Many years ago, Peter Urs Bender presented wonderful, simple advice:
There are only 4 reasons you should give presentations -
- to inform
- to entertain
- to touch the emotions
- to move to action
You can and should try to accomplish more than one of these 4 things when you give presentations...and accomplishing all 4 is ideal.
I have found this simple advice to be very helpful.
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Many, many years ago one of my bosses gave me the following piece of advice...
There's only 2 reasons to make a speech -
- You love making speeches
- Your boss tells you to make a speech.
While that can come across somewhere between humorous and annoying, it too is a good piece of advice. I have had the pleasure and displeasure of giving speeches under both these reasons.
No question, I performed far better under reason #1.
No question, the catastrophes I experienced under reason #2 enabled some wonderful learning experiences and now-humorous stories...I mean - now-humorous because hindsight is 20/20 and time has healed all wounds.