The Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by TechWeb and O’Reilly Media, is a global annual gathering of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals who are building the next generation web. It just wrapped up it’s East Coast run today. The conference featured a number of phenomenal keynote and general session speakers.

Among the keynotes was one of my favorite authors and presenters: Clay Shirky. Shirky is an adjunct professor at NYU who studies social media, and author of the book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. During his keynote Thursday at Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Shirky examined the problem of information overload. His premise was the fact that the problem is not that we have too much information to process. The problem is that our filters are inadequate. And privacy breakdowns are a similar problem — privacy is threatened because the filters we relied on to keep our private data confidential are broken, and we haven’t evolved good mechanisms to replace those filters yet. I thought that it was one of his best presentations and I’ve shared it below.

For a thoughtful summary and evaluation of Shirky’s presentation, take a look at Mitch Wagner’s post on Information Week’s Digital Life Blog titled: Clay Shirky Busts The Myth Of Information Overload At Web 2.0 Expo.

To take a look at other great presentations from the Web 2.0 Expo, take a look at the videos here and the speakers presentation files here. Definitely looks like it’s a well run and worthwhile event to attend.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to giving presentations: either you enjoy doing it and like being at the front of a room captivating your audience with compelling stories and great accompanying visuals or you absolutely hate it. I’ve yet to meet someone that is on the fence on the issue. I am fortunate that I fall into the former as opposed to the later category and attribute a lot of my love of and success with presenting to spending some time as a middles school teacher. In front of a group of pre-teens and teens you can’t exhibit fear, drift too far off message or risk being boring or you will lose the class. If any of you have lost a class full of students this age you know that it’s next to impossible to get them back.

I’ve posted previously (here and here) about presentation techniques and what I feel are the essential elements of good presentations and more importantly things to avoid when giving presentations. I guess some could say that I am extremely passionate about the topic and I constantly keep my eye out for good examples and new literature so I can keep my technique sharp and engaging. Among my favorites I count Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points, Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen, and Stephen Kosslyn’s Clear and to the Point among my absolute favorites.

Despite the wealth of great resources on presentations available, both in print and online, often it is helpful to see a great presenter in action to really understand what it takes to successfully engage an audience. Among my favorite presenters is Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs simply has a special quality when it comes to capturing an audiences attention and delivering his key points. Another thing that he does especially well is that he sets a theme and uses his slides and his content to establish his context. It also doesn’t hurt that in my estimation he is a master showman. So what does he do that truly sets him apart from the rest? Bnet put together a 7-minute video overview of what makes Steve Jobs a such a stand-out presenter and believe it or not most of the tips we can all benefit from.

For those of you who don’t have the time to watch the video, the 15 most salient points are as follows:

1. Set a theme and stick to it.
2. Make your theme clear and consistent.
3. Create a headline that sets the direction for your presentation
4. Provide a verbal outline and then open and close each section with a clear transition.
5. Make it easy for your audience to follow you.
6. Demonstrate enthusiasm.
7. Sell an experience.
8. Make numbers and statistics meaningful.
9. Analogies help connect the dots for your audience.
10. Make it visual (and simple).
11. Paint a simple picture that doesn’t overwhelm.
12. Identify the most memorable point and tell people when you reach it.
13. Use the resources at your disposal to make the presentation pop.
14. Spend time to rehearse.
15. Give your audience a bonus at the end.

I think there are some great points in this video overview that we can all benefit from. But I also know it isn’t completely comprehensive or applicable to less austere events. I also know that the association-world has some stand out presenters so I’d love to hear your own thoughts and ideas. What do you do to dazzle your members or colleagues when you present? What can we learn from you? Share your tips, tricks and secrests below in the comments.

No matter how busy I am or how little time that I think that I have, the one website that I find myself frequently visiting/revisiting is TED. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and its genesis in 1984 was as a conference that brought together individuals representing those three worlds. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

While I have never had the opportunity to attend one of the conferences, I have been able to reap many of the benefits through their website which makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free, called TEDTalks. TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. In fact, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website was re-engineered around TEDTalks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world’s most inspiring voices.

As of today, more than 250 talks from their archive are now available, with more being added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted. With 50 million views since the debuted online two years ago, TED talks have become a powerful cultural force. To celebrate this milestone, they have released a never-before-seen list: the Top 10 TED talks of all time, as of June 2008. You can watch the video below:

The top 10 TED Talks of all time include:

1. Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
2. Jeff Han: Touchscreen demo foreshadows the iPhone
3. David Gallo: Underwater astonishments
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo
5. Arthur Benjamin: Lightning calculation and other “Mathemagic”
6. Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
7. Hans Rosling: The best stats you’ve ever seen
8. Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better
9. Al Gore: 15 ways to avert a climate crisis
10. Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote

I have seen many of these Talks, but a few I had never seen and will be heading back over to TedTalks to watch them. What I like most about them is that they are intelligent, on-point, and full of wisdom and inspiration. They are perfect for getting an idea of what is going on in the world today and more importantly what is possible. If you have some time, I’d highly recommend spending it there.