Laura Bergells from the MANIACTIVE blog writes that you may be undermining your message by starting with the words…I think. Read her short blog post at: http://goo.gl/WFWvu

Watch the recording to learn about the National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database. We talk about the 4 different types of MeSH terms and how searchers can benefit from using MesH to build a search. We investigate the structure of the MeSH database and we look at the components of a MeSH record.

Sometimes the audio and video portions of the recording are out of sync. If the slides don’t seem to match up with what the presenter is saying, close your browser window and reload the recording. This may fix the problem.

https://webmeeting.nih.gov/p78218587/

According to Olivia Mitchell, a presentation trainer, limiting how much you say may help get your message across more effectively.

Mitchell says, “It’s a brutal truth – but the more you say – the less your audience will get.”

Mitchell suggests that you edit your presentation with a fine-toothed comb and cut down any bulleted lists to no more than 3 items each. She says that 3 items are easy for both the presenter and the audience to remember. If you include more items, the first items on the list will most likely be forgotten.

I recently attended a free webinar by PowerPoint makeover guru Rick Altman. Here are some of the notes I took:

• Put the needs of your audience first.

• Don’t include these slides:
  •  About us
  • Mission Statement

• Slides should compliment/enhance the message.

• Share your ideas; don’t explain your slides.

• Remember phone booths? Remember seeing pictures of people trying to cram as many people as possible into a phone booth? Is your slide like that phone booth…crammed with information? You’re not going to get any contents for that.

• Nobody goes to a presentation to see your slides. They come for your expertise. Don’t make your slides more important than yourself.

• They come for you, but make it about them.

• Ask yourself: if the projector blew up, could you give your presentation without your slides?

• Three things that make a good presentation (these should all be different from each other):

1. What you say.
2. What you show.
3. What you give to the audience.

• Asked: What is your biggest complaint about PowerPoint slides. Answered: Too much text on slides.

• Try to make each bullet point 3 words or less (unlike this bullet point).

• Problem:You want your slides to do double duty; to be the visual component for a presentation and a handout. The purposes are disparate. Create 2 different documents.

• Say it first, and then show it.

• You can follow Rick Altman on Twitter (@rickaltman)

• http://www.betterpresenting.com/handout/handout.pdf

Connie Malamed, an eLearning coach, posted an article on her blog called: 20 Things to Remember about Forgetting. Follow the link: http://theelearningcoach.com/learning/science-of-forgetting/

Note items 15-19 and their implications for training.

The title of the article I’ve linked to here is 5 Great eLearning Boredom Busters, however, I think the suggestions work for in-person presentations as well. I’ve listed the 5 suggestions below. Follow the link to read more and about each item and solutions.

http://info.shiftelearning.com/blog/bid/248676/5-great-elearning-boredom-busters

Olivia Mitchell is a presentation trainer based in New Zealand who writes a blog called Speaking about Presenting [http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/].

In a post titled 4 Ways to Move People from Attention to Engagement Olivia writes that you have people’s attention to begin with; the next step is to try to engage them so that they want to hear and learn more.

Olivia says this about the difference between attention and engagement:

If your audience is attentive, you can pour information into them.
If your audience is engaged, they are sucking that information from you.

Visit this link to read the full blog post:
http://www.speakingaboutpresenting.com/content/attention-to-engagement/

From a post by Tom Mucciolo on the Indezine blog.

Designing to the Delivery

“Imagine a presenter who is challenged by verbal fillers (ums, uhs) when trying to paraphrase text, giving the appearance of nervousness. A slide designer could create more graphic images, data-driven charts, perhaps interspersed video, to allow the speaker to “talk around” the visual imagery (cues) with little or no text on the screen.”

The described approach will only work if the presenter knows the material well. Instead of reading a slide, create a visually rich slide that has all the information the speaker needs to convey a message. Less is more.

Read the full post called Slides and Speakers at: http://blog.indezine.com/2012/10/slides-and-speakers-by-tom-mucciolo.html

Join the National Library of Medicine Training Center (NTC) trainers as they share “aha moments,” tips, techniques and research-based recommendations from three recent professional development conferences.  We will discuss:

• Presentation skills, including better PowerPoint design
• Tips for creating participant-centered training activities
• Distance learning recommendations

Date:  November 7, 2012

Time:  3 – 4 pm ET

Place:  Adobe Connect; web address will be sent to registrants

Register here:  http://nnlm.gov/ntcc/classes/schedule.html#class501

You’ve done the work; you’ve collected the data; now what? In recent years, there has been an outpouring  of tools to corral data and present it in a human-friendly format (ex. Infographics). A recent article in Information Today provides a run down of many different options based on the type of information you are trying to present. http://goo.gl/rf1mt