Geronimo Leadership Coaching

Bye Bye Competition, Welcome Collaboration!

"Biology is war in which only the fiercest survive"

"Businesses and nations succeed only by defeating, destroying and dominating competition."

"Politics is about your side winning at all costs."

Sounds familiar?

This how Howard Rheigold started his TED Talk in 2005.He called it "The old story".

Howard Rheigold is a writer, an artist and a designer, a theorist and community builder and he is one of the driving minds behind our net-enabled, open, collaborative life.

He has helped us see" The new story "emerging. Let's take a big leap of faith, for Christmas!

"It's a narrative spread across a number of different disciplines, in which cooperation, collective action and complex interdependencies play a more important role."

"And the central, but not all-important role of competition and survival of the fittest, shrinks just a little bit to make room..."

How does it look for public speaking and presentations?

• No more emailing around of presentation files. Share your presentations with your friends/colleagues and the shared presentations can be viewed/edited with just a browser.

• Open source: "In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available." It is almost a synonymous for peer-to-peer , online, open, shareable, etc...

"B2B Sales & Marketing has traditionally been driven by withholding information. A tradition that is turning on its head rapidly. Social Media is changing all that. People who use to run filters now drive feedback. We’ve moved from a world of exclusives to one of inclusives.

My bet is that people who share information will out perform those who horde."  

                                         by Ross Mayfield, in Slideshare's blog, December 23rd 2009

How can you share your presentation online?

• Share your presentation on your company 's website

• Share your presentation on your blog

• Share your presentation on You Tube

• Use presentation sharing websites like Slideshare

  Slideshare is turning the whitepaper industry on its head with a Business product called LeadShare. Lead generation is done in the context of a professional sharing community. You can provide the lead form in the middle or end of a presentation, whitepaper or webinar. This lets marketers engage through sharing the actual content before posing a more natural, “want to learn more?” to an engaged prospect

• Collaborative presentation software:  Too many to quote them, but let me give you two examples of softwares I have tested. First one is the most famous, it's free and it's Google Apps.Google Docs is Google's "software as a service" version of an office suite. Simple and basic, very user friendly. The other is SlideRocket. Fantastic, have a look!
  

• Collaborative presentation platforms: All you need is a browser and a good internet connection. No additional software is needed: just like with  Present.io It has "dead simple rich web-presentation functionality. no registration, no downloads, no installs. You can upload your presentation files (documents, pictures, video, audio, and more) and be giving your demo or walkthrough in seconds. With a free conference call line and rich chat functionality, you have just what you need." Or Zohoo Show 2.0.

How to protect your work?

Creative commons licences, copyrights When you think of presenting your content online, you may also want to make sure you protect your copyrights.For more information on copyright, watch this great and simple slideshare presentation about copyright and creative collaboration

Story of how I started as a facilitator and trainer:

When I started facilitating  Leadership and Communication Skills for MBA students and executives at EM School of Management of Lyon,more than 15 years ago,I had a fantastic mentor.

Her name is Marie-Claire Gaittet, she's still consulting and coaching, and still my mentor, at a little more than 70 year old now...

If it hadn't been for her generosity and collaborative spirit, I would never have learned the key teaching and facilitation skills required in our profession.

She invited me into her training and master classes and gave me a floor to express myself.

She also shared all the documents I needed, the articles for the bibliography, but also the participants handouts and , most precious, her slides.

These were not slides but "transparents" for retro projector (it seems so long ago!). As soon as we started to use powerpoint, she would also share them with me."The value",- she would tell me, "is in the facilitation and teaching you're doing, not in the visual aids!"

However, I also remember a colleague of ours, who would never share any PPT, systematically erase every note on the white board, and even (this is true!), tear down the paperboard she had used and take it with her so that nobody could "steal" her ideas...

Crazy, isn't it?

How do YOU share your presentation? What tool do you use?

Have you ever had bad experiences of sharing? Or, on the opposite, excellent surprises?

Do you use any other web conferencing software?

This is the 5th part of a series about Your Next presentation, a look in the Future!

In the very near future, presentations are going to look:

• More simple
• Shorter
• More personal
• More Interactive
• Collaborative
• More Fun

Next post will be, after Christmas, on why  your presentation should be more fun with some tips!

A little teaser, thanks to John Zimmer. A short video with Lucy and Linus from the Charlie Brown soundtrack. Enjoy!

Wishing you a Happy Christmas! Joyeux Noel!

How a Woman Can Move Mountains with Words

How To Create an Impact using the 4 "P"s?

Watch how Cat Lainé  from The Business Innovation Factory, is taking us into her story with Purpose,Presence,Passion and of course,Preparation.

 Awesome.

How does she do this?

With the four "P"s:

• Purpose
  
• Presence
• Passion
• Preparation

What is her purpose?

"As Deputy Director of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG), Lainé has worked to bring renewable electricity and solar hot water to families and agricultural workers in Guatemalan villages, and dry composting latrines to women in the Cap-Haitien marketplace in Haiti. Simple infrastructure projects like these have a dramatic effect on quality of life."

This lady is on a Mission. This alone has the power to move mountains.

How "Present" is she?

In her introduction,she uses a metaphor, tells us the story from the Greek mythology Tantalus.

She calls upon our ancient memories, the myths we may have learned at school.

She's excited about it and even laughs just at the thought of it, before telling us her story. We can only listen, in awe and impatient to know more.

Look at her: she is relaxed, she moves on the stage, makes eye contact, smiles, let her emotions show on her face. She also uses her voice accordingly to the effect she wants to produce. Her intention is clear: she really wants us to get involved and act on it by participation,taking action.

100 % Present and "A-Live", here and now.

She creates a sense of intimacy and closeness with us. She invites us in her space.

What about Passion?

Here is what she says about passion:

"Your dedication to the cause is what gets you through those moments," she says. "What you can't learn is passion. If you have that, it will get you so much farther than a degree."

Let it show, share your inner fire with your audience, and people will listen to you!

Preparation

This natural and casual talk is not improvised.

"With AIDG, Lainé attempts to stretch the goals of a traditional NGO by throwing savvy "business acumen" into the mix. She brings her own scientific background to the table when the group spearheads a new project, but she also knows the value of a good old-fashioned sales pitch."

And she must have prepared for this video, just like Steve Jobs does relentlessly before the release of Apple latest toy.

The result is :

Simplicity and natural.

The essence of an excellent presentation

What about you?

Will you use the 4 "P"s for your next presentation?

How to Give a "Presentation ZEN"

In The Naked Speaker, I imagined how the worse scenario( = being unable to use any visual aid at the last minute) could actually be a blessing.

Here, you can relax, you have a performing high tech equipment, projector and laptop are wired and synchronized, lights are dim, temperature is cool, everything is perfect...

Your biggest enemy could be the temptation to fill your slides with information, to use special effects, to transfer all your focus and the audience 's attention to your Slides Show, at the expense of your Presence.

Imagine if, just like on this picture, you wanted to add an extra stone...

Now,thanks to people like Garr Reynolds, who brought some innovation, thinking and design into the world of business presentations, the concept of simplicity and “Zen” in visual presentations is slowly developing.

He has been one of the first to use Make Your Presentation Naked metaphor (back in 2005!)

Zen, that means following these three principles:

• Moderation
• Simplicity
• Natural
  

Moderation in preparation.

Simplicity in visuals.

Natural in presenting.

The focus is now back on the presenter, the message he or she wants to communicate, rather than on the medium, the PPT slides and its horrible beam in a dark room, sending executives to sleep or play with their iPhones or multifruit berries…

I strongly recommend you read Garr Reynolds's blog Presentation Zen , actually already in my blog roll since last year, and it was also the first post I wrote, in French, on the 14th of November, 2008.

As I advised recently to Bengt Wendel, who was looking for some help and valuable book in order to prepare his conference, "If I had only one book to recommend, that would be Presentation Zen".

He ordered it and prepared his slides thanks to the simple and brilliant tips shared by Garr Reynods. He's just back from Malmo, Sweden, where he gave his speech at the Oredev  Conference last thursday.I am sure he did an Outstanding talk.

Actually he even wrote a post about Garr Reynolds 's book, and another one about his coaching experience with me!

Please share your experiences and stories with us, like many did generously and creatively on the previous post, The Naked Speaker.

Can't resist to quote Dorothy Dalton's comment:

"I experienced this in reverse when I was working with a partner who insisted on a ppt - I felt as if I was on a beach in a ski-suit. Over dresssed and overwhelmed! I was not good and reverted after one more attempt in this mode to a more fluid interactive approach."

If you want to read More on Getting Naked, Enjoy!

 

 

Welcome

I'm Marion Chapsal and the aim of this blog is to help you create your unique Leadership and Communication experience for 2010 and beyond!

What could you do NOW to make 2010 the year you deliver outstanding presentations and develop your Leadership & Communication style?

Here's what you will find:

• The basics on designing a presentation from scratch 
• Best online resources and links to help you Present
• Reviews of blogs on presentations and leadership
• Articles following discussions started on Twitter or LinkedIn
• Useful Tips for your next presentation
• Myths about presentation
• Cartoons , pictures, TED videos, stories...
• Personal experiences and testimonials of clients
• Flexible, simple and creative online coaching tool

Please make your self at home, muse in the different categories thanks to the tag cloud and share your questions, opinions and ideas in the comments here or on Twitter or LinkedIn.

"My purpose is to coach women, and men too , using my generosity, creativity and passion, to communicate with confidence and enthusiasm and achieve their goals."