Sticky Presentations

Published on the original Storytellers Keep Blog on August 2, 2007.

Courtesy of Presentation Zen is a post that references the book, "Made to Stick."  As my alter-ego is developing some training slides on what is probably the most boring topic of many other boring topics that will be covered during a two day event, my spidey-sense began to get all warm and fuzzy when I saw the post. 

I suspect my "most boring topic among many boring topics" will be delivered just after lunch (cue in the ZZZZZZs) so it is quadruply important that I find a way to keep my audience engaged.  For me, the challenge will be in balancing the six key principles, Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions, and Stories while maintaining an air of professionalism.  I want it to be fun, but informative.

Of course, the first challenge I ran up against today was "knowing my audience."  During a dry run, I found out that my audience is not going to be as broad as I'd originally thought.  This is good.  Next is highlighting a common connection I share with the team, which can be made to support the credibility principle.  I figure I can combine the emotion and unexpected principles via two pictures that show the differences between the pain we are experiencing with what we are currently doing and the joy we will experience with what we will be adopting.  It was suggested I throw in a couple of quizzes with prizes. 

Anyway... the post is a good summary and I'll let you know how it goes. 

COMMENTS

Liz Ness said:

Good luck (and I can't wait to hear more about the most dull of dulls)!