Digital Coach – For High Stakes Presentations

Results from Distinction Communication’s 2010 Annual Presentation Impact Survey…

Question: What do you find to be the most challenging part of creating and delivering a presentation?

45.3%     Putting together a good message that flows & connects

10.5%     Creating good quality & professional-looking presentation slides

9.7%        Delivering the presentation with confident & credible skills

34.3%    All of the above are equally challenging!

[Full survey results]

By the looks of this survey result, people are still spending a lot of time starring at a computer screen trying to figure out what the heck they want to say.  I believe there are a couple of variables in play with this startling data point. 

First, there are a lot of younger presenters coming on the scene (GenY born after 1981). Unlike their predecessors who may have been very content with a nice looking deck of PowerPoint slides, younger presenters today put a much higher premium on “keeping it real”.  What they have to say to their audiences is more important than simply the mechanics of how they are going to say it.

Second, audiences are becoming more savvy and have sat through years of mind-numbing PowerPoint slides.  Today they are pushing back more and more and demanding that presenters make their presentation more relevant and audience-focused.

Notice the second largest survey data point?   The whole presentation process frustrates them!

What this means to you…

Before you get dismayed with the whole process and go looking for the closest bridge, there’s hope for messages that resonate more effectively with the audiences they are intended for.  Books like Nancy Duarte’s Resonate, Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullets and many others are offering up fresh new ways of thinking about presentation messaging.

Need one more?  Distinction’s Planning the Perfect Presentation (a free download) offers up a simple plan for laying out a great presentation from the very first title slide to your final summary.  Check it out!

______________________________

The 2010 Presentation Impact Survey is sponsored annually by Distinction Communication Inc.