Craigstrachan.com – Keep talking!

Michael Cortes wrote an interesting article about how important good spelling and grammar are in a technologically modern world, and here is my take on it with reference to blogging.

Yes, spelling and grammar are important! However, we need to remember that the beauty of the blogging platform is that it gives everybody an opportunity to have their say. The downside of this is that it brings all of our grammatical warts along with that.

Very few of us are professional journalists or copywriters, so most of us are going to make the occasional error in our writing. Now I am not using this as an excuse for poor quality grammar and spelling, we must still proof-read our work, get it as correct as possible, and correct errors when we find them.

But dear reader, please remember that I am writing this blog for the love of it (and so are most of my fellow bloggers), and to share what information I feel I can. I will make the occasional mistake, but please indulge me when I do.

BTW: I spell using UK english, so I hope I don’t put you off-colour!

(I just realised that I wrote this whole post using the word grammer instead of grammar, but at least I realised!).

Here is quite a good list (grin) that I found on improving your written communication (source unknown).

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
3. Employ the vernacular.
4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
6. Remember to never split an infinitive.
7. Contractions aren’t necessary.
8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
9. One should never generalise.
10. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
11. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
12. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
13. Be more or less specific.
14. Understatement is always best.
15. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
16. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
17. The passive voice is to be avoided.
18. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
19. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
20. Who needs rhetorical questions?
21. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
22. Don’t never use a double negation.
23. Capitalise every sentence and remember always end it with point.
24. Do not put statements in the negative form.
25. Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
26. Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
27. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
28. A writer must not shift your point of view.
29. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
30. Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!
31. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to the irantecedents.
32. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
33. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
34. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
35. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
36. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
37. Always pick on the correct idiom.
38. The adverb always follows the verb.
39. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; They’re old hat; seek viable alternatives.

If I really examine the list, I don’t agree with everything (eg: nothing wrong with quotations), but there are some interesting ideas in here.

What do you think?

Speech presented by Lois in February, 2008. She speaks about who you see when you look in the mirror. 

Download the podcast.

One of the key things that a presenter is often taught is to start and end your presentation on time. Now, this sounds so easy, doesn’t it?

But the problem is that the time before a presentation is often when much of the networking happens, and you end up having a roomful of really chatty people who are so busy networking that they loose complete track of the time,and it becomes difficult to get their attention. So, how do you get their attention, get them to take their seats and settle down so that you can begin your presentation on time?

Here is a really simple solution that Mike Futty, a fellow associate at Powerful Presentation Alliance, suggested to me. Create a ten minute time-check presentation that you show before you start speaking. In other words, show on the screen how much time remains before the programme begins. Simple, isn’t it?

This gives people a clear visual indicator that:

• You are aware of time
• You expect the audience to be aware of time
• You intend to start on time

To make it easy for you, we have provided you a simple Power Point presentation for you. All it does is to show a simple countdown timer. Just download it and run it ten minutes before you are going to start. Feel free to distribute it. You can download it here.

Enjoy!

I have finally completed the initial version of my e-book, Putting the POWER back into PowerPoint.

This 34 page ebook will show you how to effectively use PowerPoint to enhance your presentation. Learn how to:

• create great slides
• get away from bullet points
• effectively use graphics
• setup the venue
• use sound and video

and of course, know what to take with you when giving a presentation. You can download the 34 page ebook here. Please tell all your friends and family to download the ebook.

I would love to get some feedback, so please let me know what you think!

Here is a simple exercise for you:

Have a look at this slide, and decide which slice of the pie is the largest. You will probably agree that it is either the red or the orange slice (Apple or RIM). OK, now decide what percentage of the pie Apple and RIM hold.

Of the people that I have shown this slide to, most have guessed that either

1. Apple is larger or
2. RIM is larger, but not by much

Everybody was surprised to see that RIM (39%) is almost double the size of Apple (20%) – everybody was fooled by the distortion created by the 3D effect on the graph.

Have a look at this slide. Now, it is quite clear that RIM is much bigger. So, when using 3D in your presentations, please have a careful look at the slides and check that you are not distorting the truth.

Note: the above data is not real data – it was just used to illustrate my point.

I have just found a great list of 100 websites that contain educational MP3′s and podcasts that you can download to you iPod. Some of it is commercial, but most of it is available for free.

Some of the material includes:

• News
• Vocab builders
• Languages
• City Guides
• Educational games
• Science
• Philosophy
• Audiobooks
• Success
• University classes (eg Stanford, MIT, Yale)

So now you have no excuse for not learning on the go.

Enjoy!

(There is also a section on creating your own podcasts, podcasting software etc.)

The other day I head a speaker being introduced, and the MC made a complete mess of it. The worst part of the whole introduction is that the speaker was welcomed to the lectern, and then the MC continued with a clearly unprepared introduction. This left the poor speaker standing in the middle of the stage, completely unsure of whether to walk up to the mic, or to walk back off the stage and wait for the MC to finish!

This has happened to me, and I don’t want it to happen to you. Here are a few tips for introducing a speaker

1. Check if they have their own written introduction ? most experienced speakers will.
2. If the do have a written introduction, use it and stick to it.
3. Keep the introduction short and to the point ? no more than a minute or two.
4. Be clear when you are calling the speaker to the stage, welcome them (a simple handshake will do), handover, and get off the stage.
5. Don?t steal any thunder from the speaker. If you have heard them before, don?t mention too much about their topic, or the great joke they told – you don?t want to steal their thunder.
6. If the speaker has a difficult to pronounce name, ask them how to pronounce their name, and be sure to get it right. Write it out phonetically if necessary.
7. Remember, the audience is there to hear the speaker, not you.

What else should the MC do?

Sometimes we need to present complex data in our PowerPoint presentations. There are two ways to do this.

1. Confuse your audience with the data
2. Simplify the data into an easy to understand format

One of the easiest ways to turn data into a simplified format is to convert tables of raw data into clear graphs.

Have a look at the below table which contains one month of exchange rate figures.

What does the table tell you? Unless you are very used to looking at that sort of data, not much. Can you see the trends? How about the peaks and troughs?

Now, have a look at this picture.

Now what do you see? Does it look a bit more simple? Is it less overwhelming? Does it give you a better idea of what the data is really doing? Remember that it is exactly the same data, just presented differently.

Converting any table of data into a graph is a very effective manner to simplify it, and to make it more accessible to your audience. Here are four tips for creating a graph:

1. Make the data and lines clear and easy to read
2. Minimize use of 3D – it can clutter the graph
3. Only show data that is relevant – don’t display loads of data lines
4. Clearly hi light points of interest (eg the max and min values above)

Of course, the usual rules still apply – make sure that your slides are clear and easy to read. Let’s look at this last slide.

Spot the problems:

1. The axis labels are too small to read
2. The 3D does not add to the graph
3. The graph line is difficult to read
4. The graph is bunched up in the top of the screen – the bottom is wasted real-estate

Please – don’t ever create a graph like that!

Remember – make your slides as clear and simple as possible!

• Are your presentations as effective as they can be?
• Do your presentations stand out from the crowd?
• Do you want to learn how to use PowerPoint to enhance your presentations?
• Do you want PowerPoint to add to our message, instead of being a substitute for your message?

Cape Communicators Toastmasters Club is proud to present a dynamic workshop:
Put the POWER back into PowerPoint, facilitated by  Craig Strachan.

In this 75 minute workshop, you will learn how to:

• Create exciting and dynamic slides
• Use visuals to enhance your message
• Break out from using boring bullet points
• How to use PowerPoint to effectively enhance your message
• Logistical  tips that you don?t learn in the books

Monday 18 Feb, at 7:00 for 7:30pm.
Huis Der Nederlanden, Central Square, Pinelands.
Please RSVP to Lois Strachan (LStrachan@martech.co.za) by Friday 15 Feb.

Cost: R25

Note: This workshop is not a technical workshop on how to create slides, it is a workshop on how to make your slides effective.