April Articles 2011

The Articulate CEO

The Curse of Confidence

Is there anything more common than a nervous public speaker?

Actually there is – a confident public speaker.

It’s not the nervous-nellie making a complete hash of things as they stumble over their words that is the bane of the business speaking world.

Rather it is the complete opposite that I see most often.

That is a confident, secure public speaker making a complete hash of things as they insist on ploughing through their ill-conceived presentation.

PowerPointless

There are three main reasons people use PowerPoint in their presentations and all three are good reasons not to!

The first reason most people cite is that it helps them remember what it is that they want to say.

They can look at the slides and use them as a prompt for their presentation.

The most obvious manifestation of this are the presenters who helpfully read the slides to their audience and then wonder why people are losing the will to live.

Problem is I can read silently quicker than you can read out loud and the repitition isn’t helping it stick.

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