The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming

I was feelin' sad and kinda' blue,
I didn't know what I was a gonna do.
The Communists was comin' around,
They was in the air,
They was on the ground,

They wouldn't gimme no peace.

                                                                                        — Bob Dylan

Russian trolls have invaded our homeland, according to The Atlantic.

Posing on social media as angry Americans, they're riling our political factions.

"The ultimate intent is not so much victory for a certain side, but a loss for everybody: sapping the credibility of US institutions and tearing open as many wounds as possible," The Atlantic reports.

"After Election Day, we should not be surprised to find a vocal group of internet users with mysterious IP addresses decrying the result as a fraud and driving talk of conspiracy—and even of resistance or secession.

"In time, we may see a multiplying number of homegrown violent extremists (along the lines of the infamous Oregon militiamen), encouraged by the subtle manipulation of a certain rival government."

They have us by the brains.

Our only defense: a little critical thinking.

According to The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking, " Much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought."

To improve your critical thinking, the Guide says, you need to:

• Raise and formulate important questions clearly and precisely;
• Gather relevant data and use abstract ideas to interpret that data;
• Come to reasoned conclusions you can test against others' standards;
• Stay open minded and explore alternative systems of thought; and
• Communicate effectively.

The Business Girl's Guide to Halloween Parties

Thanks to Jazz Age content marketing, business girls never had to sweat over throwing a nifty Halloween blow. The Bogie Book showed 'em how.

Each October from 1912 and 1926, paper party-goods maker The Dennison Paper Company published The Bogie Book to inspire busy women. (The company skipped a 1918 edition. Halloween was cancelled that year, because the nation was gripped by the Spanish Flu.)

In the 1925 edition, the two-page article, "The Business Girl's Halloween Party," offered all the instructions to plan your blow: 

• Buy a Dennison Halloween "lunch set," complete with a crepe paper tablecloth, paper plates and paper napkins. 
• Buy Dennison crepe paper sashes for the guys, headbands for the dolls.
• Make place cards and a table centerpiece from cardboard and Dennison crepe paper; a chandelier from wire and Dennison crepe paper; and window curtains and valances from Dennison crepe paper.
• Decorate the rest of the room with black cat cardboard cutouts from Dennison. 
• For appetizers, serve pumpkin doughnuts wrapped in Dennison crepe paper; fruit cocktail in a Dennison paper cup wrapped in Dennison crepe paper; candy wrapped in Dennison crepe paper; and apples topped with Dennison crepe paper goblins' hats.
• Keep the main course simple: chicken patties and potato chips. Serve ice cream, cake and coffee for desert. 
• Prepare everything a day in advance, so you can assemble it quickly when you get home from work.

As Dennison was a family-friendly firm, no instructions were included for hiding the hooch (illegal due to the Prohibition).

Goodly Predicts Corporate Magazines Will Make a Comeback

WASHINGTON, DC, October 2, 2017—Corporate magazines will make a roaring comeback in 2017, according to a prediction by Goodly.

The blog bases its prediction on an unflagging belief marketing obeys the law of eternal recurrence.

“Corporate America is on the verge of once more of embracing the print magazine," says Bob James, owner and chief storyteller.

Although entire in-house departments and outside design studios were dedicated to their production during much of the 20th century, corporate magazines fell from grace in the late 1980s.

"The time is right for their inevitable comeback," James says. "The universe can only stand so much digitalization before it lashes out in ink and paper."

In October's edition of Chief Content Officer, Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute, likens the brand-building power of print magazines to live events.

"We are in the experiences business," Pulizzi says. "We create those experiences through valuable, consistent content. While most of your competitors are focusing on digital experiences only, savvy brands see the opportunities offline."

Pulizzi notes that winning brands Red Bull, LEGO, Dell and Marriott all have splashy corporate magazines.

About Goodly

With 1,500 pageviews a week and climbing, Goodly is devoted to helping professionals express ideas precisely. Guest posts are welcome.

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Napoleon's Newspaper

A century before Edward Bernays fathered PR, Napoleon fathered his own media channel, the Courrier de l'Armée d'Italie.

The Courrier was no ordinary rag.

Printed on expensive paper, it was handsomely designed, featuring well-laid-out articles and a summary of each issue's content in a box just below the masthead. To ensure that content was top-drawer, Napoleon hired none other than Robespierre's protégé, the accomplished journalist Marc-Antoine Jullien, as editor-in-chief.

But despite giving readers wide-ranging reportage—plus a steady stream of poems, op-eds, and letters to the editor—the Courrier remained Napoleon's mouthpiece, boosting the general's pet ideas, while shredding detractors', day in and out.

No wallflower, Napoleon contributed signed articles, too; not only military proclamations, speeches and orders of the day, but tales of French politics that painted dark pictures of conspiracies, led by pampered minorities bent on destroying good republicans everywhere ("they do not act alone; they have their auxiliaries in every department, their constituents, their agents, their writers, their armed forces, their hired assassins..." he once wrote).

The Courrier was so effective a propaganda tool, it ensured the success of the 1799 coup that made Napoleon emperor.

Sound familiar?

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Imagine what Napoleon might have done with Facebook!

HAT TIP: Thanks to history buff Ann Ramsey for leading me to this story.

The One-Minute Millionaire

A corner has been turned.

I for one am pleased.

Content creators have begun to recognize their art is as old as Methuselah; that it's less about hoodwinking Google and automating posts, and more about intriguing readers.

The rules for generating good content are, in fact, the very same ones Associated Press reporters used in 1846, when the organization was founded.

I'm soon to reach my 10th anniversary as a blogger. The blogosphere 10 years ago was a trash heap of get-rich-quick schemers bent on selling stuff.

A few pioneers—Chris Brogan was one—proclaimed at the time content marketing was a permutation of PR; that it was all about educating customers, connecting with them, and earning their trust.

But that was the view of outliers.

The herd chased fads and went in for cheap and tawdry tricks.

My gut told me the outliers were right and that the rest of the crazy world would catch on one day.

It took 3,650 days.

"In a world of zero marginal cost, being trusted is the single most urgent way to build a business," Seth Godin says. "You don’t get trusted if you’re constantly measuring and tweaking and manipulating so that someone will buy from you.

"The challenge that we have when we industrialize content is we are asking people who don’t care to work their way through a bunch of checklists to make a number go up, as opposed to being human beings connecting with other human beings."

If you create content and haven't caught on yet, you still have time.

A little, anyway.

Rebel, Rebel

"Don Draper with a conscience," copywriter Howard Luck Gossage created ads in the 1960s for airlines, breweries and oil companies.

But his favorite and finest work was extracurricular.

Nicknamed "The Socrates of San Francisco," evenings Gossage turned his agency, headquartered in an abandoned Barbary Coast firehouse, into a salon where iconoclasts like Tom Wolfe, John Steinbeck, Marshall McLuhan and Bucky Fuller met regularly to booze it up and brainstorm.

Gossage was the first marketer to see advertising as a "conversation," coining the word "interactive" to describe the ads he created. Their goal, he said, was to get audiences to opt in, join communities and converse with brands. "Our first duty is not to the old sales curve, it is to the audience," he said.

Gossage also dreamed up "pay per view" (30 years before we could access the Web) and was the first marketer to integrate advertising and PR.

In 1966, Gossage took on the fledgling Sierra Club as a client, creating ads to protest the damming of the Grand Canyon. The ads galvanized activists everywhere, halted the government's project, made Gossage's client a household name, and spawned yet another group, Friends of the Earth, which was kickstarted in a rent-free back office in Gossage's agency. Friends of the Earth today is the largest grassroots environmental organization in the world.

David Ogilvy once called Gossage, "The most articulate rebel in the advertising business."

Rory Sutherland, vice chair of OgilvyOne, calls him a forgotten hero of advertising's Creative Revolution.

"Gossage is the Velvet Underground to Ogilvy’s Beatles and Bernbach’s Stones," Sutherland says. "Never a household name but, to the cognoscenti, a lot more inspirational and influential."

Government Communicators: Focus on Event Photography

Award-winning video producer Ann Ramsey contributed today's post. She is a senior producer at the US Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, DC.

Press conferences, roundtables, ceremonies, observances: these types of events are familiar material for the government communicator. Want to step up your game? Use photography. If you need great content—and who doesn't?—consider partnering with your staff photographer. The photos he or she shoots will be engaging visuals that you can turn into quality content.

But partnering with your staff photographer has more advantages than meet the eye:

History. Christopher Smith, staff photographer at the Department of Health & Human Services, has worked through many Administrations, knows the principals of the Department and their schedulers intimately, and can anticipate their photo requirements. Plus, he can locate past event photos going back many years. For commemorative projects, his image repository is a goldmine.

Economy. No licensing fees are required when you use your agency’s own photos, and no permissions are required to cover an open-press or a public event. Photography makes an effective complement to video; and if your budget doesn’t allow for video coverage, photography can work wonders all by itself. Professional photographers are available on a day-rate virtually anywhere, if you have none on staff. 

Authenticity. Stock photography is polished, inexpensive and convenient, yet has its limits. Viewers may "tune out" stock shots unconsciously as being promotional. When it comes to events, images of real faces and places have the edge over stock shots for authenticity—a priority for every government communicator. 

Quality. Professionals are equipped for the job. Lighting and special lenses can overcome obstacles such as dim rooms, cramped conditions, or far-off podiums. As important, professional photographers have been trained to tell a story or evoke a mood in one frame. Here are a couple examples:

For a group portrait at a conference, HHS staff photographer Christopher Smith brought a light-stand and wide-angle lens, and posed the subjects. The image of the group-members together, sporting their cause-related wristbands, evokes a sense of team spirit.

Equipment and know-how really make a difference. In a candid shot of HHS Secretary Burwell at a feedback session, our eye is drawn to her face by the photographer's use of selective focus and a long lens.

Staff photographers' role expanding

Traditionally, staff photographers cover any number of events, most often to provide visuals for the media and for archival purposes. But the role of the photographer is expanding with the new media formats in use today. Consider:

Social media. Many professional-grade digital cameras now have Wi-Fi connectivity, making immediacy an option. Well-composed photographs are eye-catchers for posts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or other social media sites, whether in real time or afterwards. With photographs, your posts can be picked up by image-based search engines such as Google Images.

Electronic press releases, blogs and websites. A clear, relevant photograph helps hook audiences of your agency’s electronic press releases, blogs or Websites, where the event can be explained in detail. Putting a text caption or headline with the photo clarifies immediately what is being shown. 

Tools for partners and stakeholders. When sending pre-event announcements to partners and stakeholders, attach downloadable photographs for them to re-use as tools in helping you get the word out. If there are too many photos to attach, hyperlink email recipients to where the photos are stored (Flickr, Dropbox, an FTP site, etc.).

Ready to go to work? 

A professional photographer will reliably produce quality material, and be a godsend when you’re working out image selection, distribution and archiving. Here are some tips for effectively directing your staff photographer:

In advance: For smooth planning, inform the photographer of the advance team, event location, best arrival time, and any parking and security issues. Explain what the interior lighting is likely to be, and whether any exterior shots are needed. Provide the event rundown if possible, including any special access to VIPs or arrangements being made for the media. This helps your photographer set up for the shoot.

Before the event starts: Tell the photographer what your needs are. According to Christopher Smith, pros don’t need much detail. “I can plan what needs to be shot for most events," Christopher says. "What I really need to know is who the principals are, where and when the photos will be used, and whether anything special is going to happen at the event. For example, if the speaker is going to show a report or a plaque from the podium, and I know ahead of time, I can remind the presenter to hold it up for a few moments so I can get the perfect shot.”  For shooting format, Christopher finds the medium-resolution JPEG setting efficient for editing and storing.

At the event: Assist the photographer with any logistical matters. Help him or her to anticipate what comes next, and where. Indicate anything you would like covered that you may not have mentioned. After that, get out of the way. If you allow photographers to handle the shoot in their own way, you are likely to get the best material.

After the event: Give the photographer any details needed for assigning metadata. Specify what deliverables you need. A folder with a few selections? A Flickr download of the whole shoot? Some prints to distribute? Your digital media team will know how best to optimize photos for different social media platforms. If you are your own graphics department, here's a guide. Keeping file sizes small will ensure easy loading on line. Again, if you have no digital experts on hand, try using iPhoto, or access a free compression tool like Image Optimizer.

WAY after the event: Lest we forget, our friends at NARA in College Park will ultimately want to add our event photographs to the 8 million shots already archived. Keep your photos organized. It will save headaches later.

NOTE: This post first appeared in Federal Communicators Network.

Marketing Myopia 2016

Our “measure everything” age has engendered a new form of marketing myopia, says Todd Ebert in Convince & Convert.

"While marketers once accepted as fact that they didn’t know which half of their ad budget was wasted, today they’ve done a 180 and believe that if it can’t be measured, it’s not worth doing," Ebert says.

Marketers' new myopia causes them to put all their money on one number, whether that's SEO, podcasts or white papers, and to walk away from proven, but less measurable, tactics like advertising, PR and exhibiting at trade shows.

A riskier bet you couldn't imagine.

Betting only on search, for example, ignores every buyer who hasn't started her product research; while betting only on podcasts or white papers ignores every buyer who thinks she's finished it.

In fact, betting it all on one number—no matter how measurable—undermines the marketer's tactic of choice, Ebert says.

"If you don’t do anything to drive brand familiarity and interest at the beginning of the journey, then it won’t matter how well you optimize at the end because you won’t be invited into the buyer’s consideration set."

Delivering Bad News

Leaders can learn a lot from FDR.

A champ in many ways, he was at his most masterful where bad news was concerned—and there was a storm of it while he was president.

In April 1942, he told a radio audience that, due to war, "everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary."

FDR provided no sugarcoating.

“The blunt fact is that every single person in the United States is going to be affected."

But he went on to say, "'Sacrifice" is not exactly the proper word with which to describe this program of self-denial. When, at the end of this great struggle we shall have saved our free way of life, we shall have made no 'sacrifice.'"


Americans responded patriotically.

Leaders are like that. From fails to fiascos, downturns to downsizings, they have the steady job of delivering bad news.

Georgetown University management professor Robert Bies recommends these 10 rules for mastering your delivery of bad news:

• Never surprise anyone. You’re shirking your duty by keeping bad news to yourself.


• Never stall. “Bad news delayed is bad news compounded,” Bies says.


• Never cover up. Withholding information will only lead others to draw false conclusions.


• Always put it in writing. A paper trail will one day be important.


• Always justify. Provide “specific and concrete reasons for the bad news.”


• Always give hope. Emphasizing the positive and temporary aspects of bad news can boost morale, as FDR knew.


• Always offer solutions. Solutions put the focus on future improvement. “Bad news without solutions is truly bad news.”


• Always consider every audience. “Remember when delivering bad news that the news never reaches just one; it reaches many.”


• Always follow through. “Bad news involves cleaning up a mess. After cleaning, let everyone know. Now the news is no longer bad; it is good.”


• Always show respect. You’re not just communicating bad news; you’re communicating it to human beings.

The last rule is the cardinal one, Bies says; and the one most often broken, as I can attest.

I was laid off, fortunately, only once in my career.

While, as an executive at the company, I was privy to the financial setbacks that preceded the event, when the bad news arrived, via telephone on the Monday before Thanksgiving, the very first thing I was told was that “the decision was easy.”

I grasped at the moment the words that were said (“Marketing is a luxury”).

I’ll never grasp why they they were said.

Influencer Marketing: Cooking with Gas

“Influencer marketing presents a glaring opportunity for brands to leverage the power of word-of-mouth at scale through personalities that consumers already follow and admire,” says Misha Talavera in Adweek.

Influencer marketing may in fact be “the next big thing,” as Talavera says; but it isn’t new.

In 1939, build-up boy Deke Houlgate worked for American Gas Association when he cooked up the tagline, "Now you're cooking with gas!"

Electric and natural gas stoves were in hot competition at the time. 

The association hoped to persuade homeowners cooking with gas was the best way to get hot meals on the table.

Without funds for ads, Houlgate called Bob Hope's scriptwriters and convinced them to insert his line into Hope's radio show.

It became one of Hope's signature lines, and soon spread in use by other comics, jazz musicians and cartoon characters.

American Gas Association was hardly Houlgate's last hurrah.

During World War II, from inside the Pentagon, he used his magic to popularize the unpopular B-26, a bomber so crash-prone it was nicknamed by fliers "The Widowmaker." 

Houlgate also helped glamorize WACs, to encourage enlistments.

Social Media Marketing, Meet Maslow's Hammer

Abraham Maslow said in The Psychology of Science, "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

Social Media Examiner recently asked 5,086 marketers whether social media marketing improves sales. The findings speak volumes:

• One-third of marketers with less than one year's experience in social media marketing say it improves sales, while

• Two-thirds of marketers with more than five years' experience in social media marketing say it improves sales.

As a marketer's experience in social media marketing increases, so does her belief in its efficacy.

Digital marketer Jay Baer wonders whether seasoned social media marketers' belief is simply self-justifying.

"People who have been employed in the social media business for multiple years could be convincing themselves that social media is effective, because if it wasn’t a portion of their entire identity and professional worthiness would be called into question," he says.

But Baer chooses to read the findings as proof of something else: social media marketing works when you commit to it long term, not short term.

"This data shows that time horizon is a great determinant of social media success," Baer says.

I agree with him, and would add: social media marketing is merely 2016's edition of PR; it works when you treat it like an enterprise, not an event.

What do you think?

Outdated

Fifteen years ago, there were two flacks for every reporter. Today there are five.

"As the PR field flourishes, journalists are becoming a vanishing breed," says Mike Rosenberg in Ragan.com.

Searches on job sites for "reporter" and related keywords yield ads for openings "that have nothing to do directly with producing the news," Rosenberg says.

For every one opening for a reporter, a search yields 10 for candidates with journalism backgrounds or degrees willing to try PR.

It should come as no surprise—especially to acolytes of David Meerman Scott—brands are skirting the news industry to tell their own stories.

If you're not alarmed, fathom this: newspaper reporters are becoming extinct.

According to the American Society of News Editors, the number of staff reporters has dropped 40 percent in eight years.

As every flack knows, newspapers are the starting point for the original coverage picked up by all the other media outlets.

"The drop in newspaper reporters means the amount of real news out there has taken a wallop," Rosenberg says.

The gap in original coverage means more "earned" and sponsored placements make their way to audiences. 

In other words: less news, more propaganda.

Rosenberg recently tweeted the stats.

David Simon, former Baltimore Sun reporter and creator of the HBO series "The Wire," retweeted Rosenberg's message, adding, "This is how a republic dies. Not with a bang, but a reprinted press release."

The Blog as a PR Tool

Master marketer Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps organizations generate publicity about their activities and shows leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

A blog is a fast and easy PR tool you can use to promote your knowledge and expertise to a wide audience.

But like other PR tools, blogs should be used for specific reasons and with the hope of achieving particular results. Writing a blog for the sake of seeing your name on the screen is not publicity. It's vanity. Just like issuing a news release when you have nothing to say, a “content-free” blog does little to establish or enhance a positive reputation for you or your company.

Here are some tips for blogging the right way and for the right reasons:

• Create a comprehensive list of your knowledge, expertise, or services. Then prioritize the topics that are most important to you and write what you know about.

• Follow the blog posts of others to see what they have to say on the topics you want to write about. Instead of simply repeating that they’ve already said, find something new or interesting to write about the matter. Posting new and original material will help you stand out from the crowd. Unless, of course, you are more interested in being an echo chamber instead of a fresh voice.

• Depending on the blogging platform you choose to you, you can have a big say in deciding how large or small you’d like your potential audience to be. If you think bigger will be better, and then include a link to your blog on your Web site, social media platforms, e-mail signature, etc.

• Decide how much feedback, if any, you want from your audience. While encouraging dialog among followers of your blog can lead to a larger audience, you also run the risk of losing control of the nature and focus of the content. This is not a bad thing if you want to build an online community, but it could also be frustrating if you think “your” blog has been hijacked by others.

• Plan your blogging activities as if they were like any other important part of your marketing activity. Because they are!

• Experiment with different blogging formats (e.g., word-based versus video-based) before making a final decision about the kind of blog you want to do. If you are more comfortable in front of a keyboard instead of a camera, then launching a YouTube-based blog will not be best for you. How you blog will dictate the platform you should employ.

• If you already have an established reputation, reinforce that image with appropriate blog posts. If you are just starting out in business and have no brand, think long and hard about what you want people to know and think about you. Then take steps to ensure that the content you post does not stray from that desired reputation.

• Keep current on trends and developments in your industry, profession, or areas of expertise. To receive the latest news, set up Google Alerts for key words, phrases and topics you want to follow.

• After you’ve had an opportunity to try your hand with blogging, have an honest conversation with yourself about the experience. Does blogging make sense for you? Is it something that you really want to continue doing, or has it becomes a drag? Every PR activity should be done for the right reasons. Don’t let your blog become a slog.

Should Your Brand Use Profanity?

Friday evening I had the long-delayed pleasure of seeing comedian Lewis Black perform live.

Black raises profanity to an art, using obscenities not to shock, but to amplify, and lessen the pain of living in an absurd world.

In their drive to express authentic passion, more and more brands are resorting to the use of profanity in their marketing communications.

Should you?

The answer's fairly straightforward: the reward—authenticity—may not be worth the risks. By using profanities:

• You risk going off-brand. A frighteningly profane Lewis Black would be on brand; a frighteningly profane Martha Stewart wouldn't. You can, of course, test the waters, and apologize afterwards. As Mel Brooks once said, "I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that´s bullshit."

• You risk offending good customers. The Bowdlers are still with us. Thomas and Henrietta Bowdler were English siblings who published a family-friendly edition of Shakespeare in 1807. We get the word bowdlerize from them (they replaced, for example, Lady Macbeth's cry "Out, damned spot!" with "Out, crimson spot!"). The Bowdlers of this world are easily offended. Just observe any young parent or elementary schoolteacher.

• You risk losing shares. Even people who don’t mind profanity might not share your blue content with family, friends and colleagues. The research is clear on this.

5 Sure-Fire Steps to Thought Leadership

Master marketer Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps corporations and organizations generate publicity about their activities and shows leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

What would you rather be: a chief or just another member of the tribe? A trail blazer or trail follower? Someone who helps determine and influence the conversation or a worker bee that waits for others to establish the agenda? 

If you’d prefer to help set the pace instead of simply run the race, then the chances are you would like to be a thought leader. Here’s how to do it: 

Be an expert

• Select topics or issues about which you have knowledge.

• Have or develop a track record of writing or speaking about your topics or issues to groups and organizations in the industries or professions in which you want to be considered a thought leader.

• Stay ahead of the curve by thinking about your field beyond today and sharing predictions or forecasts that illustrate your authority in the field.

Be a joiner

• Join or lead groups and organizations that are more likely to help establish your role as a thought leader.

• Volunteer to serve on committees or task forces that can bolster your expertise and add to your credentials as an authority.

Be visible

• Identify, create and take advantage of appropriate opportunities for you to be seen as an expert or authority, including speeches, presentations, and media, blog, and podcast interviews.

• Post on your website or social media platforms links to articles, interviews, speeches, etc. that you have done about your areas of specialty.

• Practice your ability to prepare and deliver short, pithy and memorable quotes that will be used by journalists and bloggers in their stories about or interviews with you.

Be a student

• Keep current on the trends and developments in the areas in which you are or want to be considered an authority.

• Study other thought leaders inside and outside your industry or profession. What can you learn from their successes that you can apply to your own efforts to become or stay a thought leader? 

Be persistent

• Identify or create new opportunities to position yourself as an authority and expert.

• Maintain a blog to which you post on a regular basis, and install a widget so that people can be notified about each new post.

• Reinforce your role as a thought leader in ways that you have not done before, such as writing a book, starting a blog, becoming a public speaker, or proactively seeking media interviews and speaking opportunities.

• Set monthly, quarterly or annual goals and milestones of important activities and accomplishments that can help you become and remain a thought leader.

Becoming a thought leader can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you act like you are a thought leader, the more likely it is you will become one.

How to Handle a Hard Presentation: 22 Sure-Fire Tips

Marketing maestro Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps corporations and organizations generate publicity about their activities and shows leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

What’s the most important thing you can do if you know that you will be making a presentation to a skeptical audience, at a challenging venue, or in an otherwise difficult situation? 

In a word: prepare.

While it is impossible to ensure that every presentation will go smoothly, there are definitely steps you can take to help stack the deck in your favor.

Here’s how:

• Don’t accept speaking invitations for which you are unqualified or unprepared. Don’t let your ego get in the way.

• If you spoke to the same tough group or in the same difficult setting before, ask yourself: What did I learn from the experience?

• Think twice about giving breakfast speeches if you are not a morning person, or evening presentations if you like to retire early.

• Do your homework about the audience (demographics, knowledge of the subject matter, special interests or concerns, etc.); ask the sponsoring organization if there are any red flags about the audience you should be aware of (forewarned is forearmed).

• Ask others who have spoken to the organization what it was like, and what you can learn from their experience.

• If you accept the speaking invitation, know what you want to accomplish with your remarks.

• Know the basics about the speaking opportunity (format, length of your presentation, time, location, etc.).

• Arrive early so you can get a feel for the room where you will be speaking, greet and chat with people as they arrive, etc.

• Make sure that the layout of the room is to your liking and meets your needs (classroom-style, theatre-style, roundtables, etc.).

• When you arrive, check with your host to ensure the arrangements, purpose and topic of your presentation have not changed.

• Know where things are, such as lights, microphones and audio controls, AC and heating controls, water, restrooms, etc.

• Ensure that you and your audience will be comfortable by checking the heat or AC settings, microphone settings, lighting levels, extraneous or distracting noise, etc.

• Check out any that stairs you must climb to get on or off the stage. This will help you to avoid tripping over unfamiliar steps.

• Don’t tell jokes unless you’ve already proven that you can tell jokes well. There’s nothing funny about no one laughing at your jokes.

• Make sure your audience can see you. Don’t hide behind the podium.

• Do not hide your gestures. Keep your hands up where your audience can see them!

• Maintain a good posture when standing or sitting. No slouching!

• If audience members do not have access to a microphone, be sure to repeat questions before answering them. This helps ensure everyone in the room hears what was asked.

• Respond honestly to questions. It’s okay to say "I don’t know."

• Don’t allow one person to monopolize the session. ("Let’s meet afterwards to talk about this.")

• Summarize/rephrase lengthy questions for the audience. ("Let me make sure that I understand what you are asking...")

• Do not allow Q&A sessions to drag on. Signal to your audience that the session is almost over. ("We have time for one more question.")