got his audience - including myself - mesmerized and inspired almost immediately.

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It has been a while since I was moved to tears by a presentation. Today was one such evening. The speaker is a self-made multi-millionaire who has undergone tremendous adversity before enjoying his current status.

And my training company, AdvantEdge Coaching, had the good fortune of inviting him to share - on an exclusive basis - his secrets of living an extraordinary life.

Not only was I reminded of life’s valuable lessons through his stories, I saw how he applied some of the best speaking practices that made his 2 hours presentation an unforgettable experience. Allow me to give you a low down.

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(That’s me in action at Raffles Junior College)

It has been a crazy two weeks for me which explains the awkward silence in The Public Speaking Blog. However I will like to assure you that I am still alive (thankfully!) and I have prepared a couple of interesting entries for next week. Meanwhile, let me share with you a recent article sent to me by Patricia Fripp, one of the more well known coaches in USA.
…….

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Late last year, I started the Friday special that went down in flames after a month. 3 reasons why. Laziness, laziness, laziness. Not necessarily in that order. And then early this year, fellow blogger Andrew Dlugan did us a big favor by giving a low down on 86 public speaking blogs. And instead of visiting each site to sieve out the good stuff, I did something really lazy (to my credit).

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Many months ago (in July) I wrote an article that was picked up by Digg.com and was subsequently viewed by 10,000 people within 24 hours. I suspect that the title played a significant part in the hype. Interestingly, after this post, I began to receive email requests from friends and readers alike, asking me to evaluate their presentation slides. So instead of replying to them directly, I have decided to post my evaluation on the blog. This way, you - The Revered Reader - can also benefit from the evaluation. Feel free to leave your opinions in the comments section (it has been opened for this post).

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By now, the term “Death by PowerPoint” should ring a bell in our ears and even send shivers down our spine. And most of you unfortunately had experienced the wrath of powerpoint or perhaps have been on the giving end. Most critics have conveniently placed the blame on Microsoft and its creators. However the truth is, the fault never lies on the tool. Of course this begets the question: who then should we blame?

Who else — the speaker!

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Been wanting to write a blog entry on how to deliver a technical presentation for the longest time. And then this video came along which got me off my lazy butt. First, watch this really short (1′47″) clip. It helps if you have no clue what “Social Networking” means. Even if you do, watch it. Like me, you will be impressed with both the effectiveness and effortlessness of explaining such an elusive term. One of the viewers even commented how happy HIS MUM was as she finally understands what social networking means. So much for online dictionaries and wikipedia…

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A friend of mine was kind enough to spice up my afternoon by sharing with me this video. It summarizes most of my grievances I have with presenters who get their kicks out of sentencing you to death by powerpoint!

For crying out loud, please avoid the following if you still have some humanity in you…

1. Write everything you want to say on your slide.
2. Not rinning spell chek.
3. Use excessive bullet points to highlight key points.
4. Choose really bad colour schemes like yellow on lime green background.
5. Rush through 80 slides in one hour.
6. Shove sensless data to your audience.
7. Add animations that does nothing but give you migraines

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I have a lot to say when it comes to designing a perfect presentation. During my freshman year in NUS (which feels like a long time ago), one of the compulsory modules that all computing students have to take is CS2301: Business & Technical Communication. The most memorable lesson is the oral presentation for two particular reasons. One, the lecturer was extremely animated which was highly unusual in my school. Two, I was her favorite. (grins)

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I am talking about the basic presentation workshop that I attended on 20th March (Tuesday). Remember the previous article about going back to basics? Well I walk my talk and signed up for a workshop (by Matthew Linus) so that I can learn and re-learn. Here’s what I got out of the workshop.

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