Over the last few years, presenting during video conferences has become a new medium in the business world. The advantages of this technology lie first and foremost in its versatility and speed that make communication more flexible and cost-effective. Continue reading...

Online presenting, Video conferencing

Presentation coach Paule Wendelberger talks about her method of preparing meaningful presentations and dealing with complex topics. Watch this inspirational video to get tips and tricks on how to structure your content.

Paule Wendelberger, Complexity

It is amazing how much good advice for presenters you can get on the internet. Last time we did a Google search we got about 122 million hits for the key words “presentation tips”. That is a lot. You might think bad presenters should be an endangered species by now. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case. How little has changed over the last 90 years becomes obvious when you read the following two pieces by German journalist, satirist and writer Kurt Tucholsky, publicized 1930 under the pseudonym Peter Panter. You get the feeling they could have been written yesterday. Continue reading...

Kurt Tucholsky, Complexity, Peter Panter, Storytelling

“The world is a Hologram” — a complicated topic, simplified to the bone. This presentation from Professor Leonard Susskind nails it! After reading Stephen Hawking’s “The Universe in a Nutshell” I thought I understood a little bit about the universe. But I was wrong. Watching Susskind’s presentation I really understood. I begun telling others about it and wanted to know even more about the subject. What makes this presentation so worthy for me is how he breaks every single denominator down in order to help us understand something we can’t see, hardly can imagine, can’t really make sense out of — a concept that is extremely hard to get our heads around. Continue reading...

Leonard Susskind, Universe

Bottled water or tap water? “Who would demand a less sustainable, less tasty, way more expensive product — especially when you can get it for almost free in your own kitchen?” Annie Leonard reveals some inconvenient truths about our economical system and the way we handle the resources of our planet. Telling the story of bottled water, she explains how the image of tap water got tainted, what that means for big business, for the environment, and for all of us… Continue reading...

Annie Leonard, Sustainability, Story of Stuff

What makes a genius a genius? Today, superlative attributes such as genius, artist, or master, are so generously used that it seems almost impossible to recognize true ingenuity. We know about creativity, about Flow (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), and the Element (Ken Robinson). But, what does really happen when a masterpiece emerges, when something meaningful appears? In this 1969 Iowa Public Television broadcast we get a glimpse of that magical moment when Jim Henson explains about his puppets. It happens in plain sight: They come to life. Continue reading...

Jim Henson, Muppets, Creativity

What if somebody approached you with the task to hold a meaningful presentation about a topic of your choice in order to motivate a crowd of complete strangers? And if that wasn’t enough to scare the living daylight out of you, the timeframe given lies somewhere between two and five minutes. How would you approach this task? What topic would you choose? What stories would you tell and how would you tell them? Here is your chance to learn from a master. Enjoy these presentations by musician and entrepreneur Derek Sivers. Continue reading...

Derek Sivers, TED, Intercultural Communication, Storytelling

A presentation can be built around one central slide. Van Jones gives us a perfect example — not only of how such a slide looks like, but of how to present it with impact as well. The central question of the presentation is: “Is there some way we could connect the work that most needs doing with the people that most need work?” Continue reading...

Van Jones, Slide design, Sustainability, Pop!Tech

Back in February 2006, Sir Ken Robinson mesmerized the audience at the TED conference with his speech, Do schools kill creativity? The video has been viewed over 20 million times on Youtube so far. It was a defining moment for TED, making Ken Robinson somewhat of a figurehead for TED Talks. In his latest book, The Element — How finding your passion changes everything, he gives another inspiring insight into the field of human creativity and its limitless opportunities. He urges us to search for our very own Element, the point where natural talent meets personal passion. Continue reading...

Ken Robinson, Creativity, Education, TED, Storytelling

Apart from his enlightening topics there is a lot we can learn from Barry Schwatz’s presentations — although (or, maybe just because) he is not our picture-book presenter. After the video three thoughts, in order of appearance. Continue reading...

Barry Schwartz, Slide design, TED

In this Google TechTalk, psychologist Dan Siegel introduces his findings about the mind: 1. The mind is a process that regulates the flow of energy and information, it uses the brain to create itself. 2. The flow of energy and information incorporates three basic elements: brain (mechanism), mind (regulating), relationships (sharing). 3. A healthy mind emerges from integrated systems defined by nine functions: body regulation, atunement, balancing emotions, capacity to extinguish fear, ability to pause before acting, insight, empathy, morality, and intuition. Continue reading...

Dan Siegel, Mind, Google TechTalks

The ever increasing speed of change and its totality that we are facing today leaves us in need of explanations — more than ever before. In order to keep pace we have to make sense of it all. We have to understand the own position in relation to the processes of globalization, climate change, and conflicts. It might well be a matter of survival — not only on an individual level and not only for people outside the western industrialized nations. Devdutt Pattanaik explains the basic differences between East and West by telling wonderful stories about mythical figures from both worlds. Continue reading...

Devdutt Pattanaik, Intercultural Communication, Slide design, Storytelling, TED