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Wayne Turmel speaks to Irish blogger and career guru Rowan Manahan about why presenting is so crucial to a manager’s career and why so many do it so badly. Also an eloquent german and the Celtic god Ogmias… more appropriate than you think. Prepare for a massive wordcount in this episode!

Rowan Manahan looking unusually serious… do not expect this from this conversation.

Show Notes

0:00 Welcome to the Cranky Middle Manager. Today we talk to Irishman Rowan Manahan, the author of “Where’s My Oasis?” about the importance of good presentation skills for managers, specifically how to get your story across. This episode is dedicated to Ogmias, or Ogma (depending on where you’re from). a chain from your tongue to your team’s ears might sound appealing sometimes…..

1:59 The quote of the week is from a German, Heinrich Heine. Eloquence and talking are not the same thing at all……..and eloquence seldom uses PowerPoint.

3:00 Welcome Rowan Manahan- a certified (and certifiable) madman. What is his problem with managers and their presentation skills in general? We have been telling stories for eons, but we have lost the ability to do that in professional environments.

9:29 Okay, so what do we do about it? (And the doughnuts are yummy) You have to determine your message or messages before you launch into your presentation. This sounds simple but it’s not. Part of the problem is the attitude of the audience… we spend a lot of time playing defense unnecessarily.

13:42 Don’t we need numbers, data and flow charts? We don’t spend enough time thinking about the concepts we want to get across in the best way. Once you’ve reduced your message down you can think about sequence and structure… not before that.

18:32 Before you start to create your PowerPoint slides… you have to know what you’re going to say and that way you support the visuals that support it…. but what about time? That takes too long- right?

23:21 We don’t all (okay ain’t NONE of us got) Rowan’s energy and showmanship. But you can get your message across if you think of your audience as individuals and identify with what they need.

For Rowan’s version of Cinderella by PowerPoint… take a look here.

For Lincoln’s Ghettysburg Address in PowerPoint….

Eric Feng’s blog

Presentation Zen (Garr Reynolds)

Slide:ology, the Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

Don’t let the weasels get you down!!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under General, Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.