Mark Lanier and Cliff Atkinson

Life is never-ending discovery. Even at the age of 74. It happened to me yesterday. Just as it does nearly every day that I put out my “bucket.”

Soon after Cliff Atkinson’s book, Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire came out, I’ve known about his star case study, attorney Mark Lanier and his 253 million dollar wrongful death settlement with Merck.

You see, this case study fits into my visual aid research pattern. To look at Lanier’s PowerPoint opening statement (well over 200 slides and two and one half hours long) is an investigation into excellence and several note worthy lessons.

And, I only study the very best.

This guy just won 253 million from one of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world, that had just spent a billion dollars on lawyers and expert witnesses in it’s defense.

Lanier (and his consultant, Cliff Atkinson) must have done something right.

And what ever that was, all we like PowerPoint users should take note and learn. (The heck with what the crazy dude in the cubical next to you says about using PowerPoint.) Lanier’s stuff works!

We should (study and) follow suit!

Back to my discovery! It was a series of 9 videos on YouTube.com. These videos were of Lanier speaking (I think, to group of Harvard law students) about that blockbuster trial, , , the one where his client won a settlement of 253 million dollars.

In it he shows some of the slides he used in his opening statement. Fellow PPT user, , , here is real value! His opening arguments were a two and one half hour speech, , , supported by well over 200 PowerPoint slides.

My observation is that such a presentation is a tasty recipe for a nap.

Not so here! Observers at this trail said that the jury of 12 were on the edge of their seats for the entire time. (Which is cool, in and of it self.)

But the results they delivered, , , 253 million bucks, , , is what really counts.

I have drawn several conclusions after watching all nine videos through twice. And I’ll discuss them with you in part two of this article.

For now, if you are a serious presenter in any field, I highly recommend that you watch this series through, at least twice. Here in this post is Part One of the series.  Then you can watch the rest of them one by one.

After you have watched this string of videos, then I’ll get back to you and we can see what we have learned.

Enjoy!

Wayne

Passion, Quotations from Terri Guillemets

Passion, Quotes from Terri Guillemets

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Here you are , , , bumper to bumper, high quality quotations on two speaking topics of our day.  Success and now Passion.

I'm sure you'll enjoy my latest creation.

Wayne

P.S. for the best speaker quotations on the planet visit QuoteGarden.com.

Success, Terri Guillemets, Collector

Success, Terri Guillemets

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If you speak in public, , , at any level and on any subject, , , if you teach or preach or train, , , you can add color and impact to you words, by adding the words of others who are credible voices on your topic. 

I highly reccommend the idea of using one or two quotations in every one of your presentations.

Cconsider the topic of Success.  We all address it in one way or another.  Here are a few pertanant quotations collected by Terri Gullemets, on her webesite, QuoteGarden.com.

So I have created this slideshow so you can see the kind of quotations you might use.

Enjoy.

Wayne

Well Being, Tom Rath and Jim Harter

Well Being, Tom Rath and Jim Harter

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This book, Wellbeing, by Tom Rath and Jim Harter tells us a lot about what it takes to make us and the people around us happy.

There are a lot of quotations in this book that almost any public speaker can use in their everyday speaking.

And so, to give you a sampling, I've created a quotation slideshow. Check it out, , , really good stuff!


Enjoy,

Wayne

COMING SOON: How to Draw Your Message, Wayne Kronz

Don’t Miss This Seminar!

If we had an accurate picture of the findings of clinical psychologists and cognitive learning specialist, we would all put much more effort into the visual aids we use in our presentations.

Albert Mehrabian showed us that 93% of all communication is nonverbal. His research is well documented, but seldom attended to.

The 3M Corporation insists that we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

This information is huge. Yet we continue to put 50-slide PowerPoint shows together (that are essentially text) every day.

If you’ve been following this blog at all, you know that I use PowerPoint all of the time. I use it for quotation slideshows, entertainment slideshows and as a model building tool. For these tasks, it can’t be beat! I love it!

(And there are other things that PPT does well.)

But don’t expect people to learn much from your fifty-slide dream-makers.

This is why I spend lots of time building process models and method maps. Or, as I prefer to call them, Theme Models.

In a few weeks I am going to make available to you the complete home study course, How to Draw Your Message for Fun and Huge Profit.

It is based on the actual visual aids used by the very best speakers and presenters in the world. (Up front experts like Chris Anderson, Jim Collins, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Kiyosaki and Patricia Seybold, to name only a few.)

Plus, the latest research on the design and use of visual aids in public speaking, like the two references listed above. (And there is a lot more convincing research packages out there beyond the two listed here.)

Keep an eye on this blog and begin to tell everyone you know who speaks in public about this upcoming, career-changing, course, How to Draw Your Message for Fun and Huge Profit.

Thank You!

Wayne

Facebook Marketing, Justin R. Levy

Facebook Marketing, Justin R. Levy

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I rarely just come out and tell (or suggest) you to buy a particular book. But today is an exception. If you want to get online and MAKE MONEY, you will need traffic and the best source of free traffic there is these days is Facebook.

As you know, I have done several quotation slideshows based on social media books. None has spoken to "where I am" like Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign (2nd Edition) (Que Biz-Tech) by Justin R. Levy.

In this slideshow I simply used the sub-titles in chapter three, Establishing a Corporate Presence. These sub-titles are a perfect, step by step guide to setting your Facebook account for maximum business use.

Enjoy!

Wayne

Index of Learning Styles, Felder and Silverman

According to the Index of Learning Styles developed by Richard Felder and Linda Silverman in the late 1980s, there are four continuums that every speaker should be aware of, , , Sensory to Intuitive, , ,Visual to Verbal, , , Active to Reflective, , , Sequential to Global.

Let’s look at the first two “extremes.” Sensory learners are interested in the concrete, practical, and procedural information. They just want the facts.

While the Intuitive learners prefer conceptual, creative, and theoretical ideas. Meaning is vital to them.

Let’s look at the above six descriptive words, as opposite as they may at first, appear. Concrete, practical, and procedural , , , and conceptual, creative, and theoretical.

What teaching tool could tie these two groups of three together? What could illustrate both the concrete and the conceptual? The practical and the creative? The procedural and the theoretical?

Only one tool, , , a perfectly designed Theme Model.

Let’s look at one, The Product Life Cycle (PLC). Its' four phases are both, , , concrete and conceptual. Products really do go through these (concrete) phases, introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

But product development is also a conceptual experience, , , like knowing when to activate new resources and activities to insure “growth” or extend “maturity.” The PLC’s bell curve illustrates both of these “extremes.”

All the way accross the board the Theme Model is a clear winner as both a flexable and reliable communication tool.

In future posts I’ll cover the other ends of continuums of the Felder/Silverman model.

Enjoy!

Wayne