Presentations Quotes

A recent survey of Top Five Fears places public speaking alongside “identity theft” and “mass shootings.” In the 1980s, it completed with “nuclear destruction.” In the 1970s, “shark attack.

John Capecci and Timothy Cage

In 7.81 square miles of vaunted black community, the 850 square feet of Dum Dum Donuts was the only place in the "community" where one could experience the Latin root of the word, where a citizen could revel in common togetherness. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, not long after the tanks and media attention had left, my father ordered his usual. He sat at the table nearest the ATM and said aloud, to no one in particular, "Do you know that the average household net worth for whites is $113,149 per year, Hispanics $6,325, and black folks $5,677?""For real?""What's your source material, nigger?""The Pew Research Center."Motherfuckers from Harvard to Harlem respect the Pew Research Center, and hearing this, the concerned patrons turned around in their squeaky plastic seats as best they could, given that donut shop swivel chairs swivel only six degrees in either direction. Pops politely asked the manager to dim the lights. I switched on the overhead projector, slid a transparency over the glass, and together we craned our necks toward the ceiling, where a bar graph titled "Income Disparity as Determined by Race" hovered overhead like some dark, damning, statistical cumulonimbus cloud threatening to rain on our collective parades."I was wondering what that li'l nigger was doing in a donut shop with a damn overhead projector.

Her favorite stepping-aside technique was to lay out a dizzying mountain of complex steps and then pronounce the conclusion self-evident. Excuse me? Things that are self-evident don't need you or the presentation anyway. Relying only on logic, on what can be factually established, may inform or intimidate, but it will rarely stir anyone into action or change.

Charlotte Beers

Just as you can’t rehearse your way to success, you can’t design your way there either.

When preparing a presentation, it’s never a good idea to begin with a rule. If you do, you’re focusing on the appearance of good delivery and not the effect of it.

We should just stop calling these things presentations altogether. Everyone gets hung up on that word. Wouldn’t it be easier to just call them conversations? That’s really what they are.

A successful presentation needs to be both buttoned up (orderly) and free-flowing (a conversation). The tension between the two, the fact that both things are happening at once, defines the process.

Improvement is achieved by the ripple effect of a few simple changes in approach, attitude, or habit.

It’s hard to hold a conversation with people when you’re not seeing them.

During the first few minutes of your presentation, your job is to assure the audience members that you are not going to waste their time and attention.

Perfection is the enemy of authenticity.

Lisa Braithwaite