Showing posts with label public speaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public speaking. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, November 18, 2012
public speaking~ 9 Easy Ways to Remember Your Presentation Material
9 Easy Ways to Remember Your Presentation Material
One of the most common reasons we experience presentation anxiety is the fear that we will forget what we have to say and risk losing credibility. A method many use to address this fear is to create PowerPoint slides as a memory aid. However, this is short-sighted because nothing erodes your credibility as a speaker faster than signaling to the audience that you are dependent on your slides.
Seasoned presenters are able to announce a slide before showing it. At a minimum, they know their material so well that all they need to do is briefly glance at the slide to know what’s coming next. You can achieve this by doing simple memory boosting practices to remember your presentation material and, in turn, reduce your anxiety.
Here are nine tips to help you remember what you have to say.
1. Use the Palace Method
Research into brain science has proven that there is a very deep connection between the way we remember an event and the space in which it occurred. The brain system that is important for memory is also important for space; in other words, we remember things on the basis of spatial locations or “spatial scaffolds.” This is an ancient memory technique, commonly referred to as The Palace Method or Mind Palace. To learn how to use the method, watch Joshua Foer’s video, “To Remember Better, Build a Mansion in Your Mind“, or read his book, Moonlighting with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.
2. Use mind maps
Mind maps are diagrams that allow you to lay out all of your presentation material in a visual shape rather than in list form. This can be a powerful memory aid as the visual shape or image is imprinted in your brain and makes it easier to recall the information than a linear list of items, especially if you are a visual learner. Try practicing your presentation from a mind map rather than from traditional notes and see what happens.
You can draw mind maps manually or you can purchase mind mapping software such as Matchware or MindGenius.
3. Know the value of focusing for eight seconds
Memory experts tell us that it takes an uninterrupted eight seconds for a piece of information to be processed through the hippocampus and into memory—this is how information is encoded in our brain. Examine how you go about preparing for a presentation. Are you concentrating fully on the task of transferring the information from your notes into memory? Or are you in the habit of interrupting yourself by checking e-mail, reacting to each BlackBerry ring or answering the phone? Remember the crucial eight seconds rule and carve out dedicated time when you can be laser-focused on rehearing the information without any interruptions. You will not only know your material better but you will also shorten your preparation time considerably.
4. Practice the 20-20-20 rule of rehearsal
How long should you be rehearsing your presentation? Memory experts recommend the 20-20-20 rule which prescribes going over the details of a presentation for 20 minutes, then repeating the same material twice more. If material is not repeated within 30 minutes, it is not encoded into long-term memory.
5. Rehearse out loud
Researchers found that memory improved by more than 10 percent for words spoken out loud. Rehearse your entire presentation out loud for no less than five to six times. Do this and watch your confidence in the material grow as you not only boost your memory of the material, but you also end up turning the presentation from a mere recital of facts to something that you have truly internalized—it changes the presentation from a thespian activity to a message that you deliver from the inside out.
6. Practice to music
Music is an effective tool to help us retain information. Dr. Georgi Lozanov, a psychologist, developed a methodology for teaching foreign languages which involved using baroque music with about 60 beats per minute. This type of music activates the left and right brain; the simultaneous action of both hemispheres maximizes the retention of information. Students not only learned in a fraction of the normal time, but they had an average of 92 percent retention. The same applies to retaining your presentation material. Consider listening to music while rehearsing your presentation to help you absorb and retain large amounts of information.
7. Record your presentation
A simple, yet surprisingly not widely-known, feature in PowerPoint is the record narration function. This allows you to record yourself delivering your presentation and then playing it back. Hearing yourself narrating your presentation from slide to slide will boost your ability to remember your material, as you are now using a visual and auditory memory aid. If you are unfamiliar with this feature, see the step-by-step video “How to Record a Narration for a PowerPoint Presentation for Dummies.”
8. Rehearse before bedtime
Neuroscientists uncovered a link between sleep and learning and memory. The findings showed that sleep enhances the consolidation of recently-acquired information in our memory system. Therefore, if you rehearse your presentation just before bedtime, you are more likely to remember the material more easily in the morning. Try doing this for your next presentation.
9. Improve your working memory
Working memory, also referred to as our “mental chalkboard” is a system in our brain that allows us to temporarily retain and manipulate information necessary for complex tasks such as language comprehension, reasoning and learning new things. Improving our working memory can be helpful in controlling our ability to pay attention and remember things. In a Psychology Today article, William Klemm, Professor of Neuroscience at Texas A&M University, writes that research now shows that working memory can be strengthened by training. He refers to Cogmed, a new computer software program, which has been found helpful in improving working memory through a series of daily exercises. More on Cogmed’s method can be seen in this video.
Keep in mind that only you know the ideas that you want to present. If you forget something, simply move on and the audience will likely not notice. You are not delivering an opera where the audience has a libretto to follow your script. If you remember something later, simply say so: “There is one other item I would like to add,” or “Let me digress for a moment to mention another point.” As the 19th century public orator, Henry Ward Hughes said long ago, “Worry is rust upon the blade.” Stay sharp by replacing the time used for worry with time spent to acquire some of these memory improvement tools.
Illustration by Cannaday Chapman
Saturday, November 17, 2012
public speaking~ Eye contact that will make your audience like you from the first glance
Eye contact that will make your audience like you from the first glance
When it comes to eye contact you need to remember only 2 techniques. Not many, but you need to make them a part of yourself. Always use them whenever you are on stage!
a) Scan and stop.
In terms of eyes you never speak to the entire audience, you always speak to only one person. Have a conversation directly with one person, look him or her in the eyes. After you have logically completed one idea, which usually is 10-20 seconds scan an audience and then stop your eyes on another person. Repeat this process again.
Cover the entire room with eye contacts. Randomly pick people who you look at in the front row, in middle of the room, on the left side, on the right side, in the back. When you look at one person you will connect with entire audience. Look one person in the eyes, talk to him or her, scan the audience and look another person in the eye. This is the only way you can look at you audience and there are no other options.
Some people may advise to look at the line of horizon, because it will seem that you look at the entire audience. No! You will look like a person who doesn’t look people in the eyes and is insincere. If you look one person in the eyes you look the entire audience in the eyes. If you look at the entire audience, you don’t look anyone in the eyes.
b) Stop on Mr. Happy more often
No matter how good you are on stage you will always have people in your audience who like your speech and who negatively perceive your message. Imagine that you speak in front of 200 people who enjoy your speech and there is only one man, who constantly looks at the watch and frowns. Who will you look at, the most often? Yes, you will look at this man and think “Am I saying something wrong? I’ll try to convert the negative man into a supporter by all means.” Do you know what happens next? You lose your energy after looking at the negative man and all 200 people suffer by not hearing your best presentation.
When you scan the audience and pick people for eye contact pick positive people more often. Get energy from them. Don’t concentrate on one negative person that sucks your energy. Share good energy from positive people with the entire audience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)