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Effective Digital Presentation Skills | Five Quick-Fire Tips

Mashing up my analogue speaker coaching for digital mediums.

Was asked by the wonderful humans at Teulo to put together some insights for presenting online for their leaders, members and partners, as they (and many others) move to online presentation formats for their events.

The above is a snappy and concise look at the main aspects of effective communication when using digital means which I’ve noted during the past fifteen years of delivering, devouring and learning from stuff online, covering:

  • Lighting
  • Camera
  • Audio
  • Engagement
  • Presentation

The content side and story narrative is a whole other (series) of video(s) and depends on the person, audience and intended outcome, hence, why the tips solely focus on more functional elements.

Had permission to share with the wider (global) community during this troubling time, so thank you Teulo for allowing, means a lot for my anxious brain and heart at the moment.

Related resources: Act as if You’re Really There: What learning to speak remotely teaches us about how to compensate for the coming era of social distancing, Douglas Rushkoff & The Definitive Guide To Facilitating Remote Workshops: Insights, tools and case studies from digital-first companies and expert facilitators (free ebook)

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Creative Leadership NZ 2019 | REGISTRATIONS OPEN

The third bold offering.

This morning, public registrations for CLNZ19 were opened.

The theme is NURTURING COURAGE which explores and cultivates the bravery needed to communicate and tackle creative challenges and really looking forward to being back at Te Auaha, NZ Institute of Creativity.

Very excited that this is the first year we’ve taken brand sponsorship (I personally committed to the financial burden and risk of the 2017 & 2018 ones) and it’s great to have the much aligned organisation, IMNZ on board! The extra money will enable the crafting of the imaginative opportunities to connect with other attendees in between the fantastic wisdom shared by the impressive – and ever growing – speaker line-up (see above).

Building on the insights from last year am keen to continue to hone the event both in terms of market position and also amplify the experience further (which again further differentiates the offer).

So please share on through your networks as it all helps, and see you there – oh and if you need a few ‘whys’:

REASONS TO ATTEND

1. “Creativity, originality and initiative” is the 3rd listed skills in demand come 2022 in the World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2018
2. Connect with others who are enthusiastic and curious leaders (attendees from last year cumulatively lead 7,295 humans, an average of 40 per delegate)
3. Engage in bold conversations with a community which reflects diversity (2/3rds of attendees from the last two events had female names)
4. Build out your community of influence with a varied network of industry and sector leaders (last year 85+ cross-sector organisations were represented and the year before, 70+)
5. Steal like an artist insights and wisdom from all the amazing speakers / facilitators
6. Define your personal learning journey with the array of workshops throughout the day
7. Apply the learning at the masterclass opportunities available on the second day (where you’re not just listening but testing and doing)
8. Get away from the ‘to-do’ list and into an arena which stretches imaginations and inspires new thinking
9. End the year on a personal and professional development high…

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Curation As An Emerging Skillset | A 5 Step Guide

5 step curation skillset plan

How to become a curation king / queen.

Traditionally, a curator researches and puts together a collection which speaks to a narrative and / or serves a larger idea in art galleries and / or museums.

In the current digital habitat, all can participate in this activity, so the challenge is honing the skills and leveraging the tools. Why?

Because for you and the organisation / company you serve, curation will be at the forefront of:

  • developing new ideas;
  • broadening discussions;
  • navigating and sifting through information to concentrate it into action;
  • celebrating those in specific industries; plus
  • uncovering / creating / deepening relationships to those that matter.

How?

Here we go:

1. Find : Track other digital curators to emulate / learn from.

Follow / learn from Tina or Jason or Maria or Shaun or the Open Culture peeps etc—rather just serving individual tastes, these guys are also aiming to inspire, educate, challenge, explode wonder, intrigue, curiosity, in their audience.

2. Find : Deliberately forage content from many sources.

Online is a noisy place and it’s not simple to find the signal. For many of us with the tools such as advanced search techniques plus RSS it’s a simple case of making the web work for you. RSS allows for a filtering on a delicious scale which when mashed up with things like IFTTT and Yahoo Pipes can become the perfect recipe for making yourself look double awesome.

3. Follow : Click those inspirational digital breadcrumbs.

Be careful not to get stuck in the filter bubble—sites like Tumblr and Pinterest exemplify curating platforms plus once you start clicking you will discover how deep the rabbit hole goes. Don’t worry too much and just click away, flow around areas of interest, follow those links and see where those web-roads take you. You’ll be astonished with the gems you’ll find.

4. Focus : Sharpen the sights and cull the chaff to find the good stuff.

Now you’ve been using the above tools / techniques for a while it’s time to sort and strain. It might be you’ll decide to stop following certain feeds and replace them with ones who serve more specific content. It should always be a trial and error process in pursuit of revelatory inspiration.

5. Frame : Context is king so reposition & tell stories with the new found ideas.

The best curators (some listed above) contextualise the treasures found by weaving a narrative around. This adds the much needed context for the audience and yourself when you return years later plus demonstrates your ability to join ideas into salient points. It’s time to shape the reason and link the work to creative action (whether that be an infographic, white space in an established industry, applying divergent technologies into traditional approaches, learning from obscure voices from other sectors to influence innovative strategies etc). Wrap those finds up in beautiful potential.


So examples of where this can be applied:

  • students can be taught the above as a research methodology for their studies;
  • product designers can utilise these steps to gain a deeper picture of the problem / industry their serving;
  • teachers can employ these techniques as a way to collate content related to their subject focus;
  • start-ups can use these tools to aggregate ideas around the market they are entering;
  • leaders can illustrate brand stories in which they would like to emulate.

…you get the idea!

Follow the plan and basically suck the juicy wisdom out of the web then humanise it for good.

How relevant is curation in your role / organisation? And who else is talking about this as a skillset (am keen to learn / connect)? Riff in the comments!

Related / inspired / remixed from original post 2013 | Create / Curate plus all images from Graphics Fuel
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