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.

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In Part 1 of this post I shared 12 Tips for Effectively Implementing Wikis in your organization. These tips included Form Following Function, Harnessing Peer Power, and Finding the Wiki Champion(s) in your Organization.

To continue the thread, here are 13 more tips that will help you to effectively implement wikis in your organization.

13. Reward activity

Create simple graphical reward badges for frequent contributions, moving a project to the wiki or any other activity that promotes adoption of the wiki. Badges should be placed on the user’s wiki page for everyone to see.

14. Create navigation pages to guide browsing across the wiki

Support for dynamic content is a must here, as the content will remain evergreen.

15. Encourage ownership and personalization

User pages are a great opportunity to experiment with features and gain familiarity with the wiki. Encourage users to personalize their own pages with widgets, badges (see tip 13),photos and feeds.

16. Use the wiki first

Most users already search the Internet but don’t know that the same facility exists inside the company. Whenever an opportunity arises, remind users to use the built-in wiki search first to find the information they are looking for before defaulting to other avenues.

17. A little latitude goes a long way.

Let users make mistakes; good wikis make it easy to reorganize content.

18. Integrate your wiki with in-house systems

Integrating the wiki with your AMS and other CMSs and allow users to create their own dashboards and mashups for daily activities.

19. Make the wiki part of the culture

Self-expression is important in teams and across organizations. Wikis are a perfect embodiment of self-expression that transcends organizational structure. Just make sure you know your culture and whether it will embrace a wiki or reject it before heading down that path.

20. One size does not fit all.

Wikis don’t work for all organizations. Your organizational culture needs to embrace the open exchange of knowledge and information in order for a wiki to succeed. Furthermore, single all-encompassing wikis seldom work in organizations. With wikis implemented at the organizational level, the concept of “spaces” or “projects” are almost always required.

21. Security is a must

Granular security with the ability to specify permissions—even at the page level—is often required for enterprise wikis.

22. Find support from those that stand to benefit the most.

Start with those who need it most. There is no single best practice on how a wiki should be rolled out within a large organization. However, it is often most effective to implement a wiki within those groups or departments that have immediate use for it. Forcing the wiki as a organization-wide mandate is usually not a good idea.

23. Let it go viral

As users within the organization send out wiki links or e-mail wiki pages, other users will get interested—or at least curious.

24. Know Thy Users

Depending on what wiki platform you choose to use, some require detailed configuration to use some of the more advanced features and functionality. Make sure you know what users want before rolling out your wiki and make sure that the functionality meshes well with the need.

25. It’s a numbers game.

The older the wiki, the more frequent the access. The greater the access the great number of lurkers. The greater the number of lurkers the more potential contributors. It all adds up.

Obviously this list is not all inclusive. What did I miss? What have you learned from your own Wiki implementation that others can benefit from?

References: eWeek - 25 Tips for a Better Wiki Deployment

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I’ve been doing a lot of catching up on my blog reading over the past few days and just came across a great article on the Acronym Blog. Jen Miller has a great write-up on how Associations can use Wikis. I found the post really well written and chocked full of some really solid suggestions. I want to use Jen’s write-up as an impetus to expand on the idea and move from the what to the how.

Trailing below are the first 12, of 25, tips for effectively implementing wikis in an organization based on recommendations from a recent article from eWeek. If you are considering trying to implement a Wiki within your association these tips are for you!

1. Form follows function

The use of Web 2.0 tools requires imposing some, but not too much, administrative structure on the collaboration environment. Too much structure inhibits innovation and interaction. Too little structure can devolve into purely social interactions, engender conflict and produce little valuable knowledge.

2. Establish ground rules early to avoid problems later

As the collaborative environment is being established, people are looking for cues for how to interact. Establishing appropriate cues early sets the tone for interactions to follow. It is much easier to start on the right foot than to correct problems later.

3. Recognize people for what they contribute

Web 2.0 tools provide the opportunity to identify extremely valuable knowledge held by the “crowd.” When members of the crowd do contribute valuable knowledge or insight, reward them for it.

4. Harness peer power

Allow colleagues to evaluate one another’s contributions, even relying on them to distribute many of the rewards mentioned previously. Peers are often in the best position to evaluate a contribution and the work that went into it.

5. Find something that works and stick with it

Effective use of Web 2.0 tools for collaboration depends on both the tools and the community that uses them. New Web 2.0 capabilities are being introduced daily, and it can be difficult for even a tech-savvy community to learn to use them all effectively. In most companies, the goal is effective collaboration, not developing the most cutting-edge IT platform.

6. Look for the diamonds in the rough

Don’t be discouraged if 90 percent of what the collaborative environment produces is not valuable to you or your business. The goal is to find the 10 percent that is truly valuable and that you wouldn’t have found any other way. These are the ideas that are worth the time, trouble and effort of learning the new tools.

7. Find at least one wiki champion

The wiki champion(s) will be responsible for creating awareness of the wiki and reminding others how easy it is to use. See BMart’s post on Acronym for how you can find your Social Media Superstars.

8. Cost does not equal guaranteed success

For most organizations implementing a wiki is a big deal, but it doesn’t have to cost a lot. There are a lot of low-cost packages available for use that are easy to implement and use. Success is never guaranteed and failure can be an inexpensive option.

9. Use the right tools for the right job

Capture information in wiki pages and send URLs by email instead of trying to collaborate with email. Too much great information gets lost or trapped by not using the right tools for the job.

10. Keep it simple.

An rigid structure makes it difficult and intimidating to add new content.

11. Provide a variety of ways to participate.

Remember what it is like to be an outsider and how challenging/frustrating it is to learn something that is completely new to you. Provide users with a variety of ways to participate. A user who only feels comfortable commenting on content at first may evolve into one of your most prolific contributors.

12. Make keeping up easy to do.

Provide tools for users to subscribe to the RSS feed of the wiki. Nothing encourages participation like visible activity.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series where I share a bakers dozen of additional tips.

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