Monday, June 23, 2008

Make people like you more

Or at least, make them listen to you. At blogfish, we know our readers have many important things to say, and yet you struggle to stand out among all the other ichthyologists at your AFS panel. Besides a sexy title, what will keep your audience riveted?

Try some of the tips Wired Magazine got from Nancy Duarte, whose firm Duarte Designs did Al Gore's global warming presentation. Trust me, Duarte Designs isn't cheap so these tips are a great value and it is shocking how many presenters still don't follow basic rules like "use a readable font size" and "face the audience." And if you think that's not you, have a trusted colleague watch your next run-through and give you the skinny.

Andy Goodman's "Why bad presentations happen to good causes" is another useful reference, and the many essays of Edward Tufte. Go talk about fish. Better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or, if you're going to give a bad presentation, at least make it spectacularly bad.

Like actually dress up like a shark and make nummy noises.

Anonymous said...

Tufte is fabulous!