When you deliver a presentation, your audience members will be able to process only one source of information at any given moment. That is, they will either listen to your speech or read your slides, but they will not be able to do both at the same time. Here is a short paragraph on attention, […]
Fundamentals
“B” is for Magic
When delivering a presentation, it is a good idea to keep the audience’s focus and attention on ourselves. In fact, keeping the attention on ourselves it is one of the main pillars of a successful speech or presentation. So much so, that at certain times you may not want to share your audience’s attention even […]
Stick to the delta
When you’re organizing your presentation, the Rule of Three is a good place to start. For example: We’re going to do A. We’re going to do B. We’re going to do C. The human brain loves things that are organized into threes. It tends to forget point #4, but it can always remember three things. […]
How to make your audience feel like they’re in the right place
Remember the One Question, the one thing that’s on everyone’s mind. The one problem they’re trying to solve, the reason they asked you to speak. Then tell a story that basically goes, A. I had that question myself once, and B. here’s how I solved it, and C. now I’m here to help you solve […]
What should I do with my hands?
When you’re on stage, what do you do with your hands? It’s one of the most common questions we get. Personally, I suspect you already know what to do with your hands, but the best answer is actually kind of zen, so we reserve it for more advanced courses. In the meantime, here are two […]
Chat with a couple audience members
Before your speech, meet some of the members of your audience. Talk to them, get to know them a little. It’ll make you a lot less nervous when you’re speaking, because you’ll be talking to friends, not a bunch of nameless, faceless strangers. How can you do this? At almost every conference, there’s a coffee […]
Practice 25 times
When professional actors prepare for a role, they usually rehearse for hours, or days or weeks, learning how to make a particular facial tick appear at just the right time. When she was preparing for the movie Gravity, Sandra Bullock practiced one of the moves for five months, in order to make it look natural […]
SO Fundamentals index
There are 9 lessons in the SO Fundamentals course. They are: Lesson 1 : The First Three Questions Lesson 2 : Practice 25 Times Lesson 3 : The Curse of Knowledge Lesson 4 : Reduce Your Ahh Count Lesson 5 : “B” is for Magic Lesson 6 : Video Yourself Lesson 7 : Chat With […]