Did you know that 100% of the people in my office like snow peas and at any point during the day you’re likely to hear the sound of loud crunching and see the tell-tale sign of strings and stalks on someone’s desk? Luckily, there’s only one of me in ...
Really? Is that all you know about me?
Every one of the people in our lives – our team and colleagues, clients, suppliers, competitors and everyone we know personally - is facing challenges and shouldering burdens on a scale from light to unbearable. Their kids may be suffering mental ...
The Thoughtful Person’s Guide To Presenting And Communicating
Introduction At the risk of sounding pretentious, it’s actually and genuinely one of the greatest privileges of my life to work with very smart people. If I were to order the privileges of my life, of which there are many, being a mum would probab ...
Just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean it lacks substance
Every book or training program devoted to business, and indeed personal, presenting and communications, includes an early section on the topic of understanding your audience. In fact it’s so cliched now, and such a given, that it’s easy to gloss over ...
Thinking Fast/Slow
I finally got around to reading Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ and can highly recommend it. For those who may not know, Daniel, with his colleague Amos Twersky, won the Nobel Prize for their work in behavioural economics. ...
What’s Changed in the Last 20 Years?
Last month we started to answer the question that was asked of me in a workshop, “what’s changed in the last 20 years in the world of presenting?” For better or for worse, the issue of technology and powerpoint overtook our first blog ...
Powerpoint – the good, the bad and the rather pretty solution
Luckily, every time I find myself searching for a blog topic, someone kindly asks me a new and interesting question during a meeting or workshop. One I recently received, from a highly experienced presenter and salesman just before Christmas, was “ ...
How to present numbers so they make sense to the listener
I’m regularly asked in workshops how to bring numbers to life particularly for your less numerically inclined audiences, so here’s a quick acronym for you. To remember it, think ‘Very Compelling Maths’ (though I understand that ...
Fact Check Your Presentations
In a world of fake news and alternative facts, good quality data matters. Good data at least allows the possibility of good decisions, and a culture of fact-checked presentations and reports can therefore be the difference between success and failure of ...
The Brain Chemistry of Presenting
I’m reading a book at the moment about human behaviour that includes a lot of information about brain chemistry. I like saying that because it makes me sound intelligent but in reality, I skim a lot of the science-y bits because I don’t real ...