legal sanity

One of my favorite blogs is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. His tips on presentation design and delivery are excellent and have informed my work as a speaker and trainer in the professional services sector. In a recent post, Reynolds offers several presentation imperatives derived from his reading of The Cluetrain Manifesto - the acclaimed book on the nature of business in a digital world. Cluetrain declares that markets are two-way conversations between company (widget maker, service provider, presenter…) and consumer (customer, client, audience member…). And, Reynolds opines, what folks on the consumer side of the conversation stream “yearn for [ ] is authenticity and transparency, simplicity, and a real human, emotion-without-the-BS approach to communicating.” With this in mind, he adapts 10 items from Cluetrain’s 95 Theses that “can serve as good advice or reminders for how we [lawyer-presenters] need to connect and engage with our audiences today.” Among Reynolds’ gems are (1) Audiences are not abstractions. They consist of human beings “worthy of our full attention and respect.” (2) “Your speaking does not have to be perfect. In fact, perfect speech and too much polish may alienate a crowd. It's not real.” (3) We can create the best presentations simply by seeing them as opportunities to converse with others about something we care about from the gut, heart and soul. (4) “A good presentation is like a good blog: it's transparent, unique, fresh, honest, authentic, and accurate even if not perfect.”