Here's an easy but effective tip to make your presentations much more powerful - particularly online.
The first thing you're taught as a junior TV reporter is this:
- Write to the pictures
What that means is, the moment you see an image on screen, the reporter should be talking about why you're seeing it.
If it's a shot of a flood, the commentary might talk about dozens of people being forced from their homes.
Or if you're seeing a parliamentary debate, the words might be it was crunch time for the government's policy tonight...
If, however, the reporter doesn't write to the pictures, you, the viewer, will probably be left confused.
Imagine seeing pictures of animals at a zoo, while the reporter talks about Covid disrupting the area.
Whereas, the same pictures, but with words about Even the animals at the zoo have suffered in Covid, as keepers say they miss the stimulation of humans coming to see them.
You can apply exactly the same lesson to presentations.
The moment you show a new slide, you have to be telling the audience why they're seeing it.
Imagine the scene. The screen is filled with a depressing looking graph, and the words are: This data shows how hard the company has been hit by Covid...
Big tick for that. The point is being clearly made.
As opposed to: It's good to see you all, thanks for coming along, my name's Simon and I'm going to talk about... etc.
Sounds obvious? But how many presentations have you been to when the speaker doesn't follow that basic principle of writing, or talking to the pictures?
Of course, this becomes all the more important when you're presenting online.
In person, at least the audience has the real life you to look at, to try to work out what's happening, and why they're seeing an apparently unrelated slide.
But virtually, when your fine self is taking up only a tiny percentage of the frame...
You simply have to talk about every new slide as soon as you see it - or risk quickly losing your audience.
So take the TV tip:
Always write (or talk) to the pictures.
By the way, Simon's new book is on public speaking and there's a chapter about this enforced world of online presenting. If you've got any hot tips how to do it better, he'd love to hear from you. You might even get a credit!