Seminar & Workshop Presenting Skills BTTM_SWP
A well-known comedian once quipped that many people would rather be in the gasket than to deliver the eulogy: many people are afraid of public speaking, but if you want to develop those skills you will become in demand to share knowledge and experience with your audience. Based on developing many technical solutions and methodologies in project management, my career has reached the inevitable point where the most logical next step is to teach these concepts in the form of seminars. We can approach seminars like projects – a structured series of initiatives that provide training opportunities to others at different levels in their career.
Teaching concepts like project management is much different from traditional learning, in that you do not talk in absolutes, but share experience that the audience hopefully can benefit from and blend with their own experience and knowledge used for their area of specialization. This is a crucial difference to keep in mind for any training program. Over time you learn that different people have different feelings about learning: a major shift from that formal curriculum to using the presentation materials as a guide while encouraging dialog and audience contributions that showcase what they have learned over the years. Learning is one of my motivators for public speaking and leading seminars, using a facilitation style to draw out opportunities and encourage people to speak up and not feel foolish asking questions that others answer off-the-cuff.
The major advantage of seminars over formal teaching is that people show up because they want that learning opportunity focused on their needs: it has to be useful and relevant information that answers needs or solves real-life problems. The timing is also more appropriate because people go to a seminar when they have reached a point in life where those answers are more appreciated and not just details to be remembered on a final exam. Being able to network and discuss different experiences also reinforces the notion that (unlike textbook situations) nothing in life is really as straightforward: a typical solution can contain the information you need to revisit a problem and know how to tackle it.
Seminars provide that opportunity for open communication through questions, comments, concerns, or feedback. It provides opportunities for hands-on learning and active involvement rather than stay within a structured, formal setting. You need to add variety to punch-up the presentation to retain that level of interest people need to master a subject: making sure visuals add an element of entertainment that stimulates attention. People absorb the seminar materials differently so you need to accommodate action oriented quick thinkers that like to take charge, but also people that like you to step through the details, or that like to be stimulated to think where all this good stuff is headed, or people that see a seminar as one happy networking meeting where they finally receive some positive feedback.
Speech guru Dale Carnegie said a listener’s mind can’t take in more than four or five main points in 30 minutes – no matter how long your speech is you want to make sure that you focus on the content that will most likely strike a chord with your audience. Revisit your brainstorming ideas and think of how you can focus on content that more likely hits home with your particular audience: what they must hear. As you develop a speech one topic at a time envision yourself in the role of a subject matter expert, and think about your target audience for whom you pick an objective – you need to have something that you want to get the audience to do in response to listening to your speech. This is the basic recipe for developing seminar presentations that will be detailed in this stage of the course while you do your research on the topics you cover. We will use these basics to take a subject that you like to present, break is down in blocks and work out how each block represents 1/5th of each half-hour period in a potential seminar session. We will prioritize blocks so that you can adapt the presentation to different time ranges.
You should prepare a brochure with information about your seminar presentation(s), because seminar organizers need that information for planning purposes and to explain to people what they might spend their money on. Add a personal photo that is clean and crisp – one easy way to present that seminar information is to create an on-line brochure on your web site. Your marketing strategy is to attract attention and direct prospective seminar organizers to your website (which can be simple for hobby presenters or more complex for presenters that have a range of topics they can talk about). We should try to direct traffic to that site as the logical place to provide additional information to entice organizers to book your presentation. Your brochure must provide highlights of your seminar content, as well as the specific objectives that the seminar satisfies. If you offer several seminars, create individual brochures for each seminar, plus a catalog that has your full range of programs, to highlight what you are capable of. The objective of this session is to get a basic marketing process in place to get you started.
Even accomplished presenters rehearse to remember. The difference from great actors is that they do not have to memorize their lines – they only memorize the points they want to make. PowerPoint slides are the most obvious technique for keeping track of those points. You can use a conversational, even casual, style to come across as relaxed but still very much in control of what must be presented: the advantage is that you come across as more natural as you are not worried about losing track of what points to emphasize next. Based on rehearsal you come across as controlled and focused. To become an accomplished speaker you need to access those parts of yourself that are confident, engaging, and persuasive. You need to master how to engage your total range of innate abilities. The overriding objective of a presenter is to engage the audience, to persuade the audience to think, feel, or do something in response to the message that your presentation delivers: the subjects covered in this session.
Hopefully we will have a large enough group that we can arrange a series of presentations of the subjects selected in the first session of this course. We start by transforming the research into the actual PowerPoint slides to add the details and behaviours that make the slides attractive. Knowing why and how you use each visual image to support a presentation segment is a critical factor in how you build the presentation. If you use a prepared package, you need to learn what the author had in mind, so you can identify with the total package of text and visuals. Think of using visuals in terms of how you help your audience to absorb the presentation. We will review “acting” as a model for “presenting” and review how actors prepare for their role on stage or on a set based on articles and interviews written about actors (presenters never seem to make it in the media). For acting, there are books on the subject of how to prepare and succeed on stage, a useful set of guidelines that we transformed into presentation guidelines.
The bottom-line for any seminar presenter is to make money, not to lose money on the deal. You may do pro-bono seminars to get your feet wet and to get noticed, but do not become known as a “free” speaker while your competitors start to hate your guts. It costs time and money to travel to different venues: make sure you get at least your advertising value from making that investment. You need to consider opportunity costs, which is the reason we should charge a retainer since we must “reserve” a block of time that, once committed, cannot be reallocated. Even in the case of a last-minute cancelation, the presenter wants to be compensated for being available: usually we assume a cancelation window of 3 – 4 weeks to give us time to find another engagement, but less than that is nearly impossible for finding another opportunity, given what it takes to plan and orchestrate a seminar event. While seminars offer a good income potential, the risk of getting a lot of canceled seminars must be limited. Some presenters waive the standby fee, but have all the costs that may be incurred picked up by the promoter/organizer, or make other types of arrangements, that usually include a presenter getting a greater slice of the profits from the seminar.
Learning Formats BTTM_SWP
This course is currently available in a classroom setting (public or company private) with approximately 15 contact hours.
PDF – Certificate Of Completion
Each course offers a certificate of completion that identifies the course, the student, and a brief description of the course. To receive a certificate the student must have attended at least 80% of the course sessions. This personalized certificate is forwarded to the student by Email.
PDF – Course Notebook
Each course includes a notebook in PDF format that provides the minimum knowledge the student must master in order to obtain the certificate. In the notebook you will find references to other study materials. Students receive the notebook by Email when their registration is confirmed.
PDF – Program Overview
An overview of this study program can be downloaded from the website by right-clicking on the program link on the enquiry page.
PDF – Current Training Schedule
A list of upcoming training sessions can be downloaded from the website by right-clicking on the schedule link on the enquiry page.
Registration – Service Providers
To register for any training course please look on the enquiry link page of your service provider (from where you accessed this website). On the page you will find a registration request form where you can order the course that you are interested in. The availability dates will be provided to you, along with payment instructions if you decide to go ahead.
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