AGENDA

ADDING VALUE TO YOUR MEETINGS

• Prepare your audience. Nobody thinks best, even about a topic they're familiar with, when they work from a cold start. Give homework on your topic, asking your audience to be prepared to present their homework. Give examples of things to do to make them think about the topic. Your audience will arrive ready for your message.
• Have participants work together on the subject. Whether they're small breakout groups, team problem solving, or manifesto or vision-writing exercises.
• Do the unexpected. Dress up conventional and timeless ideas with new approaches. Give creative names to subjects you cover and address them.
• Re-inforce. It's said that if you do not use a new word in your vocabulary repeatedly within two weeks of learning it, you'll forget it. The same holds true for your meetings messages. One new technique is run a temporary "listserv," a subscriber-only E-mail routing list, in which meeting attendees can be reminded of their recent learning experience and exchange ideas about the topics covered.

Never look upon your presentations as chores to labour through. A great presentation is one that is central to your organization's communications strategy. Resist the urge to cobble together simple PowerPoint demonstrations by thinking strategically about the overall thrust of your communications. Be consistent in presentations: Enlist one person, possibly someone from the marketing department or its equivalent, to oversee all content - its look, they way it sounds, the images and sounds.

Hone your overall approach by making sure all your presenters share notes on what works in delivering your message, and what doesn't. All organizations change constantly, so make sure your presenters have the most up-to-date information and make sure they apply it consistently.

Consider an in-house certification for presenters to bring their presentation skills up to snuff a kind of ISO 9000 for meetings. Retrain and re-certify your presenters to keep their skills sharp and to ensure they retain those skills. Provide incentives such as bonuses for certification.

This is an age of visual images. Make sure your visual messages are consistent and high quality. A shabby presentation will reflect on your organization. Entrust experts in PowerPoint, photographic slides and PC/Mac-based movies to make your visuals. If you can't afford an expert, try to keep your look consistent. Strong visuals can help your audience sort out complex ideas.

SOMETIMES IN A RUSH TO PREPARE A VISUAL PRESENTATION WE CAN FORGET THE SIMPLEST THINGS. KEEP THESE POINTS IN MIND:

• Understand how your laptop ports to external monitors or projectors. Do you know which plug and which jack to use? Do you have the power cord? Do you have the proper software and have you used it enough times to know its limitations? Take your machine's manual if you're not sure.
• With projectors, turn them on before your PC, so the computer can look for all connected peripherals and load the software drivers they need. If it's not turned on your PC will ignore it later. Match your projector to your audience size. Presenting to more than 40 means using a projector stronger than 850 lumens.
• Keep your graphics simple and easy to distinguish from text in your slides. If you can't read the slides off your laptop from two metres away recreate them more simply. Use contrasting colours (red and yellow, blue and orange, purple and green) because they're easier to distinguish. And apart from being boring, white backgrounds make text more difficult to read off projection screens.

• Challenge them: A good salary is not enough when you spend half your waking hours on the job. Give your employees challenging tasks that keep them interested and growing. Give employees the latitude to think creatively and give them the tools to do so. Don't bog your staff down in in-house bureaucracies and procedures.
• Give them balance: Keep the workplace fresh and humane by allowing employees to take time to schmooze on the job, to take a modest amount of time to perform personal and family tasks. Take your people out to lunch so you can bond. These leavening moments are the foundation for creativity.
• Counsel them: Your employees are human beings, subject to human feelings. Recognize them and offer to listen and advise when you seen someone who is blue, angry or upset.