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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)

#15 March 2020 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

A bunch of wild and wonderful things to spend your time on.

READ

Another face-collecting AI company hosting three billion images hacked (this one scrapped their database from Facebook so nothing to worry about really).

How Amazon tracks all that you read.

About a mystery radio signal from deep space appears to be following a 16-day cycle.

Some deep truths here about the lack of ethic consideration in technology advancements.

How 1,000 is now a 100 in terms of what is needed as a fan base to sustain oneself.

WATCH

EXPLORE

Those nice people from The Smithsonian Institute have just released 2.8 million images free to access and use.

150,000 botanical and animal illustrations available for free download from Biodiversity Heritage Library.

This great example of environmental storytelling & journalism from Norway.

A brimming online database of old book illustrations.

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.

Image credit: mine, sunset colours over Welly.

Looking For A Keystone Sponsor | Align With A Community Of Leaders And Creatives

An opportunity to amplify your brand in the NZ leadership and creativity space.

For two years, I bootstrapped the Creative Leadership NZ conference and was turning a profit from day one. Last year I took financial sponsorship for the first time (outside of a grant from the US Embassy to support the expenses of bringing over two US nationals to speak) to enable the production side of the event and record all the talks (watch them here).

For CLNZ20 (Mon 30th November & 1st December 2020), am looking for a brand who wants to connect with 200 amazing pioneers at a (three-times) sold out conference, whilst also taking the opportunity to develop related content and outreach strategies in the leadership and creativity space.

Have a whole sponsor deck ready to share with interested parties although here’s the important bit:

CLNZ20 is offering one keystone sponsor opportunity for $40,000+GST, in return for:
– 15x two-day VIP delegate places (worth $15,000)
– 2x verbal mentions at event from MC (both days)
– 3x invites to pre-event speakers meal / meetup
– 3x invites to satellite events throughout the year
– prime interaction space in venue plus 1x signage space at satellite events throughout the year
– keystone sponsor logo features:
– website*
– 2x announcements on CLNZ Linkedin private alumni group
– speaker & registration announcement email newsletters
– pre+post delegate email newsletters
– post event review video
– post event speaker videos
– event programme (with 50 words)

*will last for a year from time of signed agreement.

As detailed in last years write-up and review, the diversity and variety of organisations represented provides a tasty opportunity to amplify your brand in this arena:

Read and digest the 2017, 2018 plus 2019 reviews which includes details of all aspects of the conference.

So if you’re interested in aligning your brand with a community of leaders and creatives please do get in touch.

CLNZ19 Talks Are All Live | Watch, Learn, Share

Including conference opening remarks (above).

At the end of last year, the third sold out Creative Leadership NZ conference brought together nearly 200 leaders (read full event review here) plus created another wonderful challenge to curate nine impressive humans to inspire the delegates.

Curating voices is one of the best aspects of being a creative producer and my process focusses on finding folks who are doing and / or have done great stuff plus have the ability to share that in a compelling way. It’s less about the titles and more about the personal traits these individuals can offer a madly curious audience.

CLNZ19 was the first time I took financial sponsorship which enabled me to up the production options to include recording and editing of the nine keynote talks (for legacy and showing others what they missed):

So any gems from above which stood out for you? What and where are you going to apply some of the lessons shared? Oh and have you signed up to receive email notifications for CLNZ20 so you can attend this year‽

#14 February 2020 | Monthly Digital Breadcrumbs

More curated things from around the wonderful World Wide Web (it’s the next big thing).

READ

How Skype is ‘audio graded’ by workers in China with no security strategies in place.

A mysterious radio signal from space seems to have suddenly vanished – even the aliens are hanging up on us…

Why women should start giving short men a chance.

How the Met Police will begin using live facial recognition cameras in London.

WATCH

EXPLORE

Online repository of great images and videos from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Listen to this ‘Creative Confidence Podcast’ about ‘Identifying Business Potential’.

Using sheet2site.com to make a website from a google spreadsheet (video).

All monthly digital breadcrumbs posts.

Image credit: Chinese Zodiac Year of the Rat from Casandra Banuelos via Mixkit (free illustrations to use / remix etc.).

Back To The Future | We Don’t Need (More) Roads

NZ just announced a $12 billion infrastructure package covering transport, schools, hospitals and roads (read more here)…

…although it’s mainly roads. My response:

It seems the idea of leading with kindness and compassion (from Jacinda Ardern) does not extend to the planet or into the future.

We are heading backwards not forwards into any kind of gentler approach to help the planet heal.

And I’m really struggling to find the token approach to adding a few bus lanes into the road investment strategy as the way forward as a nation (which builds its reputation on the 100% Pure brand).

I’m currently subcontracting on a piece of work around stakeholder engagement in the capital regarding some ideas to accelerate Wellington’s transformation into a low carbon city to reach their goal of becoming zero carbon by 2050, this has honestly taken the wind out of the sails.

This news also comes two days after the Prime Minister announces the next general election for September this year. Sighs!

Where’s the investment in radical and healthy earth plans which excites the nation and forges a new way forward for the world to follow…?

The Power Of A Great Introduction | Be A (Helpful) Diva

How to start a conference talk and / or presentation.

We can’t all be blessed with a hype-man like the one above, although if you are to speak at any kind of event, making sure you’re introduced properly is so important. Why? Because the first line of any talk and / or presentation is not the beginning of the experience the audience has of you, that is what the MC’s role is.

And we’ve probably all been to conferences where on occasions, they go too big, expounding statements of wonderment and pedigree beyond expectation and how much wisdom is now going to ensue. Other times there’s hardly a set-up, no context and a hospital pass of ‘will allow them to introduce themselves’, oof!

As a speaker, make sure you connect with the master or mistress of ceremonies (or whomever is doing the intro) and share with them a bio which is succinct enough to take about thirty seconds to read out (if it’s longer just highlight the important bits for them). Impress on them (if they don’t already know), how the aim is to aid them in enabling you to start with that arresting question and / or statement to hook the audience in.

Be a (helpful) diva!

Celebrating Nothing | How The Light Gets In

Championing zilch.

The mind produces something when you don’t think (via):

When the Hubble Ultra Deep Field telescope looked at a blank region of space there was so much to see:

Pauses in storytelling amplifies:

Jazz is the space between the notes:

There is never nothing going on:

Do you still not know how little endures?
Fling the nothing you are grasping out into the spaces we breathe.
Maybe the birds will feel in their flight how the air has expanded.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, From the First Duino Elegy translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

Just some stuff I’ve collected which create smiles and thoughts.