Don’t be dull

When I worked in the corporate world, I was asked to design a PowerPoint presentation for a manager from the IT department.

“I want you to add a lingerie photo in the middle,” he said, “to wake everybody up.”

“Why don’t you just rewrite it so it’s not boring?” I replied.

He didn’t get my point. I refused to do the work. And my (male) manager designed the slides instead.

There’s no excuse for delivering a boring presentation. And, online, it’s even more important to make an effort to keep your audience engaged.

That means being a bit more creative than anyone else. Capturing attention by being different. Putting even more time into the event prep than you might for an on-site event.

For example, I’m hosting the PSA’s weekly Coffee & Conversation meeting tomorrow. I’m opening it and closing it in a way that’s never been tried before, testing Zoom’s new immersive view, facilitating an unusually visual discussion topic, playing a guessing game, and have a few other surprises up my sleeve.

If you’d like ideas about how to enliven your own events, you can book a time here: calendly.com/jackie_barrie