No #151 | October 27, 2024

by Matthew Boyd

Good morning, welcome to the weekly Lead It Cool.

There was a really cool sports moment this week when Lebron James and his son Bronny played in an NBA game together on the same team. Just before they went on the floor, Lebron gave his son a short pep talk:

"Just play free. Don't worry about mistakes just play hard."

Great advice (on and off the court).

In this week's Lead It Cool newsletter:

• 😎PowerPoint Tricks (or Treats)
• 🤔Calvin & Hobbes
• 😁Bias Humour
• 🤣Candy Corn
• 😎Cool Links

😎PowerPoint Tricks (or Treats)

For a few years now, I’ve had the pleasure of teaching an evening course at the University of Victoria.

One of the highlights of the term is the final case study presentation competition. To get the students ready, we hold a “presentation bootcamp”, where everyone has a chance to practice and get immediate feedback from the class on what’s working and where they can elevate their game.

Recently, a student asked me to share my top presentation tips. So here are some of the most common areas for improvement I’ve noticed after watching dozens of presentations.

Disclaimer: these tips are geared toward in-person presentations using PowerPoint. Remote presentations bring their own set of unique challenges, and that's a whole separate topic🤪.

PowerPoint Presentation Tips and Tricks:

💜 Start with a Connection: As Maya Angelou famously said, “People won’t remember what you said, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.” Right from the start, create a connection with your audience. Here’s how:

1. Tell a joke: A laugh (or even a smile) at the beginning can work wonders to getting the audience engaged.
2. Ask a question: Polling the audience, or a quick trivia question gets everyone involved quickly, and acknowledging the person who answered correctly to your trivia question will make them feel like a million bucks.
3. Share a story: A short, relevant story about yourself can also get the audience engaged quickly.

👀 Maintain Eye Contact: Resist the urge to look at the screen behind you, keep your focus on the audience. Make sure that you have a setup that lets you view the slides on a laptop so you can stay engaged with your listeners. As soon as you look away the audience feels like you no longer care about them.

📵 Use Cue Cards Instead of a Phone: If you need notes, opt for cue cards over your phone. I've noticed that when someone is reading the notes off their phone the audience becomes disengaged. I have no scientific evidence to explain why, but I think it's because when we see someone looking at their phone we assume that they are distracted and not paying attention. Also, phones have a tendency of "falling asleep" after a couple minutes which means the speaker needs to log back in, which is distracting.

➡ Don’t Get Fancy: Animated transitions and embedded videos are great when they work… but painfully distracting when they don’t. If you haven’t fully tested them, stick with simplicity.

🌄 Keep Slides Visual: Take a cue from the greatest presentation of all time: Steve Jobs' introduction of the first iPhone. The first 12 slides of his presentation only had 19 words. It was all visual. Less is more! (see meme below)

⌚ Stick to the Time Limit: No one ever complains about a talk being too short. Be respectful of everyone’s time, stay within the limit, and leave them wanting more.

⏸ Embrace the Pause: When you lose your place, avoid filling the silence with “umms” or “uhhs.” Instead, use the pause to build a bit of suspense.

😊 Smile: Over half of communication is body language, and smiling is a simple way to show interest and connection. If you're excited about a topic, the audience will catch your energy.

🤸‍♀️ Stick the Landing: According to the “Peak-End” rule, people mostly remember the peak and the end of an experience. Therefore, the moment of the presentation that your audience is going to remember the most is likely the end. An easy way to effectively wrap up a presentation is a “Three Things” slide to summarize key takeaways and, if possible, tie it back to your opening.

🔚 Include a “The End” Slide: Another common mishap that I often see is that the presenters will finish their presentation and the slide deck will default to the editor version of PowerPoint or their desktop screen. It's always a distracting moment for the audience. Instead, include a final slide that literally says, "Thanks" or "The End" and leave that slide on the screen as you're answering questions or you are shutting down. It's a minor detail, but it goes a long way in sticking the landing of the end.

What are your top tricks?

Happy presenting!

🤔Calvin & Hobbes

Below is an excerpt from a commencement speech by Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin & Hobbes).

"The mind is like a car battery, it recharges by running" is such a great line.

😁Bias Humour

This is a good one😁

🤣Candy Corn

Sad candy corn... 🤣 (source)

😎Cool Links

🤔Mindful leadership is effective leadership. Why do we discount it and favour busyness? Mindful, present, calm, engaged – these are universal modern leadership virtues. He personified them nearly 20 years ago. In my experience these virtues are universally admired but rarely practised. We hear the words and nod our heads in a knowing way, and then click back into the stresses of the day.

📈T​he Story Curve: How to Use Storytelling Techniques for your Marketing. Leverage the three most common story arcs: Cinderella, Boy Meets Girl and Person in a Bad Place.

🍻The mates who have met for a pint every Thursday for 56 years. This is cool. IMO the world needs more communities like this.

❎Why is Every Recent Presidential Election So Close? (podcast).

🤣When they're doing introductions and you realize you don't have a fun fact because you aren't fun.

💌Tell a friend to subscribe​

Happy Halloween!

Let’s connect! 💬 You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter