Engaging people during a meeting is one of the most difficult tasks a professional can face.
While listening to a recent presentation, I put together some suggestions:
Content is fundamental BUT the way to present it is at least as important as content
VARY THE WAY to present your content to the audience. Do NOT adopt common methods but use a different style. The surprise will “shake” the audience and attract the attention, provoking emotions: this is the reason why, NOWADAYS, my suggestion is NOT to use .ppt presentations. They have been abused and, as a consequence, not able to stimulate reactions any more as the audience is TOO used to them
AVOID the term PRESENTATION: it is always better “to meet people”, “to dialogue with them”, “to discuss about a certain topic” rather than to PRESENT them something, giving a clear one-way direction to the meeting
Your VOICE is fundamental. The TONE and the VOLUME are key elements to engage with people in front of you
Use IMAGES and CARDS as they can help to provoke emotions and reactions in the people listening to your speech
Start speech with the CORE of your message, to capture the attention of the audience, and THEN provide more details and explanation of specific aspects
DO NOT SIT behind you laptop during the presentation. Stand up and walk around the room. You need to add dynamism to the situation. If you have ten people sitting around a table, standing there for 1 hour or more, they need continuous stimulation to maintain their attention vivid and to the point. Otherwise you will loose their attention
KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) Principle has to be always in your mind. Even if you like to talk, try to be as short as possible and keep your talking to the point (be sure with previous assessment and questions about what the exact point is)
PREPARE EVERYTHING WELL IN ADVANCE and be sure that everything works in front of the audience at the right time. Otherwise you will offer a bad idea since the beginning
Make your audience LAUGH. It always works
Note: if you see people yawning or leaving the room in advance, it is a clear sign that you have to go quickly to either the point or the conclusion of the speech!
I found very interesting seeing how Mark Zuckerberg put together the pieces of his creature. Two main ingredients were at the basis: his deep consciousness of what his creature should be AND an ear always open to listen to what people have in mind.
Mark says: “We are talking about taking the entire social experience of the college and put it online.“
Mark had the ability to perceive that “the social experience of the college” can be so fascinated and attracting for people AND the capacity to read the Web and to put online such an experience.
If and when you are really able to have such a clear line in your mind and simultaneously take in consideration the needs of your users then, I think, you reached the “secret” for your success.
Greetings to all the participants to AMARC 10, the world Conference of AMARC that is opening today in La Plata, Argentina. I’m really willing to know more about what’s going on there.
By definition WATER is a clue topic! Today more than in the past. Vandana Shiva many times wrote that the next wars will be fought for water and not for oil.
Insecure access to water for consumption and productive uses is a major constraint on poverty reduction in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). For millions of smallholder farmers, fishers and herders in SSA, water is one of the most important production assets, and securing access to and control and management of water is key to enhancing their livelihoods. The potential exists for well-targeted, local interventions in water that contribute to rapid improvement in the livelihoods of the rural poor in SSA and help attain the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. It discusses conditions for success and proposes water-based, context-specific, and livelihood-centered approaches to poverty reduction in rural areas.
Given the predominance of rural poverty in SSA, and given that agriculture will remain the main source of livelihood, poverty reduction strategies need to focus on improving productivity in this sector. This report focuses on agricultural water because:
(i) it plays a central role in agriculture-based rural livelihoods;
(ii) adequate availability and reliable access to water is frequently a constraint on production; and
(iii) water provides a focal point around which other interventions can be organized.
Examples of successful water projects in SSA exist, and there are important opportunities for new investments in water. Their success will depend on the development of new models of interventions, centered on enhancing the diversity of livelihood conditions of rural populations. A large part of the success of future investments in water control will depend on a more comprehensive analysis of dynamic opportunities and needs, which are closely linked to the shifting biophysical and socio-economic contexts.
However, there is no “one size fits all” approach for improving livelihoods. Different contexts and needs will require different types of investments, in which market or household food security, prevailing agroclimatic conditions and associated farming systems, and the overall socio-economic and institutional environment will guide the choice from a non-prescriptive menu of appropriate interventions at different scales.
Few weeks after the announcement, I had the chance to use the new interface twitter.com launched to increase its usability.The black top bar and the wider right column are the main new visual features. They came together with the possibility to immediately visualize photos and videos shared by others and other minor changes.
I found it a good step ahead, being the site more usable and the main page becoming a sort of intro to your profile. More than before, twitter is presenting itself not only as a place for geeks but mainly as a tool for knowledge sharing with a broad audience: latest stats say users are over 190 million (more than 1 million are from Italy: http://cot.ag/bzoKmS).
This is why I’m strongly suggesting to the networks I support to adopt it. Onda Rural is actually using it quite well, Carimac will be doing soon as well as the CSDI project and the FAO Rural radio website. Their public can be very wide, the tool is flexible and dynamic (mostly thanks to third party applications) and the use is very easy, adapt for every kind of editorial team.
talk-share-learn 