Stella Porto's List: effective presentations & talks

"ave your audience from another dull presentation and increase their focus by building a presentation that answers their questions instead of smothering them with slides. Author Joey Asher explains how to create effective presentations built around real questions.

Most presentations are complicated messes. Listeners wonder "What are the key points?", "Why should I care?", "Why is this so complicated?" and "Do we have to look at that many slides?"

Presentations don't have to be complicated to be good. There is a simple approach to creating simple presentations that connect with the needs of any audience—and you won't need to create a single PowerPoint slide.

We call it "The Three Q Method." It works because it is built around your audience members' key questions about the topic. The only prop you'll need is a flip chart."

"Whether you're an Apple devotee or not, it's tough to argue that Steve Jobs isn't an extremely polished and charismatic public speaker. Check out this video to lift a few techniques from his playbook.

Steve Jobs gives excellent presentations with clear themes, smooth transitions, and he keeps his audience hanging on his words and the material he's presenting. In the video below Carmine Gallo highlights several of the key techniques that Steve Jobs uses for a successful presentation. The video is packed with great information but does come off like, well, it's being presented by a communications coach who really loves Steve Jobs—which Gallo is and he did write a book about Jobs' presentation style after all."