Presentations That Persuade and Motivate.Presentations That Persuade and Motivate Presentations That Persuade and Motivate, a collection of articles taken from the Harvard Management Update and Harvard Management Communication Letter, has contributions from 10 authors on preparing a public presentation, knowing your audience and coping with stage fright stage fright Performance anxiety, see there . The book offers no great revelations to educational leaders with much of the advice pitched to business executives. The advice, with a few exceptions, would be common knowledge to most leaders in education, but there are a few valuable tips found within the book. One author, Judith Humphrey, reminds us that when making a professional presentation PowerPoint slides can be distracting dis·tract tr.v. dis·tract·ed, dis·tract·ing, dis·tracts 1. To cause to turn away from the original focus of attention or interest; divert. 2. To pull in conflicting emotional directions; unsettle. and lead the audience's attention away from the presenter. This situation is exacerbated when handouts of the slides are provided to attendees. Another informative section deals with beginning a presentation. Tips are offered on capturing the attention of the audience by beginning presentations with a story or parable parable, the term translates the Hebrew word "mashal"—a term denoting a metaphor, or an enigmatic saying or an analogy. In the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition, however, "parables" were illustrative narrative examples. Jewish teachers of the 1st cent. A.D. . Stories apparently are more beneficial than the use of a joke. The author reminds us of the difficulty in finding appropriate jokes considering the diversity found today in audiences. Finally, some good suggestions are raised on structuring presentations in such a way as to be congruent con·gru·ent adj. 1. Corresponding; congruous. 2. Mathematics a. Coinciding exactly when superimposed: congruent triangles. b. with the concept of shared decision making. The author advises us to resist the temptation of telling people what to do and instead to structure key concepts around pertinent PERTINENT, evidence. Those facts which tend to prove the allegations of the party offering them, are called pertinent; those which have no such tendency are called impertinent, 8 Toull. n. 22. By pertinent is also meant that which belongs. Willes, 319. questions, which serve to guide audiences through the solution of a given problem. (Presentations That Persuade and Motivate, Harvard Business School Harvard Business School, officially named the Harvard Business School: George F. Baker Foundation, and also known as HBS, is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University. Press, Boston, Mass., 2004, 163 pp. with index, $14.95 hardcover) Ronald A. Styron Jr. Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Miss. |
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