Understanding your audience
Good presentations do not happen in isolation – if it’s all about you and your message, you are missing 50% of the equation.Persuasion means to win others over, not defeat them. In order to do this you need to uncover the audience’s wants and needs.Get curiousQuestion...
Turning complaints into compliments
In 2008 a young musician named Dave Carroll was flying with his band from Halifax Nova Scotia to Omaha Nebraska. He wrapped his Taylor guitar carefully and placed it in a hard carry case. He labelled it is fragile and handed over to the airline. At the stopover in...
Presenting Your Research
I was asked the other day what I like most about my job. My answer came easily. What I most enjoy about my job is helping smart people explain what it is they do. I’ve been doing a bit of this lately having facilitated a number workshops for researchers and academics...
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,...
Don’t read that speech!
One of the things I love about my job is the incredible variety of people and subjects I am exposed to on a daily basis. Whenever I am helping someone write a speech though, the questions are very similar: How am I going to present all this information in my 20 minute...
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.