Blog posts

Grabbing Your Audience

Submitted by Jack Milner on March 2, 2023

Imagine yourself back at school. Your day is made up of a grey wash of one lesson followed by another lesson, and on and on it goes, most of which you are ambivalent about. Then, one day you arrive at a different classroom. It already looks fun or interesting.

The teacher tells you to collect three random objects from around the school block. You have two minutes. First ones back get a prize. When you return, you’re told what you’re going to be doing but, the teacher wants your ideas.

Do You Think Like a TV Presenter?

Submitted by Jack Milner on February 21, 2023

VIRTUAL PRESENTATION MASTERY

Do you think like a TV presenter? For virtual presentations, there is much we can learn from them. These presenters need to be natural and authentic, but their presentation style to camera is always a heightened reality. To achieve this, you need to focus on interacting with the camera as though it is your audience—and this is the case whether you’re talking to one person or a thousand.

How to avoid Zoom or Video Meeting fatigue

Submitted by Jack Milner on February 9, 2023

First of all Zoom fatigue is real. It really is bad for us and it really does negatively effect our mental health. According to the Virtira study of professionals working remotely https://virtira.com/the-webcam-survey-executive-summary, nearly half (49%) reported a high level of Zoom fatigue. As we will see later, those numbers amongst women are much higher. To understand what we can do about it, we first we need to understand the six triggers for Zoom fatigue.

4 Ways To Build Your Audience’s Trust

Submitted by Jack Milner on February 6, 2023

"Trust in me," sang Kaa the snake from Jungle Book, while of course being splendidly untrustworthy. And from the hills of the Himalayas to the deserts of Timbuktu (and I’m not talking Crème Caramel) to the sky scrapers of New York – when a sales person meets a customer for the first time the phrase, “Trust in me” is part of the equation.

How a comedian’s body language wins over an audience

Submitted by Jack Milner on February 2, 2023

Just as a good presenter takes charge of the “conversation” so a good comic has to boss their audience. You have to let them know you’re in charge. But clearly running on stage and shouting, “who’s the Daddy?” is also unlikely to endear you to your audience (and that’s doubly true in business.) There’s a balance.

As soon as a comedian walks on stage, literally within 3 seconds, the audience decides on their suitability as “leader.” This is also true of the presenter.

How do you present someone else’s presentation?

Submitted by Jack Milner on January 31, 2023

I was helping a government NGO get their training presentations up to a decent standard so that the learning, which was honestly of national importance (even if the nation might not agree)  was consistent, understood and acted on.

The brief? “We’d like them to be more energetic, more confident, funnier - just better.”

Unfortunately, the presentations were written by another team who had micro-managed them to death. Literally every second was accounted for. “12.41 – slide 27 – bullet point four…. “ - that sort thing.

Seven Ways Humour Will Benefit Your Next Presentation

Submitted by Jack Milner on January 25, 2023

“The most viewed TED speakers deliver on average one joke per minute in their keynote speeches. The best deliver two jokes per minute.” Jeremy Donovan

Humour is the holy grail of communication. Those who have it are lauded, those who don’t are usually forgotten. Yet it is not easy and can go wrong. You will stand out but standing out means it’s easier to knock you down. So why should we make them laugh when it means risking our careers?

Here are 7 reasons to add humour

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