Category Archives: Communication
It was because of my new CEO that I left my last job
It’s true. My last CEO did a great job of making me sure I wanted to leave.
He officially joined the company in January of 2008, but I personally never saw him being active until the middle of February. In those first 6 weeks, he went around the rest of the world on a very expensive road-trip, visiting every branch of the company, talking with as many people as he could to find out who they were, what they wanted, how they operated and what was important to them.
When he finally arrived in Belgium, he did the same thing with most of our staff, including me. His approach, it seems, was always the same: He would ask a few questions, listen a lot and then say what he had to say. When he spoke, everything made sense. With me, it even made me decide to leave.
What he did was the finest form of active empathy and it allowed him to better understand his people and better communicate with them. When listening to me, he got an idea of who I was, what I was trying to achieve, my career aspirations, turn-ons and turn-offs. Listening attentively, he picked up on what really got me buzzing. And he quickly understood that what he wanted to achieve was not in-line with what I wanted to achieve. In no uncertain terms and in a way that made perfect sense to me, he outlined his strategy and what would be the place for my function. I understood I wouldn’t fit in and together we looked for ways to help me move on. Perfect!
Communicating in this way is an art and if it is done well, it is not a bad thing when other people who understand you decide to get off the train. It is a much better result that staying on the wrong train thanks to manipulative or bad communication.
If you want to align with other people, you need to do the same as my last CEO:
- Listen first. Ask lots of questions and drill down for more information.
- Try to get a sense of the situation, values and needs of the other person.
- Speak to people on their terms, using words they understand and align to their needs wherever possible.
- Don’t bullshit. Get to the point and speak clearly.
- Answer the only 3 questions that count.
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Connect to your audience, like Yannick Noah
Several years ago, my wife’s company invited its employees and family to “Roi Baudouin Stadium” in Brussels to see Johnny Hallyday in concert. Now, I’m not going to mention his name again, or (dare I say it in Belgium) mention how terrible that entire experience was for me. But I would like to say something about his support act, Yannick Noah.
Noah was a tennis player first, but now makes music. Opening for Johnny, he was wild. Hs music was full of energy and so was he. And then it happened: With his cordless microphone in hand, he jumped off the stage and ran into the crowd of 60,000 people, running around singing IN the crowd. I’ve never seen anything like it. 60,000 people and he still jumped in. It was awesome!
Now, I don’t think this was a pre-thought strategic move from him. i think he did this out of pure excitement. It not as if he was greeting his fans – they were there for Johnny (or because they were Belgian, or out of some kind of “wifely work obligation”). But what he did was brilliant and a good lesson for any presenter: Get in there. Be with your audience. It breaks boundaries, creates dynamism and connects you to the people you are talking to.
Here are a few simple ideas to try out the next time you speak in public:
- Don’t stand in the same place all the time. If you read “What you can learn from Dora-the-Explorer about presenting” you already know that movement can reinforce presentation structure. But it can also improve audience relations. Movement will change the room dynamics, the connections you have with one or other audience member…
- If you are presenting to a large audience (a big room, say 200 people) use whatever you can from the room layout to add dynamic movement to your presentation. If you can walk up an aisle to get closer to someone who asked a question, do it.
- Don’t forget that movement goes up and down as well as left and right and back and forth. I like very much to squat down or perch on the edge of a table when listening to a long comment or group discussion during a presentation in a small room. I’m trying to send the message that its not about me anymore, so I get a bit more out of the way.
- Meet people at the door. I’m sure if Yannick Noah could have shaken hands with the 60,000, he would have. The last time I spoke at a conference as part of Epsilon2012, I shook hands with every one of the 200-odd people coming into the room, looked them in the eye and thanked them for coming. Get in contact with your audience!
Almost every presentation you never see is either exactly the same as the last one, or a minor upgrade in terms of performance. Try these tips to make a mark on your audience and really connect.
i’m currently researching for more content for my e-book “Build and Deliver Awesome Presentations”. What else should I include? Please leave me a comment with ideas…
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37 easy Twitter tips for new users to get started
So, you’ve been on Twitter but you’re not sure of the best way to proceed. You thought about buying “The Twitter Book” but don’t have 20 euros to spend before Christmas/the end of the world/your next paycheque (choose appropriate). You can’t seem to find the free downloadable introduction to “Twitter Power” by Joel Comm.
Never mind.. just read on and follow these instructions for a great start to using Twitter. If you have questions, Tweet Me!
Choose a good Twitter handle
Take a little bit of time to choose your Twitter name (“handle”) well. Although you can change how your actual real name looks on your profile, you won’t be able to change your handle. Chances are your actual real name doesn’t exist anymore, so what can you do?
- Beware the addition of cheap numbers after your name. Who wants to be @johnSmith6875? If you can find a creative way to use numbers, go for it…
- If you are on Twitter to sell a product or service on Twitter, use your Twitter handle to reinforce your brand(name) – example @babybrussels
- If you are tweeting for or from your place of employment, be careful to not badly use their name in your Twitter handle
- Creative name creation is great. I use @BoyTurnsTurtle for non work-related tweeting and nobody said you actually have to use real words
- Be careful with other wierd characters – you may want to communicate your Twitter handle orally, so don’t use odd characters – I think my own handle @dan_steer is about as non-letter/number as you might want to go
- Make sure it is not too long. Twitter is limited to 140 characters and if you want people to “mention” you, you don’t want your long Twitter handle eating into their tweets – this will only annoy them
Take the time to make your profile good and complete
Along with your tweets, your bio is one of the first things people will see. Spend a moment on this…
- Write something about yourself in the bio and make sure to Be FAB to Be Heard
- Be consistent with other platforms – my original Twitter Bio is in line with my professional slogan: “I help people get better at stuff by creating and facilitating infinite learning opportunities”.
- Include a URL to your website, LinkedIn profile, book etc..
- If you are working on something specific or mid/long-term, you can consider having your bio as a kind-of static tweet. At the moment, mine is about the conference I will speak at in May 2013 – this will not change for a month or so
Background, colours etc..
- Again, updating the default settings is a minimum to show you are not a robot and actually care about your Twitter profile. Here is a simple background image that works quite well.
- You can get free and custom backgrounds for Twitter at http://www.twitrbackgrounds.com
- Consider creative uses of image, like here, to create brand consistency or a web-feel
- Check out this great free tutorial for Twitter background design
Use your Twitter photo
- Not having a photo/logo just looks sad – don’t be the guy with the wierd default Twitter egg. Fix it.
- If you use a personal photo, make sure we can actually see you. People like faces. But you can still do something a little different like I did.
- If you have a product or company logo that can look good as a Twitter logo, go for it
- Be consistent with other branding
Create 1 or 2 first tweets before you do any more
Its a chicken and egg thing: Should you start tweeting first or start following first? If you tweet first, no-one is following you, so its pointless. But the first reaction of many people you follow will be to look at your profile to see who you are and what you share. If there is nothing there they might not find you interesting and not follow. So, write 1 or 2 tweets before you follow people.
- Its OK to write something that announces your arrival on Twitter, but please don’t write the classic “So, this is Twitter. What is all the fuss about?” – its getting old…
- Include something useful in your first tweet that sets the scene – this could be a link to your own website or could already be a resource that is on-brand or related to your own area of expertise
…then start following people
Twitter offers you a bunch of ideas of who to follow. Personally, I think you should follow in the following order:
- Start with people who are on-brand with regard to your own interests (personal or professional) – in my case, this would be learning people
- Add only the famous people that won’t make you look stupid or bad. Sometimes your new visitors will look to see who you follow, in need of inspiration of a final push to follow you. Hopefully they won’t see porn-stars, random Justin Beibers or other odd people.
- By all means let Twitter use your contacts list to invite people to follow you, but think first if this is just going to be more spam in their inbox or if they are actually going to be interested in your tweets. Filter your list to include only the right people.
- Follow people who follow you?? There are lots of thought on this topic. Should you follow everyone or not? Personally, I have switched between “follow everyone who follows me” and “only follow people who tweet interesting things” without having ever decided. To meditate on…
What should I tweet?
The first answer to this question will always be “Whatever interests your (potential) followers” but to add a little weight to that I advise you to read points 5, 6 and 7 of my “9 must-remember guidelines to succeed with social media marketing”:
- Remember The Golden Triangle of Networking
- Stay on brand
- Blend your content
Personally, I try to offer as many relevant resources as possible via my Twitter account, mixing in my own ideas (like this blog) with those of others. I like to mention people and I try to make every tweet work as a stand-alone tweet when possible. Every now and again, I slip away from reference sharing to social or personal commentary, but this is quite rare.
Technically, HOW do I tweet?
If you like what you just read, the only thing now is to know how to ACTUALLY do it. Here’s a few simple ideas to get started with:
- If you see something interesting elsewhere on the internet, tweet it – example
- If you see something interesting on Twitter, retweet it – just click the button ..or “quote tweet” and use the letters RT if you want to add something to it yourself, like I did here
- Mention people with @ + their Twitter handle
- …you might “cc” them, just to say “hey, this is interesting” like here
- ..you could say “I got this (on Twitter) via @name” like here
- ..or if you included them in your own work, why not state it, like here
- ..or maybe ask someone a specific question, like here
- ..and thank people for retweeting/sharing your tweets/work, like here
- If replying to tweets, remember that your followers won’t see “the full picture” without extra effort – when I look at the Twitter streams of people who regularly have bits of conversation with people on Twitter, I get annoyed to not understand anything and my first impression is never “Here is someone who is useful for me to follow”.
- Favourite things you want to look at later, or to show you “like” the tweet
- Use a hashtag # to show that your tweet relates to a specific topic. As a general rule, place this at the end of your tweet, like here… unless you use the hashtagged word as part of your tweet sentence, like here.
Have fun!
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Turn horrible text driven PowerPoint slides into awesome big bold visual messages
During Presentation Skills training, we learn all about the 4 pillars of an effective presentation: Message, Structure, Content and Style. In content and style, we also look at how visual supports are used to support and message and speech: What would be the minimum effective dose when it comes to discussing a certain topic? Is a chart a better way of showing growth than a table? Should I add some images to my PowerPoint? And what kind of visual style should I use?
In my other post “9 PowerPoint Essentials for Real Business People”, I listed some very simple pointers for fixing PowerPoint slides. In this post, I develop one PPT slide example to show how we can turn bad text-driven slides into awesome big bold visual messages…
First, let’s look at the original slide in question:
This slide comes from a PPT deck in support of a presentation explaining how a particular bandage is better than another. One of the primary reasons is because this bandage doesn’t hurt when being taken off an abrasion-injury…
What’s wrong with this slide?
If you appreciate the 9 PPT Guidelines then its clear:
- There’s too much text
- The title is bad
- The colour contrast is not effective
- Its not very visual
Let’s see what we can do. First, to get to the minimum effective dose of text, take out anything that doesn’t have power (that’s why they call it PowerPoint, after all!):
- Look for what words carry the structural and content “weight”
- Take out useless prepositions (if, by, and, of…) and articles (a, the, an…)
You might end up with something like this…
That’s already a lot better!
One the ideas I like a lot about PowerPoint is Vinod Kholsa’s 5 second rule – if you can’t tell what a slide is about in 5 seconds, then its not good enough. A good next step to helping solve that is to add a message-driven title that actually says something. Try this:
..now, in the context of the greater presentation, we know immediately what this slide is about. What next?
Personally, I think a better colour contrast on PowerPoint slides makes a big difference to how physically easy it is to look at something and how aesthetically pleasing it can be. Keep the following in mind:
- Contrast is important to create good easy readability: Be sure to have light on dark or vice-versa
- Your eye will focus on whatever is brightest. This means that a bright white background is going to get all your attention… that is tiring and leads to headache. Better to have a dark background…
- …but if you do that, bear in mind that your printing costs will be higher. Consider having a dark-background for the wall and a white background for the handout.
Here is the new improved contrast version:
…immediately much better. Of course, don’t forget to customise your colours to suit the company branding, or your marketing guys will be really unhappy !
OK – its getting better. We are close to the minimum (maybe…) but its not very visual. A visual slide will work much better for the majority of people.
Here’s some basic guidelines for getting visual:
- Avoid old boring dodgy clipart – we’ve all seen it all before and it doesn’t make you look clever!
- Don’t draw things yourself unless you want to be “quirky” (like I did here) or you’re a really good artist
- Don’t opt for the first results you find in Google – chances are everyone else already used that as well
- Make sure your images are high quality – use the “other sizes” link bottom-right underneath Google thumbnail images to find better quality pictures
- If you are going to steal copyright (which I know you wouldn’t do…), don’t take the image with a watermark for copyright on it. It just looks lazy.
- If you are talking about numbers, pimp your table (blog-post to follow), use one of the right 4 chart types (blog post also to follow) or maybe even consider just showing an image which tells the story without reverting to numbers (you can put the numbers in a handout)
In this slide, the presenter added in an image that really shows you what he means by abrasions:
…but he kind of just slapped it on there without thinking. #Fail
Where should you put images when there is text on the slide?
Answer = left of the text block. Why? Its simple, because it lines up more nicely to the text block, like here:
Now, there are exceptions to this rule and the above example is not finished yet, so bear with me…
If you have text which is justified to the right, then of course you could line your image up better on the right. And if you have just a few bullet points that can be creatively placed to line up better, go for it. Click here to see one of my own examples.
In the slide above, the image is in the right place, but it is not looking beautiful yet. I think it would be much better to increase the size of the image to match with the size of the text block, like here:
Personally, I think we’ve come a long way from our original text-driven slide. We have gotten rid of a load of text, we’ve made more contrast and added a message-driven image, which is in the right place. Some people would stop here and depending on your style, that might be the right choice.
But personally, in terms of minimum effective dose (within the greater framework of the entire PPT) we can do a lot better.
First, let’s get bold with that image:
Hurts to look at? It should! That’s the point!
..but hang on a minute: The text says that an example of an abrasion is road-rash or something you get from sports + play, that’s its a superficial wound, that it hurts and that its prone to infection. Doesn’t the image already say all that? Wouldn’t the following do just the same?
For some people, this is too much. For me, it really is the minimum effective dose. For me, its an awesome big bold visual message.
The advantages of awesome big bold visual messages are many:
- It will be understood more quickly by the majority of people
- It will stick in people’s heads a little bit longer (certainly in THIS example!)
- It will oblige you to talk around your point instead of reading from the slide
- People will think you are awesome
Thanks for reading – I hope this helped
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Make great PowerPoints
Have fun
Happy Christmas
Prezi structure is essential …or “Why most Prezi users should be SHOT”)
Prezi is a great tool full of functions, but if you don’t follow good structure guidelines it can all go terribly wrong….
I admit it sounds harsh to say people should be shot, but actually it’s an acronym for what should be done to most Prezi users: They should be Stopped, Helped or Trained. Why? Read on..
As people start adopting Prezi, many of them forget 2 of the 4 pillars of an effective presentation: Message and structure.
What do most people do with Prezi? They see a big wonderful canvas that goes in and out and left and right and up and down and they just start doing EVERYTHING. As a result, I am seeing Prezi presentations that swing in and out and left and right, using random animation effects and terrible pictures that for some reason are rotated 37 degrees to the left. This must stop.
In this post, I’ll explain how to apply the fundamental presentation concept of message + structure to a Prezi presentation. If you do what I say, people will be able to follow your Prezi presentation (without sea-sickness) and your main message and its delivery will be reinforced by excellent structure.
(And if you are intrigued about how I phrased that last paragraph, read here why it is important to answer the only 3 questions that count!)
First, here is an example of what I want you to do…
Got it? OK, now let’s break it down…
Prezi is a 3D canvas (surprise!) consisting of height, width and depth.
There are 2 major options for how to present your main message and supporting conclusions. Either do it like a mind-map would (radial principle)…
..or, like me, embed your main supporting conclusions IN your main message (which I personally think looks awesome!) :
Now let’s talk dimensions… You can move left/right, up/down and in /out in Prezi. Which one’s work best for which reasons?
If you want to avoid sea-sickness and reinforce the natural (diamond) structure of your presentation, then height and width are used to move BETWEEN structural parts of your Prezi and depth is used to add detail WITHIN one part.
(Note: If you’ve taken my option for presenting your supporting conclusions WITHIN the main message statement, you will be obliged to exceptionally use the depth dimension almost immediately to “add detail”.)
..and finally, what should you do with the possibility of spinning and BIG movement in Prezi? When should you use a big spin, rather than something moving gently left/right or up/down?
Its easy: The bigger the movement, the more the audience will feel like there is a big change happening. So restrict your big spins and large in/out movements to major structural transitions. In this way, you can reinforce your structure just like Dora-the-Explorer would.
For movement between sub-points at the same structural level of detail, make your movements gentle left/right or up/down. (A little rotation is OK, but don’t go overboard).
If you apply all these simple ideas, your Prezi will make global structural sense and people will be able to follow. Of course, these are only guidelines and you can make exceptions for effect wherever you like.
To see it all in action, have a look at my conference Prezi on how “How to Improve Formal Learning with Social Media “.
For more Prezi tips, have a look at:
Thanks for reading.
Please share, follow me on Twitter, leave a comment., follow the blog..
..or join me in Prezi training.
Community Management Training (French)
A short overview of the “community management” training programme I created for French speaking government organisation….
Objectif de la formation = « Savoir comment gérer efficacement une communauté afin de la faire vivre »
- Une prise de conscience de temps, ressources, enjeux et « best practices »
Une offre de formation créée sur mesure et focalisée sur vos besoins
Les participants ont besoin de conseils d’un expert et attendent une formation « classique ». Cette offre propose une expertise externe sur le sujet, tout en prenant conscience de vos besoins réels, ainsi que la situation de chaque participant. Pour cette raison, la formation est un mélange de théorie, discussions et exercices dans le cadre d’un « strategic training workshop ».
Avant la formation
- Les participants seront invités à compléter un questionnaire via www.surveymonkey.com . Cette démarche a pour but de connaître leurs propres perceptions sur la situation existante (ce qu’ils trouvent facile, difficile..), ainsi que de rassembler d’autres informations supplémentaires (quelle communauté, quels utilisateurs…)
- Chaque participant est invité à étudier à l’avance deux ou trois courtes références sur le sujet, afin de pouvoir profiter au maximum du temps « en classe »
- Le formateur se présente et explique en quelques mots le contenu et l’approche de formation via vidéo (YouTube)
- Les participants sont invités à compléter une étude évaluative du succès de différentes communautés et à partager les résultats avec DAN STEER
Pendant la formation
Approche = workshop « stratégique »
Après leur formation, les participants doivent bien agir pour bien gérer leurs propres communautés. Etant donné leurs différents objectifs ainsi que leurs situations existantes, il sera important d’adopter une approche stratégique. Pour cette raison, la formation même suivra l’ordre nécessaire pour créer de la stratégie, en 4 parties :
- Définition de l’objectif des participants / communautés
- Définition de la situation existante en comparaison avec l’objectif en prenant compte des différentes possibilités d’une communauté «online »
- Recherches des opportunités et actions prioritaires à mettre en place afin d’attendre l’objectif
- Création d’un plan d’action
Ceci n’est en aucun sens un coaching de groupe. Pendant chaque étape de la formation, le formateur offre son expertise, des conseils et les connaissances requises afin de savoir comment gérer efficacement une communauté pour la faire vivre. La discussion est néanmoins utilisée comme un outil pédagogique afin de partager les attitudes et stimuler de la motivation.
En suivant cet ordre, chaque participant partira avec un plan individuel à mettre en place.
Ce qui suit donne une idée à titre indicatif de différents sujets abordés lors de la formation. Les idées sont présentées dans l’ordre du workshop stratégique décrit ci-dessus.
Première partie = Définition de l’objectif
Théorie :
- Que veut dire « communauté ?
- Les objectifs « SMART »
- La marque d’une communauté (« community branding »)
- Le rôle du gestionnaire de la communauté
- Les clés générales du succès
A définir / discuter :
- Quel est le sens général de votre communauté ? Que voulez-vous pour les membres de votre communauté ?
- Quels sont vos objectifs?
Deuxième partie = Définition de la situation existante
Théorie :
- Quels sont les indicateurs d’une communauté « réussie » ? Quels sont les 3 points-clés à mesurer ?
- Exemples des communautés réussies (et non réussies)
- Le « chiffre de Dunbar » et ses utilisations
- La « pyramide d’engagement » et les différents rôles dans une communauté
- Votre audience, ses besoins, son comportement et ses habitudes
A définir / discuter :
- Les résultats actuels de votre communauté
- Votre situation actuelle en tant que gestionnaire de communauté : temps disponible, attitude…
Troisième partie = Recherches des opportunités et actions prioritaires
Théorie :
- Comment motiver de l’activité et le triangle d’or d’une communauté
- Création de trafic et « cross-pollination » sur différentes plateformes (on + offline)
- Techniques de modération
- Création et gestion de contenu on-line en fonction des besoins et des envies de différents profils/membres
- Création et gestion d’évènements (on + offline)
- Votre propre niveau d’activité
- Les différents défis et comment les surmonter
- Actions régulières à prendre
A définir / discuter :
- Choix d’options à implémenter
- Quelles fonctions utiliser dans votre propre outil
Dernière partie = Création d’un plan d’action
Pendant cette partie de la formation, chaque participant est invité à décider formellement ce qu’il va faire, comment et quand. Ces promesses pour « aujourd’hui », le court et long terme sont documentés afin de former la base d’une évaluation concrète de la réaction, de l’apprentissage, de l’activité et des résultats des participants.
Après la formation
L’apprentissage ne se termine pas à la fin de la formation.
Après la formation, un email est envoyé à chaque participant avec des références et ressources liées au contenu discuté.
Pendant les semaines qui suivent la formation, les participants sont invités à :
- Evaluer la formation en termes de leurs propres réactions et le contenu fourni – ceci est fait via www.surveymonkey.com.
- Partager :
- .. leurs propres réactions via un groupe fermé LinkedIn ou sur le site www.wallwisher.com *
- .. des exemples d’actions prises ainsi que leurs résultats.
* un exemple d’un « mur » de ce site peut être trouvé ici : http://wallwisher.com/wall/effectivepres
Sur base des réactions des participants, les actions prises et les résultats obtenus après la formation, DAN STEER reste ouvert à la possibilité de faciliter un coaching de groupe plus ou moins 3 à 6 mois plus tard.
If you are already managing a community, think about how you feel about all the above topics. Are you comfortable? What works? What doesn’t work? Where do you need help?
Good luck!
