The Presentations Japan Series

“Naomi Osaka would have earned at least $200,000 dollars if she made the Top 16 in the French Tennis Open and would have had a $1.7million payday, if she won the tournament. Speaking to the media aft…

Video is tricky. However, it looks so simple.  You just stand in front of the camera and give your talk.  I don’t know why video saps twenty percent of our energy when it is actually broadcast, but t…

Too smooth politicians, silky salespeople, urbane company thrusters all set off alarm bells.  We can meet impressive people and we can meet impressive looking people.  Over time we have learnt how to…

English versus mathematics?  Easy choice for budding engineers at High School and for when they get to University.  Science is logical, knowable, understandable.  Presenting seems to have little in t…

Everyone is getting very swish with the tech these days, as we spend more and more hours in online meetings.  Consequently, we are more and more likely to find ourselves in a breakout room to discuss…

“That has to come out”.  “Why?”.  “It might offend women in the audience”.  “But this example is totally in context with what I am saying”.  And so it went on.  This was my first bruising encounter w…

This is horrible.  Man, this is so bad, what were they thinking?  I am watching a video of a leader asking for some major changes to the organisation’s finances and he is doing a woeful job of it.  T…

There are 13 common mistakes which prevent presenters from owning the room. Here they are - don't do these things!

1. Thump the microphone and ask if people can hear you down the back - get there ear…

It makes sense to be authentic when presenting, because this is the easiest state to maintain.  As someone wise once noted, “if you are going to be a liar you need a stupendous memory to keep up with…

I was watching an “expert” giving a series of video instruction modules on leading dispersed teams, now that many of us are working from home.  I thought this will be useful and maybe I can pick up a…

When I read this quote from Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon from 1971 that “ a wealth of information would create a poverty of attention” I thought about its ramifications for presenters.  Today, we are…

The largest meeting venue in the office complex was big enough to handle hundreds of people and it was packed. This presentation involved all the senior heads of the Department going through their st…

Clubhouse is a new app that enables audio discussions with people who share a similar interest, coming together from around the world.  The conversations are not retained and the content disappears e…

This pandemic will blow over soon and we can all get back to normal.  What will that “normal” look like though in the presenting world.  CFOs have pulled their green eye shades down and sharpened the…

As presenters we want to inform, persuade, entertain or motivate our audiences. Most B2B business presentations fall into the “inform” category, because the organisers don’t take too kindly to presen…

Year Two of the pandemic puts a lot of stress on organisations.  I was watching a television news report last night on an Inn that is closing.  This particular Inn is well known in Japan, because it …

I listen to some podcasts on writing, trying to better educate myself on the craft.  I was hopeless at English at school, so the rest of my life has been a remedial fix in that department. Fundamenta…

Presentations have become tediously monochrome.  The speaker speaks, the audience sit there passively taking it all in.  After the speaker’s peroration, they get to offer up a few questions for about…

Many people break the rules of presenting, usually unknowingly.  They have Johari Window style blind spots, where others know they are making mistakes, but they themselves are oblivious and just don’…

Bonseki is a Japanese art creating miniature landscapes, on a black tray using white sand, pebbles and small rocks.  They are exquisite but temporary.  The bonseki can’t be preserved and are an origi…