Powerful Pithy Presentations Tip #8: Managing Overwhelming Details
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Powerful Pithy Presentation Pointer # 8: Managing Overwhelming Details
While attending a three-hour workshop on housing and community development, I found myself evaluating the presenter and making note of ideas that could make a difficult topic easier to present to us non-technical folks in the audience! We were all there for the valuable information, but the strange terminology and forms appeared a bit daunting!
Here are thoughts I shared with them. These tips may prove helpful for those folks who work for government agencies or in very technical areas who need to breakdown their “foreign language” to get understanding and or buy in from the rest of us! Here we go:
- Remember, you are an expert speaking to non-expert folks. We want to learn. Lose the acronyms and jargon! We have no clue as to what you are talking about! Say the whole term and title and what they mean.
- Provide a “cheat sheet” of terms and acronyms for the participants for future reference and as a take away.
- Speak slowly and over enunciate so that the rest of us can get comfortable with the new terminology!
- Offer a story or describe an actual situation that brings to light why your process, procedure or information is crucial for the participants.
- Number the pages in your handout! If you have forms and/or groups of handouts, assemble them in one master order and number everything from 1 – 100! This could even be cross-referenced on the master “cheat sheet!” This way, you could move around to answer questions related to a particular form. Everyone could follow along, and keep their papers in order.
- Repeat or summarize questions that participants ask for the benefit of the group at large. Many people, who ask questions, do not project their voices; and the entire group may benefit from the question, as well as the answer!
- Smile and provide eye contact! Act like you want to share the information with us! It makes for a much your enjoyable experience for all of us!
Dee Taylor-Jolley, MEd
Trainer/Speaking
Presentation Skills Expert
“If all my talents and powers were taken from me by some inscrutable providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask to be allowed to keep the power of speaking, for through it, I would quickly recover all the rest.” -Daniel Webster
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