101-How-To: Presenting live - 6 steps to survive

Let's face it.
The cruel, naked truth is: when presenting live, we ain't all equal.

This second post of the series "101-How-To" summarizes a training session I've created and animate with innovating companies (email me if you're interested;-))

Being a decent speaker is all the more important when your project is really innovative and disruptive: the more innovative the harder it is to make a project understood.

The idea here isn't to compete (yet) with presentation Gurus such as Steve J., Guy K. or Dave McC. No. The idea is to give you some strong foundations to build a meaningful, understandable and concise presentation of your project.

Step1: Prepare Jedi-like
I know this sounds funny... but you know what: some people still don't ;-)

• People you're going to talk to, know you should
  Google them! LinkedIn them! etc.
  
• The comprehensive story, telling you cannot
  Define up to 3 key messages. Max.
  
• Universal ability to get understood, as birth gift you received not
  Test the accuracy of your messages with friends & co-worker: if they don't get it go back to bullet 2 (secret: avoid jargon)
  
• Your jungle landscape, perfectly you will know
  It's human: whenever you present a new project, the person you're talking to will try to understand/position you in comparison to what she/he knows. To make sure you're well understood, study your competition to be able to answer "yeah, we can sound like CompanyA, but unlike them we're providing so many cool features to this precise scope of population, that it'll blow your mind away"... See what I mean?
  
  (and that'll be it for the Yoda Touch)
  

Step2: Organize your information
Let's make it easier for your kind listeners to memorize what you're saying.

• Don't save the best for the end
  Shout out loud what's really soooo cool about your company right at the start and then explain it twice or three times during your talk
• Get your self a tagline
  ... but a concise one ;-) Not a mission. A tagline! Start and conclude with it.
• Get yourself some illustrations
  While presenting new concepts, illustrations and anecdotes do help your audience understand what you're saying :-)
  
• The Declare-Illustrate-Conclude Mantra
  Be realistic and focus. Truth is: you'll never be able to explain all subtleties of your project in 10 minutes. Pick out the 3 key elements of your project and mention them several time under the declare-illustrate-conclude mantra.
  

Step3: Get neat & appealing slides
it takes time, but it's definitely worth it!

• Make slides that promotes listening vs. reading
  ... well only if you want your audience to listen when you speak ;-)
• Make yourself a favor and buy "PresentationZen"
• The 10-20-30 rule
  This is a hint from Guy Kawasaki: 10 slides, 20 minutes, Font size=30 pt
  

Step4: Identify and master your own Clandestinos
Get yourself a video to spot and identify things you could/should change

• A (controversted) study says that the words you're pronouncing only count for 7% of the meaning understood, the rest being carried out by your tone of voice and your nonverbal behavior. Beyond the controversy, the idea here is for you to keep in mind that your body and facial expression say a lot, as well. (see: Nonverbal Communication)
• The "fillers" hunt: er, hum, like, you know, well, let's say...
  when repeatedly used, the fillers can parasitize your talk. Spot them and tame them :-)

Step5: RE-HEARSE
Did you know that a (very) large chunk of the people whose presentation skills impress you actually know their stories by heart? This may not suit everybody, but at least:

• Write down your text and say it out loud
• in front of a mirror
• again
• and again
• and (got it?)
  

Step6: Survival Kit
Now you're on stage, this is D-DAY.

• Listen thoroughly to the questions... don't interrupt ;-)
  a) it's not respectful
  b) you may not actually know what it is that this person want to ask you
• Rephrase
  a) to make sure you've got the question right
  b) to bring the discussion to a topic you want to cover
  c) to help other people in the room to follow the discussion
• Stay focus on your key messages
• Read carefully the body language of your audience
  Make sure they "stay" with you. In case they don't, change the tone of your voice, ask them questions, ... manage to get them back on board.
• Oh and: don't forget to say the name of your company (or project) :-)

Bottom line is: presenting live requires hard work and preparation. And is FUN!

Hope you enjoyed the ride! Don't hesitate to share your tips, to say you agree or disagree with all the above. I'd love to read your feedback on this!

See ya soon!

101-How-To: Write and Distribute a Press release

Sometimes I forget the basics.

Since I started working with startups, I've discovered and exchanged a lot on various topics, among which social media, PR, websites, lead management, SEO, traffic optimization etc.

Enlightening.

And that's obviously one of the best part of my job.

However a bunch of recent work sessions made me realize that some of what I consider “basic stuff” and took for granted, actually were not.

That's why I've decided to start this “101-how-to” series of posts.

Here we go: #1 - How to write a press release?

1. Title: work hard on that one, and keep it concise. This is the 1 second chance you have to grab people's attention. It should be short and should content all key names / topics at once.
   Example: Kwaga selects StoriesOut to handle its worldwide online and offline PR.
   
2. Subtitle: Once you've grabbed the attention, expands the title with subtitle. Give more info based on the title.
   Example: The startup fighting email-overload wants to expand its international reach as its market traction is skyrocketing.
   
3. Date/place: Do I really need to explain? ;-)
   
4. Press release body: Develop your points in small paragraphs. 1 idea each. Use bullet points to structure the message. Keep in mind that most people "skim-read" press release. Make it simple to them to get your point.
   
5. Quotes: If you add any, make sure they appear distinctively from the rest of the text. Use italics and indentation. Content of quotes must give an extra angle to the announcement. Prefer figures and real facts to emotions.
6. Boilerplate: this is your company's standard presentation. It is the last paragraph of your press release and presents your company in 6 to 10 sentences. Again, work it out carefully and make sure to keep it up to date.
   

How to distribute a press release.

1. Distribution wires: there are huge differences on these types of services, mainly based on geography and on the industry your company is.
   Basically in the US no one would email a journalist directly to distribute a press release but would rather use services from Marketwire or PrNewsWire.
   In France is it not that obvious. Even though these international wires do propose their services here, I find their reach to the IT press pretty poor. Now, there's another one: Hugin Group but never tested it. BTW, I would appreciate any feedback from actual experiences of it ;-).
   However, keep in mind that these services cost money and that prices vary with the word count of the announcement + the press target + regional target.
   The services often cover both distribution to information sites and to journalists. But you'd rather check their lists before committing :-)
   
2. Free websites to post your announcement to: there are many of them in each country. A simple Google search would give you an idea. In France I found a nice post listing the main ones, it is here.
   
3. Emailing a journalist list: few tips here

• If you do it manually, use BCC ;-)
  
• There are quite a bunch of platforms that you'd like to use for your emailings, ranging from free to not-that-expensive. My favorites are: iContact and MailChimp. Great thing with these platforms are the tracking and analytics they provide you with. It really helps enhancing your reach. Strongly recommended.
• Put the text of the press release directly into the email. DO NOT attach it!
  
• Complementary resources: Screenshots, pictures, videos etc. should be mentioned and linked to. Do not embed them in the press release itself, a) there are too many email clients out there for you to make sure these resources would display properly on each of them b) firewalls may well just spam your message c) it would make your email too cumbersome to open.
• Post your press release online on your blog or website so that you'll be able to direct people to it via other media such as twitter, Facebook/LinkedIn status etc.
  

I think I covered most of the key points, if you think of any other please tell me, and above all, tell me if this post is of any use to you!

Any other topics you'd like to read about in my forthcoming post ? Tell me.

Let's save time: share your experiences!

Digital Shebang - the Plumbing - "How to deal with your lamest user"

OK, now that you have created your blog, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, you'd propbably love to connect them all.

Don't you ?

I've spent hours on the web, talking to my own family Geek, to my co-workers and other fellow geeks and ... didn't find a simple straightforward post/scheme/description of any kind describing how to do it, in which order, what tools to choose and why.

Pleasure of Digital Life: let's stay messy, cryptic... reward is in deciphering... yeah... talk to me about it.

So here's what I've (finally) mastered - or so believe I have :-)

Basically all exchanges rely on RSS (really simple syndication - hahaha: I love it). Whenever you want one content to feed another of your applications, you need the RSS from the platform where the content has been create and "plumb" it in to the destination platform. What??? Do I need to draw it?

The trick lies in the plumbing tools - which one and why and HOW?

1 - Automatically feed your twitter and/or Facebook account with your latest blog post:

I recommend: Twitterfeed.

Create your account in twitterfeed , select the destination platform:

Now you need to give your Twitter/Facebook accounts [The new OAuth protocol seems to ease even more the process (hurray).]






And the funniest is ALWAYS to find the rss feed from your content platform. The first 3 or 4 times, it just drove me crazy!
The trick is: on the right hand-side of your blog url, click on this icon , select either RSS or ATOM format (my geeks say ATOM is MUUUUUUCH better - I believe them) and on the next window, just copy the url and paste it in Twitterfeed.

Done !

Breaking News: Nice thing is Twitterfeed allows to do this to your Facebook account AND to your Facebook page (as long as you're administrator of the facebook page), a well. Which wasn't the case 2 weeks ago when I first thought about this post:-) It says a lot about how long will my present post remain accurate

Bonus: Twitterfeed can ALSO feed your twitter account/ Facebook account with the posts and blog you read and want to share - same process from your content aggregator (Google reader/netvibes)

2 - Feed your Linkedin status with your twitter account

Most the posts I read on this subject converge to "are you sure you want to do that?" - Keep in mind that more and more recruiters check your social avatars as part of the regular recruitment process. Are you sure you want them to discover the last MAJOR announcement you made on you twitter account, that early morning, after partying like hell??? probably not.

However there's a trick - Mickael Bentz found it for me on the LinkedIn forum :

As far as I know there is nothing that will insert your latest Tweet into the "What are you working on?" status of LinkedIn. However, you can easily post your latest Tweets using the BlogLink application in LinkedIn.

Click on the Applications link in the left hand column. Add the BlogLink application. Now go to your profile page and edit your profile. Add your Twitter address (in my case http://twitter.com/grahamjones) as one of your web sites.

The BlogLink application will automatically then collect your Tweets and post the most recent ones into your profile.

3 - Feed your linkedIn group news with your blog content

You need to be administator of the group to access the "manage pages" . You just need to add the RSS url from your blog, here :







4 - My personal failure to understand: FeedBurner

If any one can explain WTF this does apart from nice and clean URLs, please do :-)
The minimum I can say about feedburner is... I enjoy the user experience much less than with twitterfeed - to put it nicely.

Special note to vendors and online platform providers: for god sake, guys, do you really think that I am the one who should write this? How is it that this:
a) isn't available from each platform?
b) is a hell to find/understand, anyway?

Digital life is spreading out of your control (and basically, that's what you expect): adapt your customer service to your users. Better: to the lamest of your users. Stop the non-sens: if you can't figure out how to use it, then you shouldn't use it.

I've head this sentence so many time that I can say it backward without thinking : ti esu ton dluohs uoy neht, ti esu ot woh tuo erugif ton nac uoy fi!

As life 2.0 expands so a dedicate efficient customer support should. And an automated plumbing in would be appreciated - special kudos to Twitterfeed, by the way.

Anyway, now everything is connected: your blog feeds your Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, enjoy!

And get ready: next step is find the applications to access all this from your smartphone- hahaha! (evil laugh) :-)

Master the Digital Shebang

I keep on praising the wonders of 2.0 world and life, but to be honest, the setting up of a smart traffic and flow of information remains something close to a nightmare.

Here's a view of the tools I use on a daily basis... WDYT?



Yeah, pretty scarry.

I can tell you that having all of those working smoothly together has been quite an experience :-)

That's why my next post will present some hints that I gathered while drifting in the digital matrix, presenting possible business strategies and the related plumbing.

Keep posted.