Understanding life

There’s no definitive answer here because every church is different.

So, let’s examine 8 factors you might consider if you were faced with this situation.

1. The Elevation Advantage

Speaking from the lectern usually means you can be seen. Sometimes, the area around the lectern is raised higher than its surroundings. Sometimes, there is a step or two to ascend. The lectern itself is usually placed in a location with clear sight lines to most of the congregation.
Stepping away from the lectern may not provide the same elevation advantage. If it doesn’t, you become harder to see, particularly for people farther away.

2. Sound Amplification

There’s usually a microphone at the lectern that allows you to be heard without straining your voice. With an audience of 2,000 people, you definitely need help to reach people in the back of the church.
If you step away from the lectern, you may put yourself at a disadvantage:
If there is a portable microphone that can be worn or held, you can probably compensate.
If there is not, I would definitely advise staying at the lectern. Even with a very strong voice, it would be difficult for you to be heard, particularly if you speaking longer than a minute or two.

3. Symbolic “Weight” of the Lectern

There’s a reason that lecterns are used in many religious settings, as well as by CEOs and politicians. By its nature, a lectern carries significant weight (both real and metaphorical). When you speak from behind the lectern, your credibility can be heightened, provided your message and delivery is dignified and respectful.

In this particular context (asking for a donation), credibility is critical.

4. Your Height

The “weight” advantage afforded by the lectern is maximized by speakers who have the physical presence to match it.

Tall speakers have an advantage in this scenario. Shorter speakers, on the other hand, may find themselves overwhelmed by the size of the lectern. In a worst case scenario, a very short speaker may appear to only be peeking over the top of the lectern. It is definitely worth swallowing your pride and compensating with a step stool if necessary.

Of course, stepping out from behind the lectern eliminates this entirely.

5. Sensitivity of the Clergy

If the presiding clergy member would take offense to you stepping out from behind the lectern, then you would be ill-advised to do it. Remember that you are a guest in this setting, and it isn’t a good idea to offend your host.

The best (and only) way to assess their sensitivity is to ask them beforehand. (In general, you should always include questions like this as part of your audience analysis.) Explain where you’d like to stand, and why you’d like to avoid the lectern. I think this is a case where it is better to ask for permission rather than beg for forgiveness.

6. Expectations of the Audience

“Shocking the expectations of your audience may be to your advantage.”Depending on the culture and accepted practices within your congregation, you may be expected to speak from the lectern. If nobody ever speaks away from the lectern, some may take offense. Again, the only way to gauge this is to talk with members of the congregation ahead of time.

Having said that, shocking the expectations of your audience may be to your advantage. If nobody ever speaks away from the lectern, they will certainly notice if you do! For a bit of (appropriate) drama, you might consider starting at the lectern and then moving away during your delivery. Perhaps this “breaking of convention” ties into your core message? Maybe the visual shock of moving away from the lectern complements your desire to shock your audience to abandon their preconceived opinions about the cause to which you would like them to donate?
Whatever you choose, be respectful.

7. Visibility of Gestures

Provided there is no extreme elevation disadvantage in moving away from the lectern, there’s no question that you can employ a wider range of gestures if you free yourself.
Standing behind a lectern hides a significant fraction of your body. Depending on your height, the only gestures that are visible are likely those made at or above the level of your chest. Further, the “weight” of the lectern will tend to diminish any gesture you deliver.

On the other hand, being free from the lectern makes your entire body visible. (Again, this depends on sight lines.) You will have a wider range of gestures at your disposal, and they will appear larger and more effective.

8. Vulnerability and Audience Connection

“Eliminating barriers — physical or symbolic –  makes you more effective.”Stepping away from the lectern enhances your vulnerability. As mentioned by Nick Morgan, moving closer to your audience often aids your attempts to connect with them. In addition to moving physically closer, you will also be free of the symbolic barrier which the lectern creates between you and your audience. Eliminating barriers — physical or symbolic –  makes you more effective.

What Do You Think?

Do you have experience speaking in church? What did you do?
If you were in the congregation, would you encourage the speaker to step away from the lectern, or expect them to stay behind it?

Thank you for your attention!

Even a newbie at public speaking knows they should make eye contact.
But the term eye contact is rather vague. It can infer just making fleeting “contact” with a person then moving on. Don’t make eye contact – make “eye connection”.  Eye connection means spending time with each person so that person feels like you’re just talking to them. Eye connection has two major benefits:

People in your audience will feel that you have genuinely connected with them and that you care about their reaction.

Because you’re talking to people as if you were in a one-on-one conversation, you’ll come across as conversational. That makes you easy to listen to and engaging.

Here are my tips on how to make eye connection:

1. See people
A lot of people we work with confess that they don’t really see individual people in their audience. They’re just aware of a blur of faces. If you can relate to this, next time you present, experiment with seeing people. Look at their facial expressions, look for their reactions to what you’re saying. We call this ‘listening to your audience.”

2. Shrink the room
Imagine that the person you’re looking at is the only person in the room. For those few seconds you’re having a one-on-one conversation with just that person. This has two benefits. You’re likely to talk in a more conversational style because you’re drawing on the conversational skills you already have. It may also reduce your nervousness because you’ll no longer feel like you’re talking to this big audience – but just to one person.

3. Find out how long it takes to make genuine eye connection
It can be difficult to judge how much time is enough to make eye connection. And you may be concerned that if you spend too much time with one person they’ll start to feel uncomfortable. To find out how long it takes, gather together a few friends and deliver your presentation. Ask each person to rest their elbow on the table and raise their hand (resting the elbow is so that their arm doesn’t get too tired). Ask them to drop their hand when they feel you’ve made eye connection with them. You’re likely to find that the length of time needed to make that eye connection is longer than you think.

4. Move to another person at an appropriate time
If you carried out the experiment above, you probably found that your friends dropped their hands at the end of your sentences. That’s also an appropriate time to move onto another person. By doing this you’re adding “formatting”. In a written document there’s punctuation, paragraphs, and headings to guide the reader. In a presentation, the presenter adds the formatting by the way they deliver. The movement of your eyes is one way to add verbal formatting.
Note: If you tend to talk in long sentences, you may find that making eye connection with one person for a whole sentence is too long. If that’s the case, move to another person at the end of a phrase. (And work on making your sentences shorter – that will make it easier for your audience to digest what you’re saying.)

5. Look for the reaction
After important points look for the person’s reaction to what you’ve just said. If the person feels like you’ve been talking to them, they’ll nod. People nod when they’ve processed what you’ve just said. “Waiting for the nod” is an effective way of pacing your delivery to the rate at which your audience can take it in.

6. Keep your eyes up at the end
The most powerful time to have your eyes up is at the end of a sentence. Unfortunately, it’s also the time when you’ll be most tempted to drop your eyes so that you can look at your notes. Discipline yourself to keep your eyes up till you’ve finished your sentence, then look down. Look at your notes in silence. When you’re ready to continue, look up, find someone to talk to and then start talking.

7. Don’t be a lighthouse or a tennis umpire
A lighthouse presenter goes systematically around the room. A tennis umpire presenters looks first to the left, then to the right. Mix it up – be random!

8. Respect people who are uncomfortable
Some people in your audience may show that they’re uncomfortable with eye connection by looking away. Different cultures have different norms regarding eye connection. Respect that by spending less eye connection time with them – but don’t ignore them!

Thank you for your attention!

It's hard, from within the storm of every day life, to see things with real perspective, to know what's important and what's simply pressing on our consciousness right now, demanding attention.

We have people emailing us for information and requesting action, we have phone calls and visitors and a long to-do list and a million chores and errands to run and all of the slings and arrows of our daily reality … and yet, what is important?

Ask yourself this: if you suddenly found out you only had 6 months to live (for whatever reason), would the thing in front of you matter to you?

Would those 20 emails waiting for a response matter? Would the paperwork waiting to be processed matter? Would the work you're doing matter? Would the meetings you're supposed to have matter? Would a big car and nice house and high-paying job and cool computer and mobile device and nice shoes and clothes matter?

I'm not saying they wouldn’t matter … but it's important to ask yourself if they would.

What would matter to you?

For many of us, it's the loved ones in our lives. If we don't have loved ones … maybe it's time we started figuring out why, and addressing that. Maybe we haven't made time for others, for getting out and meeting others and helping others and being compassionate and passionate about others. Maybe we have shut ourselves in somehow. Or maybe we do have loved ones in our lives, but we don’t seem to have the time we want to spend with them.

When was the last time you told your loved ones you loved them? Spent good quality time with them, being in the moment?

For many of us, doing work that matters … would matter. That might mean helping others, or making a vital contribution to society, or creating something brilliant and inspiring, or expressing ourselves somehow. It’s not the money that matters, but the impact of the work. Are you doing work that matters?

For many of us, experiencing life would matter — really being in the moment, finding passion in our lives, seeing the world and traveling, or just seeing the world that’s around us right now, being with great people, doing amazing things, eating amazing food, playing.

These are just a few ideas … but what would matter to you?

I highly recommend that you spend at least a little time now, and regularly, thinking about this question … figuring out what really matters … and living a life that shows this.

How do you live a life that puts a great emphasis on what matters? Start by figuring out what matters, and what doesn't. Then eliminate as much as you can of the stuff that doesn't matter, or at least minimize it to the extent possible. Make room for what does matter.

Make the time for what does matter … today. Put it on your schedule, and don't miss that appointment. Make those tough decisions — because choosing to live a life that is filled with the important stuff means making choices, and they’re not always easy choices. But it matters.

Spend time with your significant other, show them how important they are. Take the time to cuddle with your child, to read with her, to play with her, to have good conversations with her, to take walks with her. Take time to be in nature, to appreciate the beauty of the world around us. Take time to savor the little pleasures in life.

Because while you might not have only 6 months to live, I'm here to break the news to you: you really do only have a short time to live. Whether that's 6 months, 6 years or 60 … it's but the blink of an eye.

The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now

Thank you for your attention!

Stepcase Lifehack just published a blogpost on tips for more effective PowerPoint presentations. I was surprised to see some outdated and unhelpful advice. Here are my five steps to create an effective PowerPoint presentation. I’ve written about many of these steps before, so I’ve provided links to more detailed posts if you’d like more information.

1. Plan your presentation on paper first.

Keep away from the computer. Garr Reynolds from PresentationZen calls this going analog.

 Instead focus on your audience and what you want them to take away from the presentation. What do you want them to do? How do you want them to think differently? What do you want them to remember? This will become your Key Message. See this post for more guidance A Simple and Concrete Key Message.

Then structure the flow of your presentation around what your audience will want to know – see Answer your audience’s questions.

The Lifehack post recommends writing a script. I don’t recommend this. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re a skilled dialogue-writer you’ll find it difficult to write your script in conversational language. And conversational language is what works best in a presentation.
• Once you’ve written a script, you may find it hard to keep from reading it. Reading to your audience is an effective way to put them to sleep.
• You may think that you can memorise it – what that means is that you’ll end up “reading” from the script in your head. You’ll still sound artificial and stilted. And you’ll be focusing on remembering what comes next rather than focusing on getting your ideas across to your audience.

Presenting is about communicating ideas – not exact words and sentences. So instead of a script create a set of notes for yourself. Your notes don’t say what you want to say – they remind you of what you want to say. For more guidance on creating notes, see this post The lost art of notes. Then you can focus on connecting with your audience.

Once you’ve created the structure and flow of your presentation, you can start creating slides. There are many different creative ways of creating slides. In this post, I’ll take you through a quick and easy way to use when you’re short of time.

2. Put one statement on each slide

Take each main point of your presentation and express it as a short and succinct statement. Put each statement on one slide.

That’s the only text you put on the slide. The Lifehack post says ‘No paragraphs’! I go further and say ‘No bullets’! Here’s why:

• Bullets are the speaker’s notes in disguise. Take them off the screen and put them in your hand or on the table/lectern in front of you.
• Having bullets on your slide and talking at the same time harms the ability of your audience to take in your message. See The problem with traditional bullet-point slides and New scientific evidence for banning bullets from your PowerPoint slides.
• Bullet-points are outdated. See 5 ways bullet-point slides damage your brand.

If you run out of time, these simple one-statement slides will work fine. If you’ve got time, go onto the next step.

3. Add a relevant visual to each slide

Now look at how you can add a visual element to each slide which helps back-up the point of the slide. There are four main types of visual:

1. An image or photograph which directly represents or is a metaphor for what you’re talking about.
2. A diagram which helps your audience understand the concept you’re describing.
3. A graph which shows the meaning of your data.
4. A flowchart that demonstrates the process you’re explaining.

For more description of each of these see this post on The application of visual thinking to presentations.

I agree with the Lifehack post that irrelevant, distracting images and cliched clipart shouldn’t be used. Watch out also for cliched images – the Slide:ology blog has lots of examples of these.

4. Pay attention to design

The Lifehacker post says:

Avoid the temptation to dress up your pages with cheesy effects and focus instead on simple design basics.

I agree. The key design principles are:

• Use a simple background – decorative templates add clutter.
• Use a sans serif font such as arial or helvetica.
• Use text which contrasts well with the background.
• If you’re using photos have them fill the whole screen and put your text on top of them. If necessary use a semi-transparent rectangle – a mask – behind the text to ensure that it is readable.

These two posts expand on these points:

• Powerpoint slide design – the basics
• PowerPoint slide design – adding elegance

The Lifehacker post says avoid dark backgrounds if you can to help with readability. This used to be true with older dimmer datashow projectors, but now with brighter projectors it’s not an issue unless you’re in a very light room like a conservatory or direct sunlight is hitting the screen.

5. Dance with your slides

 You know not to read from your slides. But don’t go the other extreme of ignoring your slides like a wallflower at a dance. Dance with them. They are your partner in the presentation – sometimes you lead, sometimes the slide will lead. For more ideas on how to do this see my post Are you missing out on half the power of your PowerPoint slides?

Thank you for your attention!