As much as I like president Obama, it seems that he got a Nobel prize for his great presentational skills, rather than his current contribution to world peace.
To contrast , the Israeli Professor Ada Yonat, who won the Nobel chemistry prize, was quoted saying “As you can see I did not go to the hair saloon”.
Yesterday I attended a great presentation skills workshop on Power Presentations with Jerry Weissman.
Although I have done hundreds of presentations it was a wonderful insightful day.
Key Takeaways :
- I should talk less and listen more. My wife tells me it is a good idea in other situations as well.
- It is not about me. It is about the audience.
- Saying less has much stronger overall impact on the audience.
- Yoga principles work well . Good stand, open chest, and natural breathing improve the effect dramatically.
- Pause.Slow.Engage. I moved my eyes fourteen times in two minutes ! that was painful to watch.Went down to four times by the end of the day.
- Intuition is often wrong. Reaching out looks stupid when you do it, but looks great when you watch someone else.
- If you nod at someone he will nod back instinctively.
- Bill Clinton was a horrible speaker in 1988 and an amazing one in 2000. Practice makes perfect.
- The word “You” is the most persuasive word in the English language (proven in research).
- Powerpoint animations are not evil. They are just tricky and need to be used intelligently.
- Testing is the key. Once you see yourself on video, everything becomes much clearer and stronger.
I’ll share some takeaways on American life style in the next post ( less is more 
).
Tags: Business, Presentations, Speaking
