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Seven Tips for Short Talks

Posted: - Modified: | presentation, speaking

Regina Zaliznyak asked me to put together a presentation to help IBM’s Extreme Blue interns give better 4-minute pitches to project sponsors, managers, and other interested people. After thinking about the topic a bit, I realized that I wanted to figure out and share tips on how to make really short presentations.

Short presentations scare people. “One hour? No problem. Five minutes? Oh no! What should I put in? What should I leave out? What if I make a mistake?”

Seven Tips for Short Talks

1. Start at the end. Don’t start with slides, or even an outline. Ask yourself: what do I want people to do, feel, or remember? Work backwards from there. What do you need to show people so that they can take the next step? What do you need to share in order to get them to that point?

Let’s talk about Extreme Blue. What are your goals for the project pitch presentation? You want to convince a manager to use your project, maybe even invest in it. You might want to show people that you’d be a great hire. What are your goals?

Figure out your conclusion. Then put it up front. Don’t build suspense. Say what you want to say in the first thirty seconds, use the rest of your talk to support your point, and emphasize it at the end.

2. Simplify. Be ruthless. Get rid of whatever doesn’t support your point. Save the details for handouts, posters, backup slides, web pages, or Q&A. Four minutes is not enough time for a lecture, but plenty of time for a commercial. Your job is to make people curious so that they want to find out more.

Keep your message simple, too. Translate numbers and jargon into things people can understand. Too much text on the slides means that people will be reading instead of listening to you. Try a few words, images, or no slides at all. That way, people can focus on you.

3. Share a story if you can. One of the best ways to make things human-scale is to tell a story. Yes, your project might change the software industry and create billions of dollars in profit. But your presentation will be more powerful if you can show—really show—how you can make one person’s life better. You could talk about inefficiencies in the food distribution industry, or you could talk about how one apple goes from the farm to your plate. Use a story to make things real, then help people imagine how things could be even better.

4. Start from scratch.

We have interesting quirks, like the anchoring bias. Let’s say I wanted to sell you this <item>. If I told you it’s worth about $90, we’d probably end up at a higher price than if I told you I got it for about $30. That initial information shapes our decision.

So don’t start from a boring presentation. Start from scratch, and add things only if they fit. In fact, don’t start with slides at all. Figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it before you make the slides to support your points. That way, you’re not limited by the software.

Don’t be afraid of starting from scratch multiple times. Put your drafts away and start again. Try a fresh perspective. Change things up.

(Thanks to Cate Huston for sharing this tip!)

5. Schedule. Planning a short presentation is harder than planning a long one.

You have to decide: what goes in? what stays out?

Give yourself plenty of time to work on it. Don’t wait until a week before your presentation.

Always ask yourself: Why is this worth it? Who can benefit from this? How can I show them?

The good thing is that there are plenty of opportunities to learn and practice, if you look around.

6. Seek inspiration. Next time you watch an ad, think: How does it grab your attention and make you want to do something? Next time you watch a movie or a TV show, learn from how it tells a story. Next time you have a conversation, think about words and flow.

Practising isn’t just about running through your slides and your scripts. Try parts of your talk in your next conversation with your six-year-old niece. Talk to your friends. Sketch your slides during breaks. Dream about your talk, even.

Don’t reveal anything confidential, of course. Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to learn, and you’ll find plenty.

7. Stay flexible. Four minutes flies by. You’ll be nervous. You’ll be anxious. You’ll forget things. That’s okay. I've given dozens of presentations. I still get nervous. I still get anxious. I still forget some of the things I want to share.

Stay flexible. If your slides don’t show, if your animation flops, if your demo fails, don’t panic. You don’t even need to apologize. Certainly don’t apologize for your apology. Keep calm and carry on. If you focused on a simple message (perhaps in a memorable story), you can share that no matter what.

This is also where keeping your talk simple helps. If you have very little text or you have simple diagrams on your slides, you can talk for as long or as short as you want. On the other hand, if you have lots of text or complicated diagrams, people feel short-changed if you flip through them too quickly. Keep things simple and flexible.

And have fun!

Resources

Watch short presentations to get a sense of how much you can fit into one. Pay attention to what you like and don’t like. Bad presentations can be just as informative as good ones.

Here are some sites worth checking out:

  • Ignite Talks – 20 slides, auto-advancing after 15 seconds each = 5-minute presentation. And you thought your pitch was tough!
  • TED.com – good source of inspiration for talks
  • Presentation Zen and Slideology – slide and presentation design tips
View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Presented Remote Presentations That Rock v2 for the Best of TLE 2009 series

Posted: - Modified: | kaizen, presentation, speaking

I presented “Remote Presentations That Rock” as part of the IBM Best of Technical Leadership Exchange series.

What worked well? What can I improve next time?

  • The one-slide summary format gave me lots of flexibility.
  • I told a few more mini-stories. Yay! Next time, I can sprinkle more examples and anecdotes into my talk.
  • Apparently, people remember my hats. =)
  • The “Oak” room and some of the other meeting rooms at 120 Bloor are excellent for videos. Well-lit white wall for the win! All you need is to bring in one of the desk lights, and you’re good to go.
  • A whiteboard is not a bad place to keep notes so that you can refer to them during your talk. Write big.
  • Using the text chat for all questions worked out well. Apparently, people are starting to shift to that pattern instead of mixed voice Q&A and text. Good for handling and prioritizing long questions, too!
  • One of the organizers suggested puppets. I could do a good presenter – bad presenter thing for fun. <laugh> If I think of the pre-conference time like a silent movie and figure out what to do, that might give people an incentive to come early!
  • One of the participants suggested using partially-drawn slides and then drawing on top of them. That might be a great way to do the next version of this talk. Elluminate’s drawing tool feels a bit harsh, but maybe Inkscape or the Gimp might be fun to try. Must check whether screensharing introduces too much of a delay.
  • Another participant suggested clipping or taping the phone headset cable so that it doesn’t create a distracting visual line away. Isn’t it so cool that people think of these things?
  • I definitely need to keep the equivalent of two bottles of water around. My throat got a bit parched towards the end.
  • Lots of good stuff in the text chat. Will reflect on and re-answer questions soon.

Remote Presentations That Rock

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Remote Presentations That Rock (revised)

Posted: - Modified: | presentation, speaking
Remote Presentations That Rock (v2)

View more presentations from Sacha Chua.

Notes for an upcoming presentation on “Remote Presentations That Rock”, for IBM’s “Best of the Technical Leadership Exchange” series. (Whee!) Compare this with the original.

I'll be the first to confess: I've checked mail and surfed the web while “listening” to presentations. I hated not being able to pay attention, but it was hard to concentrate when the speaker was just reading the slides. Whose fault was it? Mine, for being easily distracted? Or the speaker's, for wasting my time?

And sometimes I was the speaker trying to figure out how to be more interesting than e-mail. It's hard!

Chances are, you've been in that situation too, both as listener and as speaker. I want to share with you the top tips I've picked up from years of doing and watching remote presentations. Little things can make such a big difference. I want to convince you to pick one of these tips and use them to make your next presentation rock. Here they are:

Don't be a robot. Make your presentations real. Don't be a recording. Interact. Don't run over time. Make room for learning. Don't do too much. Keep it simple. Don't limit yourself. Practise everywhere. Don't build suspense. Start strong and end strong. Don't stop there. See the big picture of your presentation.

Don't be a robot. Make it real.

Have you ever listened to speakers who found their own topics boring? Or droned on and on in a monotone? Or who just couldn't keep you interested?

Why do speakers do this? Chances are, it's because the presentation isn't real enough to them. They can't see people's reactions. They can't see people falling asleep. They're trying to squeeze a talk into a busy day. They're distracted by other priorities. They don't have the time or energy to care.

Or sometimes, people are just plain too nervous to relax. They're worried about making mistakes.

You might be thinking: “But Sacha, I have to sound serious! I can't get away with sounding as excited as you!”

You don't have to sound like a used-car salesman or a rabbit on a sugar rush, but you do need to sound alive. You need to really want to connect with people. You can sound serious as long as people know you care about helping them understand.

The basics: It's hard to be energetic if your neck is sore and you can't breathe well. That's the position you often end up in if you don't have a headset for your phone. Do yourself a favour and get yourself a phone headset.

Smile. People will hear that in your voice. Stand up if that helps. Use your hands to gesture, even if no one can see them. Wear your favourite suit if it will give you confidence.

Imagine the people you're talking to, and pretend they're in front of you. Pictures of people can make this easier.

Even better: instead of just sharing your slides, use a webcam to add video. That way, people can see your facial expressions and even your hand gestures.

Don't be a robot. Be real. Make that connection.

Don’t be a recording. Interact.

Part of being real is interacting. Think about the last time you attended a presentation that didn't have time for questions or interaction. Didn't you wish you could just catch the replay?

Think about the last time you listened to someone reading a script. Didn't you wish you could just get the e-mail instead?

Don't waste people's time. If people are attending your session, it isn't so that they can read your slides – or listen to you reading your slides. They're there because they're interested, they want to ask questions, and they want to learn.

Build interaction into your presentation so that you can find out what's important to people, what they're interested in, what they want to learn more about. If not, you might find that you've just spent an hour talking about topics 1, 2, and 3, when people are still trying to understand topic 1.

How can you build more interaction into your talk? Explore your teleconferences' tools for interaction. For example, I ask people to use the text chat to share their questions and ideas throughout the session. In fact, remote presentations can be more interactive than face-to-face ones, because people don't have to wait for the microphone or a Q&A session.

Many webconferences will let you see how many people have raised their hands. Some even make it easy for people to answer multiple-choice questions or draw on a shared whiteboard. Experiment and explore.

Feel overwhelmed? Ask a buddy to watch the text chat, keep an eye out for raised hands, or set up the urveys for you so that you can focus on speaking.

When you build interaction into your talk, you help people learn, and you learn a lot along the way.

Don't run over time. Make room for learning.

Imagine you're giving a presentation for a lunch-and-learn. You think sixty minutes should be plenty of time. But you lose ten minutes waiting for everyone and dealing with technical troubles. Then someone asks a question, and you spend 5 minutes answering it. You try to get through the rest of the presentation, but you realize that it's already 12:50 and you're nowhere near the end. You flip through your slides quickly, and manage to make it to the end by 1:03. You ask: “Any questions?” but all you hear are the beeps of people dropping from the call so that they can make it to their next meeting.

Virtual conferences are worse, because speakers who take too much time mess up the schedule for everyone else.

This happens in face-to-face presentations, but remote presentations are even more challenging because people usually schedule other things right after your presentation. Back-to-back meetings mean that if you run late, people will miss your key points or the Q&A.

Here's how you can make sure you always end on time: Plan for a much shorter time than you have. Don't try to cram 80 minutes of speaking into 60 minutes. Get your key message across in 10 to 20 minutes, or even shorter. Then plan backup material so that you can take more time if needed.

For example, although this session is supposed to be sixty minutes long, I can give you an executive summary in less than three minutes. I recorded this talk as a 14-minute video. All the rest of the time is for questions and answers, which is where the real value is.

When you have a clear plan, you can make your session longer or shorter as needed. Do you need to keep talking because the next speaker is still missing? Tell more stories. Do you have to do your talk quickly because technical troubles stole twenty minutes? Don't talk faster, just focus on the important points. Be flexible and respect people's time.

Don't do too much. Keep it simple.

What causes people to go over time? It's because they're trying to do too much.

Think about the last time you attended a presentation that tried to cover too many topics. Think about slides that had so much text on them that you couldn't figure out where to start. It doesn't work for you, and it doesn't work for people listening to you.

“But Sacha, I need all those details,” you say. Yes, but people can't listen to you, read your slides, and understand everything all at the same time. Make a simpler presentation, then share the details separately.

When I plan a presentation, I focus on one thing I want people to do. Then I think of three to seven things that support that key message. That's it. It's easier to keep things simple when you start small, instead of trying to shoehorn a large presentation into a limited space. If you need to summarize a big presentation, read through everything, then take a step back and say: “What do I want people to do or remember?” Start from there and figure that out before you make a single slide.

Keep it simple in terms of technology, too. Have a simple backup plan just in case. That way, you don't panic when your fancy animations or your technology demo doesn't work. No demo? Use slides. No slides? Talk about your key message. No teleconference? Send an e-mail or reschedule. Keep it simple.

Don't limit yourself. Sneak practise into everyday life.

“But Sacha, it takes time to make things simple!” Yes. It takes time to figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it. It's easier to tell people everything you know, instead of the one or two things they need. It's easier to take someone else's deck and hope you can talk your way through it, instead of customizing it to fit what you know.

At the very least, you should read through a deck before presenting it, and you should try out your conference tools before you use them with a real audience.

But you know that already. So here's a useful, unconventional tip: even if you can't spend a few hours working on your presentation, you can still practise while doing other things.

I spend more than eight hours a day working on my presentations. How? When I read or experiment, I learn things that might be useful for a talk. When I talk or write to people, I learn more about what I want to say and how I want to say it. When I watch other people, I take notes on what they're saying AND how they're presenting it. I learn from conversations and commercials. Before big presentations like this one, I even end up rehearsing in my dreams. As I keep talking about something, I figure out my key message and how I can share it.

You might not have time to go to presentation classes or public speaking clubs like Toastmasters, but you have plenty of opportunities to practise. Talk to yourself. Seriously. Your presentations will be much better when you don't just write them, you listen to yourself saying them. For example, you will probably never use the word “utilize” again, because “use” feels much more natural.

Talk to other people about what you're going to present. Write about what you're going to present. Practice isn't just about scripting your talk and re-reading it. You can practise any time, anywhere.

Stand-up comedians practise all the time so that they can figure out their punchlines, and they always keep an eye out for interesting things they can turn into jokes. If you practise, I can't promise that you'll be funny, but you will be much clearer and more confident.

Don't build suspense. Start strong and end strong.

Speaking of stand-up comedians – this is where you shouldn't be like them. When you're telling a joke, it's okay to build up the suspense. When you're giving a remote presentation, don't wait until the end of your talk to say your key message, because you're not going to have the time to do that. Say what you want to say within the first five to ten minutes, then spend the rest of the time explaining the details and handling questions.

“But Sacha, if I do that, everyone's going to leave right away!”

That's terrific! You've just saved everyone time. If you say your key message at the beginning instead of at the end of your talk, then the people who are super-busy can get on with the rest of their day, while the people who need to find out more can stay for questions. Also, by getting your message in early, you'll make it easy for people to remember.

What does this mean for you? Move your executive summary to the front. You can still talk about your agenda and how you're going to talk about things, but put the important stuff first. Start strong.

End strong, too. Let's say that you've made the most of tip #3 and planned for plenty of time for questions and answers. Don't make your last slide show just “Q&A” or “Thank you!”. It's a waste of time and space. Instead, make a one-slide summary of the key points and next actions from your talk. Include contact information and a link where people can find out more. Use that one-slide summary as your Q&A slide so that people can remember what they want to ask questions about. It's simple, easy to do, and very effective.

Jumpstart questions and answers by preparing some questions that people usually ask you. If people have been using the text chat throughout your session, you probably have lots of questions to deal with already. Great! Go for it.

Then take back control at the end of the session. Save five minutes at the end so that you can give a quick summary of your talk, the key points from Q&A, and the next actions you want people to take. That way, people's last impressions of your talk are the ones you want them to have.

People remember the beginning and the end more clearly than what's in the middle. Take advantage of that by starting strong and ending strong.

Don't stop there. See the big picture.

Many people have a hard time doing a strong ending because they don't know what they want people to do next. Have you ever watched a presentation and thought, “Okay, now what do I do?”

When you speak, you need to understand the bigger picture of your presentation. Your presentation never stands by itself. It should lead into something. What do you want people to do? What do you want people to feel? What do you want people to remember? How do you want to change people's minds? Your presentation is not the end. It's the beginning.

For example, after this presentation, I want you to take one of these tips and use it to make your next presentation better. I want you to watch other remote presentations and learn about what they do well and what can be improved. I want you to download the slides and read my article, and I want you to share that with other people. Those are the next steps that this presentation must help you take. The bigger goal I have is to help people make more effective remote presentations (so that I don't have to sit through boring ones!).

Next time you make a presentation, think: What do I want people to do after this? It doesn't matter if you're reporting utilization rates or talking about the technical details of a new product – you still want people to remember something, change something, do something. If you don't, then there's no reason to give a presentation – just send a document.

Seeing the big picture also means you can get a lot more ROI from the time and effort you invest into making a presentation. Using the same work you put into the presentation, you can share slides, handouts, videos, follow-up tips, and many other resources. For example, I gave a presentation to 90 people. When I put the slides up online, they were viewed 24,000 times. 24,000 more views for five minutes of additional work? Yes! It's all part of the bigger picture of a presentation: the conversations that go on after your talk.

In fact, you can get that kind of return even before you make a presentation. For example, when I'm working on a presentation, I tell people I'm working on a presentation. I post my presentation outline on my blog, where people can see it and give suggestions. I post my presentation script as a blog entry. I post my slides. I talk to people about it. As a result, by the time I get to the actual presentation, I've had lots of practice. Remember tip 5 about practicing everyday? This is how you do it. And I also have lots of feedback and lots of connections, all because of these conversations before my talk.

You need to see the big picture of your presentation. Why does your talk matter? What do you want people to do after your talk? How can you keep the conversation going? How can you start the conversation earlier? How can you involve more people? How can you increase your ROI? Plan how, and build that into your presentation.

Summary

Don't be a robot. Make your presentations real. Don't be a recording. Interact. Don't run over time. Make room for learning. Don't do too much. Keep it simple. Don't limit yourself. Practise everywhere. Don't build suspense. Start strong and end strong. Don't stop there. See the big picture of your presentation.

You've probably heard tips like these before, but there's a big difference between hearing them and doing them. Focus on one of these tips and use it to make your next presentation better. Watch other remote presentations. Take notes on what they do well and what can be improved. Download these slides or read my notes, and share them with other people.

We spend so many hours in remote presentations, and little things can make such a big difference. Down with boring presentations, and ever onward to remote presentations that rock!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Thoughts on presenting: I love the backchannel

Posted: - Modified: | braindump, presentation, reflection, speaking

One of the reasons why I like presenting online more than presenting in even the best-equipped halls is the text chat that participants can use to share what they think. I love it. I think it’s incredible how, through talks, I can provide a space for people to come together and discuss something they’re interested in, and I can listen to what’s important to them and what they’ve learned.

The value I bring to a presentation:

  • a key message
  • next actions
  • a short, energetic, engaging presentation
  • other stories and insights as they come up during Q&A

The value I receive from a presentation:

  • new insights from the conversations
  • new connections
  • the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from sharing

It’s a lot of fun. I hope I can help more presenters get the hang of the backchannel!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

IgniteToronto video: The Shy Presenter

Posted: - Modified: | presentation, speaking

I’m giving up on getting the organizers to update the incorrect abstract and bio on the page, but anyway, here’s the 5-minute video from my “Shy Presenter” talk at IgniteToronto:

Ignite Toronto 3: Sacha Chua – The Shy Presenter: An Introvert’s Guide to Speaking in Public from Ignite Toronto on Vimeo.

Minor miscalculation: shy or introverted presenters-to-be are not actually likely to come out to a bar with 200 people to watch an Ignite talk. Ah well. ;) Here's to fellow introverts who would rather catch the replay!

The Shy Presenter If you've ever struggled with small talk, felt overwhelmed in crowds, or wondered how to speak up at work, this talk's for you. In five minutes, you'll pick up quick tips about discovering what you have to say, how to say it, and why it's worth braving the spotlight.

Bio: Sacha Chua spent grade school to grad school hiding in computer labs and libraries. She prefers bookstores over bars, close friends instead of crowds, and silence over small talk. Blogging and public speaking turned out to be excellent ways to learn, though. Today, tens of thousands of people have viewed Sacha Chua's presentations, attended her keynotes, and read her blog (LivingAnAwesomeLife.com).

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Presentation kaizen: Seven everyday ways to become a better presenter

Posted: - Modified: | kaizen, presentation, sketches, speaking

Talk given at PresentationCamp.

Presentation Kaizen

View more presentations from Sacha Chua

You need to have something worth presenting. Shortest way to do that is to (1) learn from others. Read books, read blogs, listen to conversations, attend talks, etc. But you’ve got to bring something unique to it, so (2) experiment, experience, and live. That gives you something to (3) share. Share what you’re learning in conversations, in blog posts, etc. This helps you figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it.

I used to tell people, “Sure, it’s okay if you don’t write, blogging might not be for everyone,” but as I help more and more people, I realize that writing things down gives you a tremendous advantage because memory is short, and a semi-permanent record will help you accumulate and organize so much more raw material. Audio and video recordings are handy for quick notes, but they’re not as searchable. So write or draw, and figure out how to build your own knowledgebase, even if that consists of notebooks and notebooks. You don’t have to capture everything, but you’ll benefit from capturing even some of the things you learn. And this can be private, although you’ll benefit much more from sharing your notes with other people because you’ll learn a lot more in the process.

Anyway, now you have a lot of material, and you’ve got to figure out how to share it. So (4) watch. Watch good presenters for inspiration (TED is great for this), but don’t stop at watching presentations. Watch movies to learn about storytelling. Watch commercials to find out about grabbing and keeping people’s attention, addressing the “What’s in it for me”. Read literature and news to see how people phrase things. Watch conversations. Everything teaches you something.

Watch horrible presentations, too. You’ll find plenty of these around. Next time a teleconference bores you, take notes. This is great for three reasons:

  • You remember why it’s important to become a better presenter when you feel the pain of an audience whose time is being wasted and the pain of the speaker whose lack of skills is getting in the way of a good message.
  • You remember what you don’t want to do: read off the slides, fill your slides with illegible text, etc.
  • You realize that even bad presentations are okay and that everyone’s learning. People still pay to go to conferences or attend webinars, even though many talks suck. Even for free sessions, people invest time and opportunity cost. So if you see speakers stuttering and stammering and stumbling over slides, but they still get their messages across, that encourages you to get started, keep going, and learn.

Another good thing to do while watching bad presentations: (5) revise. If you’ve ever told yourself that you could do a better job than the person standing on the stage, prove it. Figure out their key message and restructure their presentation. Doodle new slides for them. It’s great practice because you’re working on making things better. Do this for yourself, too. Review your presentations and figure out how you can do things better.

Now you’ve got good content and ideas on how to present it, so (6) prepare. Figure out your key message and supporting points, draft a script, turn it into an article. Storyboard ideas for slides and make a presentation. You don’t have to deliver it. You just have to practise packaging it. Post it on Slideshare or your blog if you want – great way to get feedback.

Invest a little bit more time in getting tons more value out of those six activities by (7) promoting what you know. If no one knows that you know, no one’s going to know what you know. So make it easy for people to find out how you can help them. Write about it. Listen for opportunities in conversation, and by that I don’t mean shameless irrelevant plugging like, “As I was saying on my blog livinganawesomelife.com, …” – I mean listen for ways to help people, and then offer to send them a link if you’ve got something relevant to their needs. Volunteer for speaking opportunities. Webinar and conference organizers are always looking for material. Business associations and other groups are always looking for speakers. If you can’t find a venue, make your own. There are a number of webinar services that offer small conferences for free. Explore.

If you (1) learn, (2) live, and (3) share as much as you can, you’ll build up lots of raw material. (4) Watching others and (5) revising presentations will help you improve your presentation skills. Then it’s just a matter of (6) preparing presentation ideas and (7) promoting how you can help others. You can turn every moment into presentation practice – and that’s the secret of relentless improvement, or presentation kaizen.

For more ideas, check out this braindump.

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com

Coaching people on how to give better remote presentations – Thinking out loud

Posted: - Modified: | business, mentoring, presentation, speaking

We need better web presentations. There are so many opportunities out there. I think I can help more people learn how to speak, and I can help people learn how to speak better.

If I were to coach someone on how to give a better remote presentation, what could I help them with?

  • Finding something to talk about: testing your ideas through blogs, shared presentations, and webinars
  • Refining your message: figure out the next steps, the key message, and any supporting points
  • Supporting your story: planning how your slides will support your talk, and revising them to be more engaging
  • Pitching your talk: tweaking your title, abstract, bio, and picture; finding venues
  • Planning for interaction: how to make the most of webinar tools, how to engage the audience
  • Technical setup: familiarizing yourself with the system, getting your webcam going, cleaning up your background and lighting; testing everything beforehand
  • From presentations to conversations: getting used to the back-and-forth of backchannels, working with a host/moderator
  • Dealing with Murphy: What to do when things go wrong
  • Asking for feedback: Running surveys and learning from them
  • Reaping the rewards: Capturing assets, scaling up through sharing

In addition, I can help give feedback on their presentation content and delivery. Personally, I prefer focusing on content and organization rather than just ums and ahs, so you’ll get more substantive editing from me than surface editing.

Hmm. I think that might be interesting to explore. I’d learn a lot, other people would learn a lot, and I’d write up and share that with even more people. It might be some time away, or it might be an extracurricular thing if I can clear it with IBM, or plans might change. =) I’ll probably start with just one student first.

Would you like to hear from me if I do set up something like that? What would you like to see in it? Leave a comment or contact me and tell me what you think!

View or add comments (Disqus), or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com