Death by PowerPoint 10 Years On
Ten years ago I delivered ‘Escaping PowerPoint Purgatory’ at the Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD) conference. I spoke about the research from Prof John Sweller¹ and how putting text up on the screen encourages us to multitask and this, in turn,...
Perfecting the Pitch
Earlier this year I attended the Conduit Accel Pitch Demo Day event hosted by the University of Adelaide. I had met many of the entrepreneurs who pitched at this event and I was delighted to see how much they have progressed over the months that I had worked with...
Stand Up Speak Up And Persuade
Think about your job. How much would you get done if you were passive? Probably not much. What if you were pushy? You might get something done – once. Why? Because pushy kills relationships. People may let you get away with it once and then after that...
Good communicators start at the top
“I just can’t do it – I can’t explain eight years of research in three minutes!” My heart went out to her, I could see she was struggling. It happened at a workshop I was facilitating for PhD students. I was helping them prepare for the Three Minute Thesis 3MT...
Stretch and tweak
In a previous post, I wrote about how good presenters are made, not born and how speaking in public can be learned like any other skill. The challenge is that we expect to be perfect straight away. And if we’re not perfect, we feel as though we have failed. How...
Sharon Ferrier, through her business ‘Persuasive Presentations’ consults to organisations and individuals who have a need to improve their communication, presentation skills and confidence in public speaking.