Infraknowledge

Gypsophila asked:


I want to do something a bit more interesting than a section on team work and when I’ve done that, communication and examples.. any ideas what I should do, or what they’ll look for? Its a science role. Thanks!

Jennifer C asked:


I am organizing a small team building “retreat” for my job. It is the first one of its kind, so we have to start small budget wise. I was thinking that a scavenger hunt would be a good idea, but any other ideas would be helpful.

Anna Stenning asked:


Some people feel that giving a presentation is a daunting experience, regardless of the setting. The thought of standing up in front of a large group of people and getting the words out in the right way is the most nerve-racking experience they could imagine. At work, staff may be asked to deliver a presentation at a meeting; this requires plenty of preparation and rehearsal to achieve success.

However, even after taking the time to work on perfecting your presentation, it may not be enough. You need help with your presentation skills on the actual day. Giving presentations involves interacting with and engaging your audience in a way that reflects your personality. This means communicating with people and delivering your key messages without losing their attention.

There are few basic principles to improving your preparation and presentation skills. Each of which needs plenty of consideration and time spent on preparation. Before any presentation, you must be clear about the purpose of your presentation, research and understand your audience, sort your material into a logical structure, add ‘flavour’ to the facts and prepare visual aids.

The first step to improving your presentation skills is preparation. Imagine you have just been given the task to prepare a presentation based on your work, studies, research etc. However, you have been a set time limit to prepare and speak. The moment you are given the task is when you should start planning. Ask yourself what is the main objective of the presentation and what are the main points you would like to make?

Jot down key points in bullet format. Never use a script in a presentation, because you are likely to appear unnatural or even uncertain when delivering. Use cue cards or postcards instead, making sure to number each card. Some people do not use notes at all and rely on their slides as a prompt. Be careful with this, as there is a great temptation to fill your slides with facts.

It is actually counterproductive. Your audience cannot listen to you and read at the same time and you may find you struggle to sift the key points from packed slides as you speak. Once you have gathered the points you want to make organise them into a logical flow. Add examples and anecdotes to make each key point memorable. Prepare for the question and answer session too.

The second step is to practise - this may come under preparation but often people forget that when preparing their speech and organising visual aids they leave very little room to practise with other people around. Ask your friends, colleagues and family to listen to your presentation and encourage them to give you feedback. Choose your rehearsal audience carefully - they need to be honest without knocking your confidence.

Consider the way you speak, how you pronounce your words and how clearly you can be heard. Projecting your voice is not about shouting - it is about good breathing, clarity of pronunciation and eye contact. If you speak quietly, you may come across as timid or uncertain of your facts. If you speak too quickly, they will find it hard to take everything in. Remember that you communicate through body language, therefore stand up straight and use a few gestures to emphasise key points.

Finally, the delivery of your presentation, in theory if you have put effort into good preparation and have rehearsed you should be fine on the day. One thing you should be aware of is that many people feel nervous because they care about getting it right. If you have prepared well it will reduce your nerves considerably. If you think about all the things that can go wrong, you create a negative picture in your mind. Imagine a positive outcome and visualise success - top sports personalities do not use this technique for nothing!

On the day, make sure you arrive early. The only part of your speech you need to memorise is your opening line - this will help you get off to a good start. Make sure you make eye contact with everyone in the room, take your time - own the space - then proceed with the presentation.

Wonder Woman asked:


I recently started working at Habitat and need help with this presentation I have to give. The company is interested in learning how if their management team were to spend a day building a house for a needy family, how this would strengthen/reinforce/provide better team playing/building skills amongst their managment? If any one has any ideas it will help add to mine possibly. Thank you!!

James Malinchak asked:


If you are new to public speaking, you may find it hard to find public speaking jobs. Speaking careers are the sought after type of careers people want to get into, because of all the money that can be made. Plus, you get to travel around the world.

Public speaking careers cover a wide territory. You may want to focus on one type of public speaking career, instead of spreading yourself too thin. When you start out looking for public speaking positions, there may be many public speaking opportunities available. You have to decide what direction you want to lean toward. There are three key ways where you can secure public speaking jobs.

Are you interested in how to become a motivational speaker and pursue this type of career? If so, you must learn the art of public speaking, but by using motivation as the key attribute. This is the main way in becoming a motivational speaker. Once you have learned the true way to deliver a motivational speech, you can actively pursue this as your career path.

Any speaker, who works to become a motivational speaker, may find many jobs in this area. It seems that a motivational speaking career is where speakers are heading. It is apparently a huge market.  One key way to secure public speaking jobs is by developing your public speaking skills and stay with a tightly focused career. This will be the way you can prepare for a wide variety of public speaking assignments.

If you looked at all the different public speaking opportunities and you wonder how to be a motivational speaker, or how to pursue a motivational speaking career, there is a way to break into this field. The second key way to secure a public speaking job is by talking to those who are already motivational speakers. They can give you first hand knowledge as to what skills you will need, and how to go about applying for the public speaking jobs. And for the third way to secure a public speaking job is to only pick jobs where you will get paid to speak. You don’t care so much for those free ones, unless you are so new to public speaking, and you don’t have any clients yet, that you need to have at least one or two under your belt.

If you do not want to go for motivational speaking, you can always look toward inspirational speaking. This is also a career choice that can bring you many rewards. The key here is to know what speaking career path you want to follow and go after it. Get the training you need to pursue that choice and you’ll be on your way to making a ton of cash.

http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com is where you can find over 100+ hours of downloadable audio and video lessons that will show you how to make $100,000 to $1,000,000 dollars PER YEAR as a professional speaker. James Malinchak, the author of this article can be your online business coach and mentor. Simply visit http://www.GetSpeakingJobs.com to get started today with several FREE professional speaking audio recordings.

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. You may sign up as an affiliate at BigMoneySpeaker.com and insert your affiliate links.

g.s123 asked:


I’m going to give a presentation soon and i want to know how to give a good presentation?

kharabish.blogspot.com asked:


I want to read a book that will give me advices to enhance my presentation skills, to make my presentation not boring, full of activities, enjoyable, interesting, useful … etc. please name more than one book, so I can go and see which one is the best for me. Thank you

takbeer1421 asked:


I get the jitters presenting to clients during quarterly/annual review meetings. Can anyone recommend a person/place that can help me overcome my fear and help me speak without stumbling?

Im in NY.

Thanks!

Laurus Nobilis asked:


Presentation is a communication process of transmitting the message from the presenter to the audience. This message can vary in length and complexity. Different presentation aids can be used e.g. flip chart, PowerPoint presentation with the video beamer, whiteboard with erasable pens, laser pointers, etc. Presentation can be done in different circumstances in a more or less formal way.

In fact, everybody is in the position to be a presenter at some point. At school, at the university, during the business presentation or even you can be a professional presenter. Now we come to common problem for most of the people. This problem is “Stage Fright” combined with lack of technical skills of presenting.

Stage fright can be really terrifying to some people. Many people have the fear of the audience, lights of the stage, they are afraid what will be if someone ask them difficult question. This is causing nervousness, sweating, accelerated heartbeat, dizziness or even panic attacks.

On the other hand, presenting skills are technical aspect. Presentation skills are a broad area. It takes some time to develop this skill, for some people more, for the other less time, depends of a talent. Since all of us can be in situation to be presenters, to be in the center of the audience, it is useful to learn basic skills of presenting.

Anybody can prepare at least a decent presentation. Presentation takes some time and effort for preparation. During preparation try to follow basic rules:

· You need to have a minimum of expertise in the area of presentation. This means that you cannot just learn your lines that you will say during the every slide, but you also need to be prepared to answer to potential questions from the audience. Simply, you need to have at least the basic knowledge on the subject presented.

· Make concept for your presentation ( intro, main part, conclusion ). Your presentation needs to have meaningful flow. It should have a theme, the message and learning for your audience. Set up learning goals for your audience and check the results at the end. Longer presentation should have detailed agenda developed.

· Use aids ( power point or flip chart ), but remember that you are still one who is presenting, not the slides. Do not exaggerate with the presentation aids. They should assist you, instead you assist to them.

· Use not more 3-4 lines of text on presentation slides, with maybe 1 photo. If you put too many details, nobody will read it. Average audience is not reading the content of the slide, in case that there are too many details on it. Slides should be clear in content, visible for everybody in your audience, with graphic and color that will not distract audience, or make them difficult to read. If you are not skillful with graphic and colors, use predefined templates.

· Exercise your presentation, so that you get a feeling about it. Check all slides before presentation. Check the video beamer, cables, remote control, room lights and other technicalities before beginning of presentation. Check the colors and readability, since video beamer can present colors in different way than your computer screen. Distorted colors can make reading difficult or impossible.

· Assess the time needed for you presentation and check the timing during your rehearsals. If your presentation is longer, divide it in sections ( e.g. 45 min ) with breaks ( e.g. 10 min ). Time management is critical during the presentation, since audience might start to feel bored if presentation is too long. You can even not finish your presentation, if it takes too long time.

· Try to move around during your presentation. Use your body language. If you just stand still in one place, you will become invisible soon to you audience and their eyes and mind might start to wander around. By moving your self and using your body language, in accordance the dynamic of the subject presented, you are keeping the audience alerted.

· Use examples for your statements. That can be your experience or something you read. If you are using somebody’s examples, quote source of information. You can even say a short story or saying, if you find it suitable for supporting your presentation.

· Use humor in your presentation. This can be planned or spontaneous, but within limits that will not change normal flow of presentation.

· Ask questions to the audience. Ask for volunteers, or pick someone to answer. This will help you to keep the audience alert. They will pay more attention to your presentation, since they know that you might ask them later on. Asking questions will make your presentation more interactive, more interesting to the audience and easier for you, since you will animate people to participate.

· Do not say something like “Sorry about my presentation” or “I am nervous”. I remember some of my friends that used to say something like that during the presentation. I found that to be wrong, since their presentations were actually good and I wouldn’t ever guess that they are nervous or unprepared, if they didn’t say something like that. If you state that you apologize because you are not a good presenter, you are ruining your credibility before you even started. Even if you are a bit nervous there is no reason to say that.

Actually, everybody, even the most experienced presenters, have some “stage fright”. It is normal. But as soon as the presentation starts, you will be released, since you will involve your energy into the presentation.

I am not “born presenter”, since I am an introvert person, but I learned some basic presenting skills and I am using them during occasional business presentation.

Finally, you are born without knowledge of speaking any language, without knowledge of mathematics, without knowledge of driving the bike or a car. But you learned that and adopted these knowledge and skills as your portfolio. Why wouldn’t you make Presentation Skills to be part of your personal competences?

icu812 asked:


I need a sentence to plug into a cover letter.