{"id":904,"date":"2011-01-25T14:22:38","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T13:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=904"},"modified":"2011-01-25T14:22:38","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T13:22:38","slug":"of-fulcrums-and-leavers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/of-fulcrums-and-leavers\/","title":{"rendered":"Of fulcrums and leavers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Archimedes \u00c2\u00a0is supposed to have said once “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”. \u00c2\u00a0Brave words.<\/p>\n

Of course it’s not true in a practical sense (he’d need to be standing in space, for starters!), but we all know what he means – with the right tools, used in the right way can change the world.<\/p>\n

So it is with presentations and I’d like to try an analogy on you, gentle reader, and see what you think.<\/p>\n

\"lever<\/a>The ideas in your presentation – the content – that’s the lever. \u00c2\u00a0It’s what you’re trying to use to change the world. \u00c2\u00a0Sometimes it’s easier than other, and one of the things that will make it easier is a good presentation to explain those ideas to the world – in other words… your presentation is your fulcrum.<\/p>\n

Have the presentation in the wrong place and no amount of good idea (levers) is going to move even a grain of sand. \u00c2\u00a0Have your fulcrum in the right place – a great, effective presentation and, well, you may not move the earth as Archimedes suggested, but at least you’re in with a fighting chance of moving your part of it!<\/p>\n

Why is this important? \u00c2\u00a0Simply because we need to work on both.<\/p>\n

I’ve lost times of the number of people who’ve come to me knowing what they want to say but haven’t a clue how to go about it (just watch any episode of Dragons’ Den to see an example!): it’s not uncommon for people to come to me trying to write presentations before they’ve done the research, either. \u00c2\u00a0(Perhaps they’re so worried about the presentation they think the content will take care of itself?) Neither option works.<\/p>\n

You’d not try using a fulcrum without a lever – or visa versa – would you? \u00c2\u00a0No. \u00c2\u00a0So why try writing a presentation without content? \u00c2\u00a0Or having content with no way of communicating it?<\/p>\n

You’d not try a car without wheels? \u00c2\u00a0Or wheels without a car!<\/p>\n

Or as a friend of mine once said “You’d not try a Coke without Jack Daniels, would you?”… but that’s a whoooollee different story! \u00c2\u00a0;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Archimedes \u00c2\u00a0is supposed to have said once “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”. \u00c2\u00a0Brave words. Of course it’s not true in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-presentation-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}