Well, here goes!
We’re going to take up the challenge – over at BT Tradespace there’s a blogging competition and we’re up for it. One blog per day for the whole of November… hopefully by the end of the week, you’ll have a strong idea of what it takes to bash out a great presentation; if not, well at least you’ll have something to read in the bath! ;)
As it’s the start of the month, it seems important to think about the start of presentations. I don’t mean the first few words – that’s not the start of when you’re working on a presentation. The very first thing you do (well, the first thing you should be doing!) is figure out what your presentation is for.
No doubt you’ve heard the phrase “start with the end in mind”. This is what it’s all about. Figure out what you want your presentation to do, what it’s for, what it is about the world that you want (need?) to change by the end of it. That’s your target and everything should work towards that.
Sometimes it won’t work, even if you know what you’re trying to do – but I can promise you this: if you don’t know what you’re trying to change, you won’t change it.
If you don’t know what you’re trying to do in your presentation, how will you know when you’ve achieved it? How do you measure success? You have to have a criteria against which you judge your presentation. To cite Alice’s adventures in Wonderland – if you don’t have a finish line, you’re involved in a Caucus Race… and there’s no point, none at all.
Great blog Simon and I am going to be following this with interest.
One of my old pub bosses was always drumming into us newbies – if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, which is your point :-)
Looking forward to the rest of the blogs
Sarah