Erskin Cherry : Presenting Information

Prickle pear cheesecakeWhether it's food for the body or food for the mind, it's not just what you serve, but how you serve it that counts. –Erskin

Before you fill out the structure you've chosen, learn and remember these goals for actually performing training.

Table of Contents

Warning: Real-time writing required

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For a variety of reasons, this guide expects you to do more than narrate over a stock deck of slides. However you present material, ensure you have some way to add or edit things during your presentation.

Whether it be writing down questions, noting people's names and departments, or creating diagrams, being able to respond dynamically to information from (or specific to) your audience is part of creating a dialogue with them. Anything less isn't a discussion, it's just you dictating–and that's boring.

(And boring training is never effective or compelling.)

Oh my God, I can't even...

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Are you scared to death of actually talking in front of other people? Are you worried that some of these things will make you look stupid in front of others? If you're having a hard time even getting started here, know that you aren't alone. Everybody starts nervous and it gets easier with practice. If you like, you can check out Toastmasters for more guidance.

Be Early

You are giving a live performance. This does not mean that things are more likely to go wrong than at other times. It just means you will regret it more when they do. Save yourself the regret. Do this instead:

  1. Show up 15 minutes early to your presentation space
    1. Bonus: Double check that you are in the right place
  2. Setup everything you need to present
    1. Bonus: This includes everything from your feedback surveys to the chairs and tables in the room
  3. Test everything you need to present
  4. When everything works anyway, remind yourself it's important to do this every time for that one time it doesn't just work

In short, problems during a presentation are so bad, it's worth the time and effort to proactively work against Murphy's Law. (The one that says: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.")

Be Entertaining

Presenting to others is asking them to give you their rarest, most precious possession–their time. And they can revoke this gift with no more effort than daydreaming. If you want someone's attention, you have to be worthy of it, and that means being entertaining. Congratulations, you're in show business.

This does not mean you treat your topic lightly. Do not confuse seriousness with solemnity. Instead, look for the enemy of entertaining: boring.

  1. Set the stage before anyone arrives
    1. You remembered to Be Early, right?
    2. Having music playing to create a relaxed and happy atmosphere when people arrive
    3. For longer trainings, consider bringing snacks both for eating and to give people something to fidget with
    4. Draw or display something intriguing, even if you can't make it topic related
  2. Be funny.
    1. I can't tell you how to do this
    2. No one can tell you how to do this
    3. This is the least useful thing in this whole guide
    4. I mean, if you already know how to be funny, you're probably already doing it, so this is really just reminding everyone who can't be funny that they aren't funny
    5. That not just useless, it's hurtful!
    6. Why are you even still reading these? Are you a an unfunny masochist? A funny sadist? Just go on to the next major item already!
    7. I should really delete this whole sub-list
    8. That said, if you can be funny, it does help
  3. Show them something new
    1. Reference or relate your topic to popular events and current culture where you can
    2. Include something new and curious even if you can't make it relate to your topic directly
      1. You want to establish and maintain a sense of discovery and wonder
      2. Having something completely different can help you Be Engaging if your audience has started to drift away
      3. Creating your own interruption gives you a chance to Be Repetitive once it is over
  4. Be a good host by taking care of your "guests"
    1. Welcome people as they arrive
    2. When you work to Be Interactive, do so with everyone, individually whenever possible
      1. When it's time to ask a question, who have you not asked yet?
    3. Be Repetitive not only on your topic, but on checking how everyone is doing, individually whenever possible
      1. This is how you know if your off-topic, self-induced distraction would derail everyone's attention, or is desperately needed
    4. Thank them for coming before they leave

Be Engaging

You need to be excited about your topic. You need to be so excited it shows. You need to be so excited it is infectious. If you don't think the information you are presenting is amazing, then why should your audience? If they don't think it's amazing, then why should they waste their time on it?

This needs to be continuous, not just when the presentation starts. The last thing you share should be as wondrous as the first.

  1. You have discovered the next best thing ever and are excitedly sharing it with your best friends. Act like it
    1. If this sounds too ridiculous for your topic and audience, make sure you really have the right topic and the right audience
  2. Acknowledge and then dismiss distractions
    1. For example, if you are interrupted by a car backfiring loudly: Stop, say "That was really loud. Someone should get their car checked. Now then, where were we?", and then continue
    2. You want to remove the nagging question in people's minds of "What do I do about that?" the distraction causes
    3. So you answer the question for everyone so it can be set aside and you can get back to the topic at hand
    4. Be Repetitive. Repeat what you just covered before the distraction
      1. It's an easy way to naturally repeat information without being boring
      2. It refocuses everyone while giving them a reminder of where you were in the topic
  3. Use information and patterns people already know for supporting information in examples
    1. This creates a sense of hidden secrets as people discover the patterns
    2. It also provides mental shortcuts for processing the supporting information
    3. If you need a random name, use the name of one of your audience and suddenly it's instantly familiar and relevant
    4. If you need a random number, use a number your audience already knows, for example 867-5309
      1. Yes, this won't work if the information isn't relevant to your audience
      2. Knowing your audience is how you will Be Empathetic
  4. Engage multiple senses
    1. Until we get much more powerful Scentography technology, this is probably limited to images and sound
    2. That said, if your topic allows for physical touch or activity, do it!
    3. Photos and videos are wonderful
    4. Screenshots are great as a backup
      1. As much as possible, your audience should be seeing (or better yet using!) the real thing live
    5. Never show slides of text to explain a concept. Write, draw, and/or diagram what you are saying as you say it

Chalk Talk? Chalk and Talk? Just Draw Something!

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If you take away only one thing from this guide, make it this last point. The physical motion of writing and drawing is engaging. Plus you get the interactivity of incorporating your audience's questions and comments immediately and on equal footing with your own points. Combined you have a technique so powerful that all those slide decks full of bullet points are so bad they should be illegal.

Can't draw? Who cares. You can write the words you'd put after those bullet points. (Or, draw anyway. It can be your way of being funny.)

Too many words to write? Surprise, this means you had too many words to begin with.

Can't spell? You can get close enough, and your audience will forgive spelling mistakes done live a lot easier than ones in a slide show. (Also, you can fix them as you go!)

Write, draw, and/or diagram what you are saying as you say it. Do it.

Be Empathetic

You must constantly check not only that your audience is understanding you, but that you understand where they are coming from. It will be difficult, but you must strive to remember what it was like before you knew the topic you are sharing with others. Regularly and repeatedly ask yourself:

  1. What does my audience know?
    1. About this topic?
    2. About related topics?
    3. About popular culture?
    4. About unpopular culture?
  2. What does my audience not know?
    1. What do I need to make sure I explain?
    2. What can I use as a source of new exciting things?
  3. Did I just say any word they have never heard before?
    1. If so, ask them what it means and/or define it for them
  4. Did I just say any word they never heard before I said it today?
    1. If so, ask them what it means and/or redefine it for them so you can Be Repetitive
  5. If you don't know the answers to any of these questions, ask your audience!

Be Believable

Take the time to establish that you know where your audience is coming from and about the topic at hand.

  1. Talk to everyone about what they know or have worked on
    1. Use the time you got from being early and any time from others being late
  2. Where overlaps occur, talk about your experiences knowing or working on the same thing
    1. If you have to, settle for similar things
    2. This is another spot where you can Be Entertaining (read: funny if possible)
  3. Yes, you will do the same thing as part of the main topic structure
    1. This is another way to be both Empathetic and Repetitive
    2. It's also a way help people be comfortable talking to back you, which is to say, how you can Be Interactive

Be Interactive

Training should be a dialogue between your and your audience.

  1. For every three sentences you tell your audience, ask them something
    1. You already have everyone's names where you can see them. Use them
    2. Ask someone in particular
    3. Ask someone you haven't heard from recently
  2. Instead of stating something, ask about it instead
    1. Start with broad questions and get more specific as needed
    2. Does someone already know this?
      1. "Can anyone tell me how to de-prickle a prickly pear?"
    3. Can someone take a guess at a more general idea?
      1. "Here's a pear de-prickler I brought with me. Can anyone guess how it might work?"
    4. If your questions fail, ask simpler questions until you get people talking
      1. "Okay, there's a flaming nozzle end and a rounded rubber end. Which one should I grab this thing by?"
      2. (And yes, you really do de-prickle prickly pears with fire)
    5. It's fine if people need time to think through a question, you just want to get them to think out loud
  3. Instead of drawing out a diagram or a long list of information, use guesses and questions to fill in your diagram or list
    1. Imagine you are hosting the television game show "Family Feud" for long lists–Survey SAYS!
    2. For diagrams, ask leading questions based on function
      1. "If we were going to invent an automatic pear preparer, what parts would we need? Here, I'll draw a bucket of pears to start with on this side and a pile of pummeled pears on this other end."
      2. "Right! Something to mash the pears! We'd probably put that at the end."
      3. "A peeler, that's great! I'll draw a box to represent that over here near the pear bucket."
  4. Drag other people into questions
    1. If someone has a hard time with a question, ask someone else a question whose answer is a hint for the original question
    2. Or open the original question to everyone, then come back to the first person with a follow up question
    3. Avoid waiting for someone to fight with an answer that everyone else knows
      1. They feel dumb and everyone else is just bored
  5. Encourage questions in general
    1. Regularly remind people that they can and should interrupt to ask questions
    2. Thank them every time they ask a question
    3. Regularly stop and ask if anyone has any questions
      1. Be specific and practical. Instead of "Any questions?" ask specifically about what you just covered "Does everyone think can use a de-prickler now?"
  6. If nothing else, ask people what you literally just told them
    1. That is to say–review as you go
    2. This is a way to Be Interactive and Be Repetitive at the same time
    3. All of these way to Be Interactive are also ways to Be Engaging
    4. If people get used to speaking out to answer easy questions, they can focus on the hard questions without worrying about feeling awkward while speaking out

But this will take SO LONG!

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Yes, talking with people takes longer than talking at people. The difference is that talking with people will help them learn more than just talking at them. So while you should plan to spend more time on a topic than if you just rattled off the details, it's time well spent.

Be Repetitive

Repetition is the only method of learning proven to work for everyone. It's also a key tool in helping people focus on new information instead of churning on similar information they already know.

But what about being exciting? Repetition is boring!

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Exact repetition is boring. The value of repetition is when you say the same thing a different way, or say a different thing the same way.

Say the same thing a different way

Forcing yourself to explain something without using exactly the same method not only helps people learn by rote repetition, but also gives them multiple approaches to understand you.

  1. Say it twice
    1. "Prickly pears are the hardest to pick."
    2. "Of all the fruits you harvest, prickly pears are the most difficult to pull from the plant."
  2. Say it more than twice, if you can
    1. "If you grabbed a prickly pear in one hand and a plain pear in the other and pulled, you'd have a plain pear in one hand and a painfully pricked palm with still pricking pear in the other."
  3. Say it by making them say it
    1. "What's the hardest pear to pick? Say it with me now, the prickly pear."
  4. Say it again by explaining why you are saying it
    1. "Who cares that prickly pears are hard to pick? You do! Why? You'll need to save more time for them to be picked and you'll get more damaged pears per order because picking them is so hard."
  5. For exact details of a factual point, you have to say it the exact same way. Make it different by doing so over time and with different patter before and after it
    1. Do just enough to establish a pattern in the supporting patter, then break it
    2. "The password to the prickled pear pantry is: 8675309"
    3. Set an alarm to go off every ten minutes
    4. Ten minutes later when it goes off, ask "What is the prickled pear pantry password?", hear their answer, say "Yes" or "No", then say "it's 8675309"
    5. Ten minutes later when it goes off, ask "What is the prickled pear pantry password?", hear their answer, say "Yes" or "No", then say "it's 8675309"
    6. Ten minutes later when it goes off, ask "What is the prickled pear pantry password?", hear their answer, say "Yes" or "No", then say "it's 8675309"
    7. Ten minutes later when it goes off, ask "What am I going to ask you?", hear their answer, sat "Yes" or "No", say "What is the prickled pear pantry password?", hear their answer, say "Yes" or "No", then say "it's 8675309"
    8. If they get it right, turn off the alarm, if they don't leave the alarm on and repeat yourself until they get it right
    9. Regardless, twenty minutes before the training ends, ask "What is the prickled pear pantry password?", hear their answer, say "Yes" or "No", then say "it's 8675309"
    10. Right before the training ends, ask "What is the prickled pear pantry password?", hear their answer, say "Yes" or "No", then say "it's 8675309"
    11. Is this boring? Yes. Is this repetitive? Only as much as it has to be. Will they know the password to the prickled pear pantry? You better believe it.

Let's get meta

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Why did I pick 8675309 as the example password? (The answer is detailed earlier in this page, but searching for "8675309" exactly won't find it.)

Say a different thing the same way

A good structure will already showcase how some things are best explained as variations on a theme. When you present such things, emphasis the repetition.

  1. Draw, diagram, or write similar things in similar ways
    1. Use the same color for things of their similar type
    2. Put them near each other in terms of physical layout
    3. Say their names in the same stupid accent and do the same stupid fist pump gesture afterwards for each one
      1. You laugh, but this is one way to Be Entertaining, Be Engaging, and Be Repetitive all while using a structure that supports learning and fits your topic

Let's get meta

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This guide uses repetition to let you skip the parts you already know in a couple places. Look at table of contents and you'll notice parts of the heading repeat themselves, both literally with the "Be" prefix and stylistically with the two to three word, noun phrase titles for the major sections. It also uses repetition in the title of this pullout box. All of this repetition is meant to give you a short hand for reading the various parts of the document. It's not only a part of the structure, but a way to deliberately expose that structure to you, the reader, so you can tell it apart from the content.

You can also see examples of repetition of the same content but in a different form in this guide. The Be Repetitive section talks about "same thing, different way" and "different thing, same way" three times, and that's not even counting this sentence! (Once in the introductory sentence, once in the "But what about being exciting?" pullout box, and once as the headers of its subsection.)

Another example is in the final list item of this section where we remind you of three goals for presenting information and two characteristics of a good Topic Specific Structure. (Need I repeat how the previous sentence is different styled sentence is repetition?)

Be Exemplary

Use examples and narratives to explain your topic. Tell a story of what your audience will do with the knowledge they gain from your training.

  1. Use real people from your audience by name in your examples. This makes it personal and engaging
    1. "So let's say Rebecca needs to de-prickle and pickle 20 prickly pears..."
  2. Use specific supporting details in your examples. This makes it memorable and easier to imagine 
    1. "...to make five pickled prickly pear pies, all by next Thursday..."
  3. Use ludicrous supporting details in your examples. This makes it entertaining and even more memorable
    1. "...because the local clown college needs practice pies for pie throwing class."
  4. Use specific and ludicrous supporting details in your examples
    1. "So their teacher Chuckles is coming in less than a week and she's expecting five pies!"
    2. (Did you notice how both this point and its example are also using repetition?)
  5. Use your examples to setup questions (Be Interactive) of what you've already covered (Be Repetitive)
    1. "What should Rebecca do first to procure them?"
    2. "How long will it take to procure that many prickly pears, Mike?"
  6. Use on-going examples for topics
    1. This gives you one example from start to finish instead of multiple examples where each one is new, yet unconnected
    2. This works well for topics which cover a process in steps
      1. "And that's how you prepare them once they're procured. Back to that pie order from the clown college. We've got the prickly pears. Rebecca, how would you de-prickle them?"
    3. Create a narrative or story for other types of topics
  7. Use similar but different examples where on-going examples don't fit
    1. "Cleveland Clown College called again and they need more pies, but it turns out the teacher Chuckles is allergic to our pickling poultice. She wants eight pies this time, but with plain prickly pears. Walk me through procurement and preparation, Mike."

Be Responsive

Sharing knowledge involves the active work of the giver and the receiver. This is really just a part of being interactive and engaging. It is so important, however, that it bears repeating. Every time someone asks you a questions they are acting on their engagement. The worst thing you can do is end that engagement by not addressing their question.

  1. Encourage questions
  2. Answer every question
    1. Even if the answer is off-topic
    2. Even if the best answer you have is: "I don't know, but I'll find out and get back to you."
  3. For questions which are (or will take you) off-topic
    1. Provide a short answer anyway
    2. Provide an avenue for further details later
    3. Redirect back to the main topic like you do with other distractions so you can Be Engaging

Be Timely

There is no secret trick to making sure you cover the material you have in the time you have.

  1. Bring a timer
    1. There's an internet full of them
    2. And your phone probably has one
    3. Old fashions wrist watches work, too
  2. Set alarms
    1. Estimate the length of each section, if you can
    2. Use alarms of a fixed interval, if you can't estimate yet
      1. 15, 20, or 30 minutes is usually good
  3. Use visual alarms

Let's get meta, again

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We already gave you a tip that this guide has a structure. This guide uses repetition, real examples, reviewing as you go, creating a dialogue, and encapsulation as well. Look back up the page at the first tip called "Let's get meta". Can you see how that tip box is using repetition? It's going over the ideas of general and topic specific structure that were explained just before it. Did you notice that this tip box is doing the same thing? (That is, it is repeating the material covered in the previous section.) Do you see how (admittedly rhetorical) questions like these help create a dialogue? People naturally try to answer a question when they read or hear it. That takes you from passive reader to active thinker.

Like every structure, each section itself is an example of encapsulation. The general structure section lets you focus on a subset of related details, without worrying about the others. Having a tip box after each section is a way to review as you go, and talking about the guide itself is a way to present a real example.

Previously: Structuring Training Plans

Next Up: Making Training Plans