I love presenters who have a knack for baking-in metaphors or icons from popular culture as spice to their presentations. I'm a bit jealous wherever I see it because it's something I feel I always struggle with when preparing my own presentations.
I usually have a tendency toward one of those cerebral presenters. You know, one of those who puts lots of text in his powerpoints. The guy who uses words instead of pictures to describe real-world examples. The geek who uses tables of numbers for descriptive statistics instead of graphs. "That guy" who uses text quotes as anecdotes instead of stories.
Don't come to one of my presentations. Boooorrriiiing!
But, I do recognize the good stuff when I see it in others. And when I see it, I at least like to draw attention to it where I find it.
Maybe I draw attention to these little gems because I sort of think that if I can get others to emulate the good stuff, then in some small way, perhaps I'm saving some future version of myself from having to sit and listen to some other guy conduct a booorrriiing Mel-type presentation.
It's in that spirit, I'm sharing the short little presentation below conducted by Dawn Foster of Fast Wonder Consulting. The presentation seeks to educate her audience about characteristics of online communities.
As you play the presentation below and listen to the audio, read also the Seuss limericks (?) on the slides. I think it's a great use of parallelism in metaphors to reinforce key points. As an aside, there's also a YouTube video of Ms. Foster conducting her presentation about online communities. You don't have to play the YouTube video all the way through. I'm pointing it out because it's worth noticing how Ms. Foster brings fun into her presentation by dressing as one of the Dr. Seuss characters.
For you speedy RSS scanners, here're the key points from Dawn's presentation:
o Play nice. In communities you host, approach it like you're hosting a party. You set the tone. People will take your lead.
o Make it fun. Find activities to keep your community members engaged.
o Meritocracy. Share the spotlight. People who contribute should occasionally be highlighted in the community.
o Be accepting of community members.
o Improve (upgrade) and evolve the community. Don't rest on yesterday's laurels. Find ways to keep it fresh and new.
o Be flexible. Ideas come from all sorts of different places.
o Be empowering. Let the community help improve contet. Seek their input.
o Encourage diversity, encourage the unusual, leverage hidden talents.
o Don't feed the trolls. There's always going to be somebody who wants to get a reaction for whatever reason. Don't give them the platform, nor the links they likely seek.
o When appropriate, don't be afraid to ban the spammers.
Are we missing anything? What other tips would you add to this list?
