I love the TED conference and everything it stands for. If you haven’t gotten lost down the rabbit hole of the TED talks, you haven’t lived. (TED-heads, share some of your favorites in the comments?).
Their whole premise is Ideas Worth Spreading.
I’m not on the TED stage. Yet. But in the meantime, I definitely love the premise of giving ideas legs. In this case, let’s talk about the presentations themselves, and how to let them stretch their legs and visit new places (provided they’re good; we can have a talk about creating good presentations in another post). Perhaps your ideas will spark ideas in others, too, and inspire them to and think even more. Yay, collective good!
1. Use Slideshare.
I know many of you probably know about Slideshare so I apologize if this is one of those “duh” things for you. But if you don’t, I want to make sure you see it. Slideshare lets you upload your presentation in several different formats, tag the presentation with keywords, and provide a short description. Here’s the one I’m doing at Inbound Marketing Summit this week in Boston.
On Slideshare, you can elect whether to allow folks to download the slides themselves, and Slideshare’s handy embed code means that you and other people can share those slides in all sorts of places.
Here’s the Amber Naslund Slideshare page where I’ve got a bunch of presentations and a handful of ebooks. The image up here is the presentation deck itself.
2. Â Make the most of Delicious links
Want to give your audience some additional materials to reference after your presentation? Use Delicious.com and create a custom tag for the event (like I did for the Monitoring Social Media event at which I’m speaking today. Here’s the presentation, too.). Curate some materials from your own website or content library, or collect some related articles and case studies from across the web. And try using a customized Bit.ly shortened link so you can track the traffic that comes through it.
Bonus points: I keep an ongoing collection of social media case studies on Delicious, too. They’re handy to point people to in general when they ask for more examples.
3. Summarize your talking points. And share them.
If you’re helping people map out planning of some kind, give them a slide at the end that has some questions to take home and ask themselves. Perhaps you’d be willing to create a PDF to accompany your presentation that outlines what you talked about (if that’s relatively straightforward to do). Write a blog post that runs down the highlights of your presentation, and stick that handy Slideshare embed link in there to allow people to click through or download the slides themselves.
Oh, and if you do that post, don’t forget to link to your speaking page (you do have one, right?) so that readers can see what other types of topics you speak about.
4. Include your contact information.
Put your name, company, email and social profiles on the first and last slides at the very least. This one actually gets missed a lot, and it’s the simplest of things to fix. I’ve found my Twitter and email to be the ones most needed and used.
For a crowd that can be particularly Twitter happy, think about including the event hashtag and your Twitter handle in the footer of each slide or a couple of strategic locations (I ignore my own advice on this sometimes because I get picky about how the slides look, but see if it works for you). Build your email list by having folks email you a phrase or code (with explicit disclosure, please, about that being an opt-in) and offer them some extra bonus content, links, or resources. Got a SMS option? Get folks texting something right as your presentation winds to a close.
If people love your presentation, allow the opportunity for extended dialogue and business inquiries by making your contact information super easy to find.
Presenters, Tell Us Your Tips!
Tell us more about how you get your presentations out there and traveling the world. How do you follow your stage time to keep people connected and talking after the workshop is done? I’d love you to share your favorite presentations, point us to your own, or at the very least get up there and watch some of those TED talks. I promise that something in there will turn your mind upside down. In a good way.
Share on below…
solid advice, Amber.
This TedTalk is the most popular video I’ve shared on Twitter
In 4 years http://bit.ly/aIimGS (@SirKenRobinson)
And this brief, recent TedTalk by Margartet Stewart (@Mags)
On Youtube and Copyright has some amazing content
http://bit.ly/bkyHVY
This is great Amber, thanks. I started doing the Delicious suggestion earlier this year at a conference on HIV/AIDS and it worked perfectly. Instead of a slide that lists a finite amount of information, audience members can choose a much wider ranger of resources. I was thinking that if it’s a recurring event that you speak at – you could even update the links in the interim and have new stuff by the time you go back to present.
I really like the hashtag and Twitter handle on each slide idea – I may have to try that out.
I am constantly amazed at presenters who either forget or are clueless to the fact that their contact info is MIA…
It’s actually mind boggling but hey, it’s their loss…
The Delicious tip is a very nice one. Since I installed Delibar on my Macbook I use it compulsively, I had to write a list of “used” tags in a text file to give it a bit of consistency, otherwise I would’ve had tags spread all over the place.
Great tips and useful info to me as a reminder for my upcoming presentation at my local chamber’s small business conference on 10/20: http://bbcc.com/events/chamber. Finding ways to engage your audience so it is more interactive and not a lecture they have to endure is important. The types of tools you suggested make it fun and useful for the participants, while establishing your credibility as a speaker.
Great suggestions.
One other possibility depending on audience, length of presentation, and technology limitations is to ask the audience prior to your talk what specifically they would like to learn or take away from the presentation. If possible, being able to seamlessly integrate this information into your presentation is a great way of making sure you cover some of the main reasons why people attended.
Good idea. I didn’t think to do it in advance (will remember that for the future), but I have included an “ask the audience” slide at the beginning to take a quick sample of attendees: who was there, why, from what business backgrounds, what info did they want to hear. Helps me know which talking points to emphasize, to allow more time for Q&A and general discussion per audience interests.
Amber: Someone shared this presentation to me recently (on slideshare, of course): STEAL THIS PRESENTATION – http://www.slideshare.net/GlobalGossip/steal-this-presentation-5038209 – Simply brilliant.
DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow
Definite Ted-head from way back.
http://bit.ly/cC4WG7
Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. All time favorite. There are many others that I like personally but with less general appeal.
It’s the combination of these tools to achieve your goals in a clever way that I like. Thanks for this.
Love #2 Amber as I’ve been a Delicious user for a while now. I use it in a similar way to store stats, figures and case study posts (including some of yours, by the way).
My dilemma is I predominantly use Prezi for my prezos and it’s not quite as “share friendly” as Powerpoint. It’s a trade-off–I find it easier to use and clients find it visually appealing (and I think there’s a residual “cool” factor at play), but the question is: Is it worth the dip I probably take in shareability across the Web?
@arikhanson
Not sure if I really want another social network but you two have got me interested in checking out Delicious. Thanks.
Tip for Tweeting & presenting like a pro – use an auto-tweet tool to tweet your key presentation points. I did this recently at #SoCol and audience reaction and response was fantastic. I used this tool: http://www.sapweb20.com/blog/powerpoint-twitter-tools/
I absolutely love TEDtalks. When I first discovered them I would spend hours a day trying to watch all the videos. I post links to them frequently on my blog. My favorites? Probably Marvin Minsky, Dan Ariel, Oliver Sacks, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Dan Gilbert, Jeff Hawkins, Tony Robbins, Ken Robinson (as @Ed mentions below)…the list could go on forever. They are all great!
This may be off-topic but on your slideshow you mention “Hedgehog management,” does that have any relation to “Hedhog concept” talked about in Jim Collins book “Good to Great: Why Some Businesses Make the Leap and Others Don’t?” Just wondering.
Personally, I don’t have any good advice to add about giving presentations. I am more of an introvert, and I always hated presenting things in class. 😛 Maybe one day. I imagine the more that I understand a topic the easier it is to present it. I used to do presentations on synthesizers for an electronic music class and I could fly by that one pretty easily, answer questions, and all.
Great article!
Amber, My favorite TED is Ken Robinson on Creativity.. need to get lost in those vids more for sure.
Good advice. In lieu of tree-killing paper handout that’d just get lost, I put the list of sources on my blog with links to posts, papers, Twitter, etc. I did put a hashtag in the footer, didn’t think it messed up the slides. Only thing I didn’t do was more contact info placement: I know I gave out business cards, included web, email, Twitter links but maybe not enough. After the talk, I checked the hashtags and tweeted the blog link of sources to attendees, good to follow up via Twitter and email. FWIW.
I always use Delicious as a way to share links, but hadn’t thought of the bit.ly angle. I assume you’re using it to track how many people from a specific presentation go to your Delicious page? Great idea.
I also find that a leave-behind/handout (with your contact information on it, of course) with additional resources is viewed as valuable by attendees, and offers another way to continue the relationship beyond the presentation.
I put together an ebook with a summary of talking points and a glossary of terms for people to take away after a presentation. Usually runs about 7-9 pages in length. For the most part, the feedback on doing this has been tremendously positive! People love it, they find it useful and they’re contacting me with their questions (more client inquiries too).
It’s a simple thing but it does require some work. But in my opinion, it’s well worth the time.
As for using Deliciuos – I love it! It’s a great way to compile resources and share ’em. Unfortunately, I think it’s an under-utilized resource.
Thanks for the Social Media cases on Delicious, very useful stuff Amber!
Oh, you did NOT just ask me about favorite TED speeches! *deep breath*
All-time Fave: Pattie Maes demos the 6th Sense (your world gets blown apart at the 3:30 mark) – http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html
Blaise Aguera Y Arcas demos Photosynth & Seadragon – http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html
Not strictly a TED talk, but dammit, Jesse Schell needs an invitation – http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jesse_schell_when_games_invade_real_life.html
I could go on, but might break the internet if I do. Your call…
Alltime favorite TED speach: Elizabeth Gilbert http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
There are so many “favorites” but no one nailed authentic to me like Elizabeth did. Her style is naturally ultra-personal, somewhat self-depricating, yet funny and larger-than-life in a subtle, unpresuming fashion. Here’s what I mean–even her clothes during the presentation–black. No Powerpoint. No need. She was the center of attention. Her story draws you in–it’s all about authenticity, the story and her. These are her only props, and she nails it.
When you want to make a huge impact, amplify YOU. The drama is in what you don’t bring to the party, and the focus narrows, people aren’t distracted, you accentuate what matters, they pay attention.
There’s no place to hide here, though. You must know your story. Yet, since this is all about being authentic, if you’re being you, everything should be just fine.
(Oh and bonus cuz–I love her subject “nurturing creativity!”)
Thanks for the outstanding post as always! –Daphne
http://daphnestreet.wordpress.com/
I attended the recent Converge South conference. Jeffrey Cohen (@jeffreylcohen on Twitter) was one of the presenters. The first slide of his presentation included a link to SlideShare, to which he’d already uploaded his presentation. I’d never seen anyone do that before, but it makes perfect sense. A lot of people are going to wonder if slides are available, and he answered that question before it was even asked.