Conversational Presenting

Conversational Presenting.

Introduction.

For many decades, people from ceremonial

podiums and famous stages around the world

have delivered inspiring linear presentations

that help their audiences to feel empowered

or see things in a new way (think TED). The

delivery style in office spaces has followed

suit, but without the same degree of success.

Rehearsed and inf lex ib le scr ipts in the

workplace have too often caused l isteners

to struggle to remain interested. And, in

today’s world of rapidly decreasing attention

spans and demanding mobi le devices , a

typical business presentation fal l ing f lat is

almost expected.

The good news is it doesn’t have to be that way.

With a shift in approach, presenters can turn

their presentations into dialogues, making them

interactive and interesting enough to keep viewers

tuned in while their pocket-sized screens remain

in the pockets where they belong.

Welcome to what we at Prezi call Conversational

Presenting. This two-way approach enables

presenters to jump straight into the content that

matters most to any given audience, creating a

consistently relevant and engaging experience

from beginning to end.

In this e-book, we’ll take a closer look at exactly

why the traditional approach consistently falls

short in business, the future of presenting as we

see it, and how adopting our method can help

you be more successful in your endeavors.

One way is the wrong way.

CHAPTER ONE

OF 12ONE WAY IS THE WRONG WAY

Stage fright, sweaty palms, forgotten lines, oh my!

Have you ever planned a presentation according

to an allotted amount of time? When presenters

are tasked with filling up, say, a 15-minute block,

they tend to spend a good chunk of it talking

about themselves. It should come as no surprise

that audiences would rather dig into the parts of

the presentation that are most beneficial to them,

but memorized slides don’t provide the flexibility

needed to discover and prioritize this information.

One-way delivery makes such filler material a

natural alternative.

Have you ever been guilty of reading directly from

a slide during a presentation? While doing so can

ease any concerns about forgetting what to say,

over-reliance on software can make a bad situation

even worse. An audience’s attention is influenced by

the attention of a presenter, and just like a magician

distracting a crowd from the mechanics of his tricks,

it can be advantageous. Done wrong, it can be a

complete disaster. After all, nothing about reading

a screen along with the main act—who should be

stealing the show—strikes as particularly compelling.

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember

that audience members are no different from

anyone else: their time is precious. If they have

to sit through a presentation that’s impersonal,

uninteresting, or only asks them to engage at the

start and end, they’re likely going to spend the

the majority of it sneaking in personal tasks, like

checking email or social media.

Public speaking is a visceral fear for many of us, and for good reason. To begin with, nothing triggers our

nerves quite like standing up in front of a crowd. Second, speeches are typically memorized, and when

we memorize, we create a lot of unnecessary opportunity for those nerves to cause mistakes—such as

forgetting a line or stumbling over a word.

Presenting is a two-way street.

CHAPTER TWO

OF 12PRESENTING IS A TWO-WAY STREET

Make it a conversation, not a lecture.

1. The Structure.

Instead of telling a story page by page (or slide by

slide), conversational presenting utilizes a single

space. With the zoom and panning features Prezi

offers, this space can be explored in new ways each

time, just like a digital map.

Changing the format has the biggest impact on

the presenter. Rather than committing a

sequence of information to memory, this map-like

arrangement requires unprompted knowledge.

Learning to tell the story in an unstructured way

results in being able to speak to any part in any

order, and that makes for a much more confident,

persuasive presenter.

Conversational presenting is a little like this in that it

requires just enough participation from the audience

to keep them engaged.

Conversational presenting turns everything about the traditional approach on its head in two moves

that are radically different from what we’re used to:

OF 12PRESENTING IS A TWO-WAY STREET

2. The Delivery.

Designed for an interactive delivery, a conversational

presentation relies on audience participation.

Beginning with a question can get the dialogue

going, and ultimately allow the presenter to plot

a course. At Prezi, we suggest a simple but

effective start: What would you like to focus on?

Once an audience member declares what he or she

would like to know more about, the presenter is able

to quickly navigate to the area of interest and speak

to it as necessary.

Changing the delivery has the biggest impact on the

audience. Think back to your days in the classroom.

When your teacher asked a question, there was

a possibility of you getting called on to answer it.

Surely this made you more alert and attentive.

Conversational presenting is a little like this in that it

requires just enough participation from the audience

to keep them engaged. “What would you like to focus on?”

By changing the structure of the presentation and the style in which it’s delivered, both presenter and audience are

able to overcome a handful of pretty big challenges associated with presenting. Because the audience is being asked

to participate in the conversation, they’re more alert and can therefore remain engaged with the material. And because

the presenter needs to be able to jump into any part of the story at any time, there’s no script to forget or stumble over.

The right choice for the modern office.

CHAPTER THREE

OF 12THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR MODERN OFFICE

Better your business.

It saves time.

Gone are the days of using filler material in a

presentation, such as the dreaded “About Me/Us”

slide. When you have the flexibility to ask a

boardroom full of executives or potential clients

what they want to learn about that day, and continue

to use their feedback to navigate through the

information you have prepared, you’re only ever

going to present what’s needed.

This super-focused approach amounts to a lot of

saved time for your audience as well as for you the

presenter. And as most of us know by now:

time is money.

The presentation is always relevant.

A conversational presentation has enough room for

every single little detail you could ever dream of, but

doesn’t bind you to sharing it all. Instead, it allows

you to be prepared for any level of interest in any

topic using the same presentation.

Let’s say that in an effort to gain more budget and

buy-in for a particular project, you’ve prepared a

presentation for a number of colleagues within

your organization. The plan is to deliver it several

times over several days to accommodate different

teams’ schedules, but what about interests? These

are often very specific to department, but nobody

As we move further into an era that sees the first internet-raised generation enter the workforce

in massive waves, the shift in communications is increasingly evident. People—no matter audience

member, presenter, client, or colleague—want to ask questions and provide their own insights. They

want to problem solve and debate. They want their opinions heard and taken into account.

This makes conversational presenting a natural choice for professionals. We’ve spoken to many Prezi

users and have found that the benefits of utilizing our approach in everyday business are diverse, but

some of our favorites include:


wants to put the time into redesigning the same

presentation every time they’re about to approach a

new group of people.

With conversational presenting, this becomes a

non-issue. Simply include all the information needed

and let your audience pick and choose what they

care most about. You’ll be relevant each and every

time without having to do double or triple the work.

This works great for presenting to global

teams too, as interests can also be dependent

on location.

Showing information in context paints a clearer picture.

Here’s a common scenario: it’s lunch time at the

office. You’re not sure what to eat. You pull up a

maps service online, type in your work address, and

then zoom in to see which tasty options are closest

to you. Nothing looks new or exciting, but then a

coworker mentions a restaurant you haven’t tried

yet. You don’t see it within the two-block radius

you were hoping for, so you type the name of the

restaurant into the maps service to find it, then

zoom out to see how far away it is from your current

location. As a next step, you check how long it will

take to walk vs. how long it will take in an Uber.

Seeing lunch locations in context like this makes you

a well informed—albeit very hungry—person, and

a well informed person can be trusted to make the

right decision. This is how conversational presenting

works to get your ideas across to an audience in

an incredibly effective way. When a viewer can

compare and contrast different ideas, as well as see

how even the smallest details fold into the larger

ones, they have a much clearer understanding of

the picture as a whole.

Much like seeing lunch locations in relation to where you are on a map, putting your ideas in context helps paint a clearer picture with your audience.

MyOffice

Nom and Then


Visual storytelling is more memorable.

At this point, let’s assume you’re convinced

conversational presenting is the way to go (woo!)

and you’re eager to get started. Before you drop

slides directly from PowerPoint into Prezi, know

that tweaking your approach to content is required

in addition to a change in format and delivery.

After all, how can you expect to have a successful

conversation if you’re too busy rattling off bullet

points that—impressive as they may be—likely no

one will remember?

What many of us know these days as visual

storytelling complements conversational presenting

perfectly. We’ve got a ton of research to explain why

visuals work best in presentations, but the gist of it is

simply that our brains are built for them. Between 80

and 90% of the information that our brain processes

comes in through our eyes, and almost incredibly,

two-thirds of the brain’s electrical activity is

dedicated to vision when the eyes are open. In other

words, we are hardwired to consume visuals, and

our brains have evolved powerful storage capacity

for this type of information.

When translating your content into a conversational

presentation, think of what you can condense into

quickly digestible visuals. Take projected growth for

example. It’s a routinely shared statistic, but typically

presented using a graph and squiggly lines that are

hard to read from afar. Here’s how that data could

look using visual storytelling techniques:

A visual like this is perfect for a map-like delivery

style. See how the size of the illustrations

communicates growth without even having to

look at the actual numbers? It requires very little

processing or mathematics to comprehend, and is

easier to remember than plots on an axis. Having

this image on the screen as you chat with your client

will communicate your message visually while you

communicate it verbally. That’s a double whammy!

50M

12.5M

2014 2015-2016

Projecting exponential growth over the next year

https://prezi.com/the-science/

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Conclusion.

While conversational presenting is not going to

be the right way to go in every single instance, the

direction our workforce is moving in will certainly

make it the best option more often than not. With

a combination of a map-like structure, meaningful

movement, and visually appealing content, Prezi

makes delivering a presentation that operates like

a conversation easier than ever.

We at Prezi are proud to be one of the many

companies to bring productivity into the 21st

century, and the first to offer a solution that treats

presentations as more than just that. Because in

business you’re always adapting, and we believe

you should have a platform with the flexibility to

support you.

Find out more about conversational presenting today by taking a tour of our Prezi Business workshop.

https://prezi.com/business/workshop/

Conversational Presenting

Business

Transcript of Conversational Presenting