Craigstrachan.com – Keep talking!

If you want to see a brilliant and inspirational speaker, you have to get tickets to see Ben speak. I have been twice, an it is an incredible inspiring presentation! He will be in Cape Town and Johannesburg in Jan 2011. It is worth every cent.

For details, email Johleen@symphonia.net, or goto www.symphonia.net.

Benjamin Zander, world renowned conductor and speaker on leadership, captivates and inspires with his unique style.

Benjamin Zander

Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, is a world renowned speaker on leadership. He has presented at the World Economic Forum many times, and was the opening keynote speaker at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2009.

Benjamin Zander’s presentation takes an audience on a journey that offers a startling new perspective on leadership. Through stories, music and concepts it causes a radical shift in perception. This is not a speech, it is an experience!

In this new model of leadership, the conductor sees his job as awakening possibility in others. The orchestra is a group of highly trained individuals poised to coalesce into an effective whole. Passion, creativity and the desire to contribute are basic human instincts to be released.

World famous conductor, Benjamin Zander uses the metaphor of the orchestra and a life-time of experience conducting, coaching and teaching musicians to work his magic to overcome barriers to corporate productivity. This presentation sources fundamental changes in organizations.

For more information see www.benjaminzander.com.

CAPE TOWN

Dates: Tues, 25 January 2011
Registration: 08:30 – 09:00
Time: 09:00 – 13:00
Venue: TBC

JOHANNESBURG

Dates: Fri, 28 January 2011
Registration: 08:30 – 09:00
Time: 09:00 – 13:00
Venue: Vodaworld, Midrand

I was recently asked by a fellow public speaking blogger, Olivia Mitchell from Speaking about Presenting what I would like to see in PowerPoint presentations this year. The answer to me is quite simple – LESS.

• Less Slides
• Less Text
• Less Complexity

Less Slides

The trend in 2008 has largely been to replace lines and lines of bullet points with pictures illustrating the points. This is great because pictures have a powerful ability to illustrate points that text never will have. Hence the large and vivid pictures commonly used on newspaper front pages.

However, pictures are only part of the solution to giving an effective presentation. I still feel that most presentation need to be simplified and to have fewer slides. Remember that if a slide does not add to your message, it probably detracts from it.

Less Complexity

If you push the capabilities of PowerPoint (esp version 2007), you can create some amazing effects and transitions. Here is a great example. However, the more effects and transitions you add to your presentations, the more complex they become, and greater the chance of you messing it up. So, unless you really know what you are doing, or you have some great designers and PowerPoint experts working with you, you might want to cut back on the complexity.

I have also seen very few transitions, effects and animations that add to a presentation.

Less Text

We still need to see less text. Far to many presentations are text heavy. Laura Bergells makes a great point about going picture crazy and replaceing every single line of text with graphics. We do need to find a balance, but I would still rather see a presentation with too many graphics than with too much text.

So, lets cut back on the slides,simplifiy the slides that we keep, and use less text. Here’s to some great PowerPoint presentations in 2009!