The ten key characteristics
The research produced 246 descriptions of what makes a great presentation. These descriptions have been analysed and produced ten key characteristics of great conference presentations.

1. Content. It does not matter how clever you are, you still have to have something interesting to say. If people are going to give the speaker 20-25 minutes of their life, they want more than entertainment, they want to hear something useful, something they did not know before.
2. Voice. The presenter needs to actively use their voice. One comment in particular highlights the extent to which voice is central to the process, “It’s partly his voice - he never speaks too quickly, and his tone is modulated and smooth without feeling put on - but it’s more that you feel that he’s speaking to you personally, not just reciting a bunch of jargon from a PowerPoint slide.” In a presentation the best way to emphasise a point is not to use caps, not to use bold, not to underline, but to use the presenter’s voice.
3. Audience. The focus of the presentation has to be the audience, not the data and not the presenter. Key comments include “their understanding of their audience”, “being interactive with their audience”, and “engage the audience (not one-way traffic)”. Like a considerate lover, we need to concentrate on “How was it for you?”
4. Story. For the last few years everybody who is anybody has been saying that storytelling is the key to better presentations, and there is clearly a lot of support for this view. Attendees are looking for narrative themes, analogies and anecdotes. They don’t want to see data, they want to hear what the data means and what its implications are.
5. Style. One of the hardest concepts to isolate is style. People know they want style, but they vary in what they mean and how they describe it. For example “Style, speaking to the audience, PAUSING for emphasis, no notes, entertaining with some levity, self deprecation” and “Relaxed and informal style, but also confident, upbeat, lively”. The variation in the descriptions of what ‘style’ means makes it harder to define it. However, it is clear that style is not something that just happens, it is the presence of a personalised approach, something which goes beyond just competence, something which adds that others would not have added.
6. Ability. The word ability occurs frequently in the responses, linked to a variety of topics. Presenters need to realise that it is not enough to make an effort, presenters need to develop the skills to be able to deliver against these standards.
7. Argument. The use of the words argue and argument, for example “The way he or she argues the content” and “Argument, passion, and slides” show that people are looking for presenters to be more than a neutral reporter, they are looking for a case to be put forward with coherence and passion.
8. Confidence. Confidence is to some extent related to ability, but it also expresses the way that ability is used in the communication process. For example: “Confidence, thorough knowledge of what they are going to present, they don’t just read out slides, they summarise well and point out things which are not obvious from slides”. If the audience has confidence in the presenter, then he or she does not need to hear about every step, enabling the focus to be on the findings and not the process.
9. Engaging. Audiences want to be actively engaged. This is one of the biggest changes that has happened over the last 30 years. It is almost as if audiences are suffering attention deficit syndrome. If presenters do not engage audiences the message will not be heard, and will be of little value.
10. Humour. Many responses talked about humour. Audiences aren’t looking for non-stop laughs, but they are looking for humour to be used as part of the audience-focused engagement process.

From a long piece (oriented towards market research) on what makes a great presentation.

Prig offered Pig the first chance at dessert,
So Pig reached out and speared the bigger part.

"Now that," cried Prig, "is extremely rude of you!"
Pig, with his mouth full, said, "Wha, wha' wou' 'ou do?"

"I would have taken the littler bit," said Prig.
"Stop kvetching, then it's what you've got," said Pig.

           So virtue is its own reward, you see.
           And that is all it's ever going to be.

This time of year, I nearly come to terms with entropy. The grass has stopped growing, and so has the wild mint and spotted touch-me-knot. The snow hasn’t begun to fall. Most of the firewood is stacked, as is the hay. The thistle-down has blown, milkweed ditto. The leaves are down. That’s about as organized as it gets around here.

For a few weeks in midautumn, I feel as though I can see the farm plain. I get a clear picture of what needs doing, and I rediscover the simple pleasure of doing those things one at a time. A rubber feed pan needs moving from the chicken yard to the barn. I walk it down, and it stays put. In summer, every object on this place gravitates freely from place to place. Every morning, I get up and everything is everywhere else. That feeling goes away when fall comes. Fall is the season of staying put, except for the leaves.

There was a wet, sloppy, dousing of snow the other night, heavy as a deep depression. The dogs and I looked at it regretfully, as if the darkness were growing even thicker as the snow fell. But that, too, is the beauty of this time of year. Darkness can only get so dark, so deep. What it does get is longer, and yet even that’s good news. We’ve already been there in the past — in the long dark of December, the deep chill of January. This is not some galaxy we’ve never visited before.

As the snow melted the next morning, I found myself wondering how it all feels to the striped-bark maple I planted a decade ago. Its leaves were among the first to fall, but now its twigs are stark with dull ruby buds. They are poised for a season I can’t quite imagine yet. It’s tempting to believe that all of that maple’s strength has swollen precariously in those buds, but it hasn’t. It’s deep underground, rooted in the equilibrium of earth itself.

Horticulturists say that a good wind just firms up a young tree’s root hold, and that’s how I’ll think of this season. Here in the clarity of fall — before the weather gathers and snow climbs up and down the storm — I look for ways of increasing the order in life, firming a root hold I too seldom feel.

I appreciate Verlyn Klinkenborg as a successor to Hal Borland. It starts with observation and knowledge and ends in beauty and repose. If he could write for the paper every day, I'd be happy to read it.

Transformational Speaking

BY FC Expert Blogger Seth KahanFri Nov 13, 2009 at 11:08 PM

This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

Do you have a message deep in your soul that you need help getting out into the world? Do you have a calling, a vision that you want to articulate with more power? Do you want to learn how to express your inner intents in ways that effectively communicate while at the same time motivating people to act? Then, I have the book for you: Transformational Speaking - If You Want to Change the World, Tell a Better Story by Gail Larsen.

This is no ordinary book, but an alchemical read that will transform your relationship to your voice via the deepest stirrings of your soul. Larsen combines her personal insights - she is former Executive VP of the National Speakers Association - with a distinctly spiritual approach to help you explore and uncover your most compelling material. She also provides valuable guidance on execution. From her point of view technique is always second to the inner resource from which your authentic self emanates.

Gail said to me recently, I worked to structure the book so it doesn't begin with tools and techniques. Until we do the inner work, it is difficult to show up in a whole and confident way. Even though that work takes some time and investigation, I think it's absolutely necessary if we're going to bring the fullness of who we are to the speaking platform. So, I started the book by going to the heart of transformational speaking, which is literally in the heart. 

I found tremendous resource in indigenous teachings and I share these in the book. I find these concepts, like original medicine, so helpful to people. Once someone can put their words around their core impetus and stand in their power, they are less likely to shrink when they step up to the stage. I teach a creative process that allows what we care deeply about to come up naturally. Then it can surprise us! Material we have yet to make conscious is often the best we have to give. Great speaking to me doesn't come from dictation from an old mindset. Instead it allows life to move through us, to speak not only from what we have prepared but also to trust what emerges in the moment.

Gail highlights something that is rarely talked about - the inner resource that informs our words, our actions. Her book is less about technique and product. It is much more about learning how to tap into the inner source of creativity that gives expression through the spoken word. If you are looking for a journey that leads to better expression from the platform, or anywhere else you happen to be standing, this book is your ticket.

The citizens of Coshocton, Ohio are without their free Internet after a single download prompted the Motion Picture Association of America to shut down the town's municipal Wi-Fi network.

This is by no means the first time the MPAA has stepped on the little guy in their crusade to eradicate piracy, but it is a particularly egregious instance of it. The free Wi-Fi network in Coshocton, Ohio supported anywhere from "a dozen people a day to 100 during busy times," all of whom are left without Internet after the shut down. As nations like Finland move to make broadband access a legal right, it is unfortunately clear that some powerful people in our country still consider it a privilege and not a necessity.

Let this be a lesson to those who not only enjoy but depend on free Wi-Fi networks. Enjoy it while it lasts, because if Dennis the Menace down the block can't wait for Transformers 3 to come out on DVD, you might be out a connection.

And also unbelievable.