The Presenter's Toolbox: Time-saving tools to build better presentations

By Eric Bergman

This toolbox provides a series of models to help you develop clear, concise content for virtually any presentation challenge you'll face. 

It will save you time. It will improve your effectiveness. And it is constructed on the assumption that the best approach to building any presentation is to develop slides last, not first, in

• Language: English
• Publisher: Petticoat Creek Press, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9780987968982

Eric Bergman

For more than thirty years, Eric Bergman has used these tools to help his clients shape their stories and tell them effectively. Eric became a student of the spoken word in September, 1981. The professor of his presentation skills course at college was a member of a team preparing a presentation for delivery in Baden-Baden, West Germany. The objective of the presentation was to convince the International Olympic Committee that Calgary should host the 1988 Olympic Winter Games. "We were given a front-row seat to the process," Eric says. "I'll never forget waking up to my clock radio to hear that Calgary had been selected to host the games. For me, it was one of those 'where were you?' moments." He started his communications career as a government public affairs officer in June, 1982, and wrote his first speech for a senior executive less than two months later. "It was a retirement speech, so it was fairly low risk," he says. "But, as the first one, it was stressful. I worked on that five minutes for almost five hours." He left government in 1985, and has since been self-employed as a communications consultant. He relocated to Toronto in 1987 and, as a significant part of his consultancy for nearly a decade, wrote hundreds of speeches for executives in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. In the early 1990s, he shifted his focus to providing presentation skills training during workshops and seminars, and in one-on-one coaching. Over the ensuing years, he has used this toolbox thousands of times to help his clients develop strategic, compelling, effective content for a host of presentation challenges.

Book preview

Content First, Then Visuals

This toolbox provides a series of models to help you develop clear, concise content for virtually any type of presentation. It can be used as a stand-alone product, or to supplement The Engaging Public Participation Presentation and 5 Steps to Conquer ‘Death by PowerPoint’. It is constructed on two assumptions.

The first assumption is that the best approach to constructing any presentation is to build slides last, not first, when preparing your content. Most people don’t remember the evolution of visual aids, but PowerPoint was created in 1987 to mimic the horizontal format of 35-mm slides. At the time, 35-mm slides cost anywhere from thirty-five to seventy-five dollars each to produce—i.e. to get from designer to audience. They were called speaker support slides because that’s what they did. They supported the speaker.

Slideware programs like PowerPoint, Cricket Presents, Keynote, Prezi, SlideRocket, Haiku Deck and Google Slides were never created as content development tools. When slideware was originally conceived, people always finished their content before a single slide was developed.

But during the past thirty years,  slideware has become the default tool of choice for developing presentation content.  Most people today would never think of developing a presentation without first opening a slideware program. In our world, slides are perceived to be free. And, technically, other than time and electricity, they cost nothing to produce. But research is now clear. Each slide used comes with a cognitive cost. Too often, when slideware is used to develop content, the finished product is too much information and too many slides, with the speaker now supporting the slides instead of the other way around. The result? The next time you’re at a presentation, look around. Is the audience engaged and leaning in to listen? Or are they disengaged and tuning out to text? 

The Presenter’s Toolbox offers an alternative. With it, you now have a choice. The tools here will help you shape your strategy and develop clear, compelling content. As you become comfortable using these tools, they will save you time. You’ll shift your resources—your time—from spending hours putting slides together to focusing on audience needs and strengthening your strategic focus. And, because you’ll probably use fewer slides during your presentations, you’ll ultimately enhance your results. You’ll increase the chances of achieving your personal, professional and/or business objectives.

Two-Way Symmetrical Communication

The second assumption on which this toolbox is constructed is that effective presentations are built on a foundation of two-way symmetrical communication.

Two-way symmetrical communication is a well-recognized model in the communications profession. One of the defining features of the model is the focus on creating win-win outcomes. Both sides gain from the exchange.

Two-way symmetrical communication improves understanding and builds better relationships. Research has shown it is ultimately more effective because it puts equal emphasis on sender and receiver in the communication process. By definition, the person or group receiving the information is as important as the person or group sending it. Two-way symmetrical communication is the model on which communication excellence is consistently constructed.

This toolbox is designed to help you put equal emphasis on sender and receiver as you prepare your content. On one side, the toolbox will help you better analyze the audience and the event that has brought them