I recently asked a group of  delegates to recommend some great presentations to educate and inspire us to deliver even better presentations. Here is a sample of the presentaions suggested.  There are some very different styles of presenter but all in my book are highly engaging  presenters who I believe have not only mastered the art of communicating to groups but who also demonstrate my number one rule of presenting.

You are the message!

Everyone of these guys has a great set of slides, but note that they have very little actual information on the slide, they use the slides to support their story.

Seth Godin presents to Google

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294

Steve Jobs introduces the iphone

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PZoPdBh8KUs

Guy Kawasaki “The art of the start”

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/06/the_art_of_the_.html

Malcolm Gladwell at the TED conference

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4651524651477591115&hl=en

Hans Rosling on the Myths of the Developing World

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244338529080&hl=en

Al Gore on averting climate crisis

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/al_gore_on_averting_climate_crisis.html

Enjoy

80 years of research tells us so……….

I have just spent a highly energetic day with the sales teams from three local radio stations here in Yorkshire.

Our topic of conversation was how to thrive in the challenging times ahead and the purpose of today’s blog is to summarise some of the research used in my presentation to the group. But before we get into that my first thoughts are to congratulate the management team of radioaire, vikingfm and hallamfm for holding such an event when many other companies are postponing or cancelling such training.

radioaire sales team smiling through the storm

 In the words of Nicky Pattinson, a fantastic motivational speaker who kicked off  the day for us, “sales people are the only people who are going to get us out of this mess”.

My sentiments exactly Nicky!

Anyway here is a summary of some of the key research into advertising effectiveness undertaken since the 1920’s. The quality of research methodology varies across the decades but the message is pretty consistent.

There are endless stories of the companies that have heeded this advice and those who have not.

We looked at examples of advertisers who made most of the recession including Kelloggs, Habitat, Black Magic and Virgin. Every company has their own examples and stories of clients who have taken the longer term view and succeeded. The research is interesting and useful but it is the stories that you tell that are most persuasive.

Those of us who sell products that are easy to cut, advertising and training being two key examples, must make sure that the clients really understand the true implications of making the cut as well as the advantages to be gained in terms of sales and market share in the short term and in the long term.

I spent a very busy weekend out in the snow that has covered much of Britain over the past couple of weeks.

After some serious sledging (one of the benefits of living in the Pennine Hills ) and a great deal of shoveling snow so as to be able to get my car out for work on Monday morning (a downside of living in the Pennines) I slumped exhausted in front of the t.v.

Nothing much caught my attention so I settled into a re run of Casino Royale (the latest version). I am a Bond fan and I love this film. It is amusing to think how much of a success this new version of the the Bond franchise has been; the two Daniel Craig films have each out performed in relative terms all the films that have gone before them. We have all come to accept the new Bond and the new style of film making.

Yet lets not forget the resistance that was generated in the media and on the internet when Craig was announced as the new Bond . Websites such as Craignotbond.com and Noblondebond.com attracted much attention. Debates on the fan sites and in the media were intense. Putting Daniel Craig in the role made no sense. He was blonde and everyone knows that Bond has dark hair, he was not as well known as some other rivals for the role, and he did not seem particularly good looking. (certainly by comparison to his predecessor) How could he possibly play Bond.

What the customers/fans did not appreciate was the new direction that the franchise was taking. In the tech savvy and occasionally dangerous world that we live in we struggle to believe in master criminals intent on taking over the world or in invisible cars. We do however understand how brutal the world can be and  post 9/11 how brutal things can happen to ordinary people. Jason Bourne and Jack Baur had also changed our expectations of what secret agents do.

If the producers of Casino Royale had listened too closely to the fans they would have hired a Brosnan /Connery look a like.  They would have created an evil genius baddie, brought Q out of retirement and hey presto the faithful would be happy. However the “faithful” do not make a film profitable, its the rest of us those who enjoy a good thriller,but who don’t feel the need to spend our time on the fansites ,that really matter.

Leadership is about taking note of what your most loyal customers say but not being in thrall to it. It is being able to see the wider forces shaping your landscape and having the courage to strike out in a different direction when the situation demands it. It is also about having the confidence to sell your vision of the world to others.

The new Bond team are to be commended for their insight and their courage and in time someone will have to reinvent he character once again. I predict that when that time comes the faithful will stand against any radical changes to the hero they have come to know, the websites will be launched to campaign for more of the same, but if the film makers do as good a job as they have with the latest Bond they will fade away and we will all settle in to the new era refreshed and excited by the prospect of something different.

Leadership is about making the right decision over the popular one.

Personally though I still miss Moneypenny!

A couple of articles have got me thinking this week about the state of our profession. In his article For Trainingzone Donald Taylor paints a fairly bleak picture of the troubles that may lie ahead.

If you’re working for a classroom training provider, you probably already know the answer. In the smaller dip of 2002/2003, classroom training companies suffered as clients cut back on classroom delivery costs. It’s a simple calculation: no classroom training means no fees and no travel, a quick saving in tough times.

“Right now, the manager wielding the knife over the budget has no hesitation in cutting all external training beyond what is legally required.”
But don’t people still need training? Of course they do, but training is still seen as being rather like painting the woodwork on the outside of the house. Everyone knows you have to do it, but even if it looks really bad, you can let it slide for a season or two until structural damage sets in.

In 2002/2003 a number of classroom training companies went to the wall. We can expect worse in 2009, as demand plummets

The Education section of the Guardian today suggests that the Governments pleas to industry to maintain their training budgets are being ignored.

“a survey reported exclusively in Education Guardian today suggests that many employers are not taking any notice.

Half of the training managers questioned in more than 100 large companies say their budgets have been, or will be, cut. Barely a third of them expect their training budgets to come through 2009 unscathed, and just 16% expect their budgets to increase during the downturn.

More than two-thirds say they anticipate that they will need to “streamline their course portfolio” this year.

The managers surveyed work for organisations employing at least 1,000 people and include Xerox, Siemens, the NHS, Pitney Bowes, Deutsche Bank, WHSmith, GSK, JPD, AstraZeneca, Barclays and Oracle.

But there are opportunities; Taylor suggests that the type of training to survive the upcoming culls (and this applies equally to internal providers as well as those of us who sell training for a living) will be:

• provided by niche players
• closely integrated with the purpose /customers/culture
• cheap quick fix off the shelf solutions

The Guardian suggests that it is general training programs that will be culled but that the demand for real leadership, business acumen delivered in a flexible , dare we say blended format.

Interestingly I don’t know a trainer (internal or external) who doesn’t consider themselves to be flexible, integrated, business savvy and fantastic value for money. The next few months will provide us all with an opportunity to work out whether we are as smart as we think we are and to sharpen up in all these areas. But here are the warning signals, that all is not well in your training business or training department.

• If all your training solutions are organised into classroom courses and planned by the day.
• If your training materials are broadly the same as they were in 2003 (new fonts and covers dont count!)
• If you know more people who have left the company than those who remain
• If you find yourself surprised and disappointed that this years Management Programme has been put on ice

Then now might be a great time for a serious step back.

The alarm bells are ringing and the coffee is pungent enough to stop a charging bull!

The only question is what will you do next?

Welcome to the Ocean Learning blog! We at Ocean Learning aspire to give you the guidance you need to achieve results. Our methodology is flexible and taylor made to meet the requirements of your business.

With the ever changing market, what better way to improve you business than to improve upon the talent you have in your business.