Episode Description

On improving presentation culture.

Dan and Merlin talk about bombing the deck, advancing the slides, and striving to improve the self-perpetuating bad culture of presentations.

Slide?!?

(Also, kid germs in the spaghetti, meeting the angry corn guy, and moving closer to the metal with our Showbot hero.)

Episode Information

Initially Released October 25, 2011

Runtime 1 hour 19 minutes

Episode Page Sorry. You Can't Have a Candle.

Recurring Topics and Characters

• Public Speaking

• Presentations

Discussion

Giving a Good Presentation

Merlin postulates that there are three aspects of a presentation that the creator should be conscious of: The Story, The Show, and The Room.

The Show

The Show is all the aspects of a presentation you have control over. Including yourself, what you want to say or persuade the audience of.

The Story

The Story is the overall narrative, the story that you are trying to communicate as opposed to a series of facts strung together. Even, as Merlin says, if you are presenting 3rd Quarter Earnings there is a message you are trying to communicate that prevents the audience from "standing there saying 'So what?'"

The Room

The Room is all the aspects of the situation over which the presenter has no control. Including the audience, the technology involved in the presentation, electricity, etc.

Quotes

I don't see you liking hanging out with a witch.
-Merlin, on Dan's choice of friends.

You don't want to get tough with me. If you're a 3-year-old.
-Merlin

There is a self-perpetuating culture of presentation badness that is extremely hard to get out of.
-Merlin

If it's not somebody who's gonna go bomb a deck…
-Dan, describing the kind of presentations he likes to see.

The more you try and please everybody, the more likely you are to sort of disappoint everyone.
-Merlin, on knowing your audience.

The more profound what you're trying to say is, the less likely that everybody's gonna like it.
-Merlin

You don't let the guy with the brooms decide how many elephants can be in the parade.
-Merlin, on working with The AV Guy.

If you don't have a story, I can't help you with any of this other stuff.
-Merlin

It's like Germans not getting cake after a meal.
-Merlin, on repercussions of not having a deck.

When you would see Steve Jobs do a talk, he never had to yell out "Slide?!?"
-Merlin

The presenter has to know the story so well, that if the power goes off you could still hold the room. And if you're depending on slides to do all of that for you? You can't do that.
-Merlin

No one's ever gonna be satisfied with how quickly you're becoming the person they expect you to become.
-Merlin

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