It turns out that mine is the latest vocation to feel the cold tendrils of Artificial Intelligence creeping in. Just when I thought I had one of those ‘inherently human’ specialisations that could not possibly be replaced by a bot…

Many of us are currently adjusting to a ‘new normal’, where instead of our usual face to face meetings, we’re now conducting most, if not all, of our professional lives virtually.

Regardless of whether you’re used to virtual meetings or not, it is arguably more important now than ever to think about how effectively you’re communicating via phone or videoconference.

I’m sure you’ve heard that old saying ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail’. It’s annoying, I agree. Planning for a speaking engagement takes time, and often time can seem like a luxury we are rarely afforded.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a speaker in possession of a presentation clicker is at risk of, at some point, inadvertently sending their audience into a content induced coma. You may not be surprised to hear that I implore you to work against this well sailed path, and save the world from a fresh onset of glassy-eyed former listeners.

Public speaking, being the live art that it is, has a tendency to not always go the way we planned. The image you had in mind of walking in and nailing the presentation, your captivated audience nodding and laughing at the crucial moments (and hey, maybe even applauding your wonderment) unfortunately didn’t quite come to fruition this time.

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past 5 years, you’ll have heard that storytelling is where it’s at when it comes to delivering a killer presentation. Now you may already be subscribed to the buzz around using stories and do this successfully. Some of us find this a little harder.