Presentations Quotes

“Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”
― Stephen Keague, The Little Red Handbook of Public Speaking and Presenting

“No audience ever complained about a presentation or speech being too short”
― Stephen Keague, The Little Red Handbook of Public Speaking and Presenting

“In presentations or speeches less really is more”
― Stephen Keague, The Little Red Handbook of Public Speaking and Presenting

“The audience are likely to remember only three things from your presentation or speech”
― Stephen Keague, The Little Red Handbook of Public Speaking and Presenting

“We should just stop calling these things presentations altogether. Everyone gets hung up on that word. Wouldn’t it be easier to just call them conversations? That’s really what they are.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“Improvement is achieved by the ripple effect of a few simple changes in approach, attitude, or habit.”
― Dale Ludwig

“In 7.81 square miles of vaunted black community, the 850 square feet of Dum Dum Donuts was the only place in the "community" where one could experience the Latin root of the word, where a citizen could revel in common togetherness. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, not long after the tanks and media attention had left, my father ordered his usual. He sat at the table nearest the ATM and said aloud, to no one in particular, "Do you know that the average household net worth for whites is $113,149 per year, Hispanics $6,325, and black folks $5,677?"

"For real?"

"What's your source material, nigger?"

"The Pew Research Center."

Motherfuckers from Harvard to Harlem respect the Pew Research Center, and hearing this, the concerned patrons turned around in their squeaky plastic seats as best they could, given that donut shop swivel chairs swivel only six degrees in either direction. Pops politely asked the manager to dim the lights. I switched on the overhead projector, slid a transparency over the glass, and together we craned our necks toward the ceiling, where a bar graph titled "Income Disparity as Determined by Race" hovered overhead like some dark, damning, statistical cumulonimbus cloud threatening to rain on our collective parades.

"I was wondering what that li'l nigger was doing in a donut shop with a damn overhead projector.”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“It’s hard to hold a conversation with people when you’re not seeing them.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“During the first few minutes of your presentation, your job is to assure the audience members that you are not going to waste their time and attention.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“When deciding between giving a longer or shorter presentation, pick shorter. 'I wish you had talked longer' are six words you'll seldom hear from audiences.”
― Sam Harrison, Creative Zing! Spark Your Creativity & Powerfully Present Your ideas

“Well-designed visuals do more than provide information; they bring order to the conversation.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“Perfection is the enemy of authenticity.”
― Lisa Braithwaite, Presenting for Humans: Insights for Speakers on Ditching Perfection and Creating Connection

“The best text slides convey their message as starkly and simply as possible. They do not waste words (or slides) on transitional or introductory points, which can and should be stated orally. This means of course that the slides by themselves will not be intelligible as a handout to someone who has not attended the presentation.”
― Barbara Minto, The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving

“What would a final exam look like in a course organized around a complex problem that must be considered in the light of several disciplines? Students would be asked to write an extended take-home essay about "what it means to be an American."-- and they would know from the first day of class that this was the final exam question.
The second part of the final exam would require students to present and defend their papers in a public exhibition where parents would observe and ask questions. The Students’ oral and written work would be assessed on their ability to display a range of evidence to make their points. They would have to meet a performance standard to get a Merit Badge in American Studies.” -- this is the essence of the digital portfolio. (page 139)”
― Tony Wagner, Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era

“To connect with decision makers, we need to present ideas in their language, not ours. Know their business. Talk with them, not at them. Otherwise, they can't hear us when we speak.”
― Sam Harrison, Creative Zing! Spark Your Creativity & Powerfully Present Your ideas

“Decision makers aren't interested in our pain. They're interested in their pain. They accept or reject ideas based on whether or not they think we understand their painful problems and have the ability to solve them.”
― Sam Harrison, Creative Zing! Spark Your Creativity & Powerfully Present Your ideas

“Plan in Analog — spend time in analog before jumping to digital”
― Carmine Gallo, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

“Her favorite stepping-aside technique was to lay out a dizzying mountain of complex steps and then pronounce the conclusion self-evident. Excuse me? Things that are self-evident don't need you or the presentation anyway. Relying only on logic, on what can be factually established, may inform or intimidate, but it will rarely stir anyone into action or change.”
― Charlotte Beers, I'd Rather Be in Charge: A Legendary Business Leader's Roadmap for Achieving Pride, Power, and Joy at Work

“A successful presentation needs to be both buttoned up (orderly) and free-flowing (a conversation). The tension between the two, the fact that both things are happening at once, defines the process.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“When preparing a presentation, it’s never a good idea to begin with a rule. If you do, you’re focusing on the appearance of good delivery and not the effect of it.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“Just as you can’t rehearse your way to success, you can’t design your way there either.”
― Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

“A recent survey of Top Five Fears places public speaking alongside “identity theft” and “mass shootings.” In the 1980s, it completed with “nuclear destruction.” In the 1970s, “shark attack.”
― John Capecci and Timothy Cage, Living Proof: Telling Your Story to Make a Difference

“In presentation slides,
if we want to explain use diagrams.
If we want to prove, use charts.
If we want to summarize, use text.
And if we want to influence, use images.”
― Dhony Firmansyah, Amazing Slide Presentation

“Ideas seldom sell themselves. In fact, the bolder the idea, the more it needs selling. Fresh ideas challenge people to let go of old ideas in order to embrace the new ideas. Selling helps that happen.”
― Sam Harrison, Creative Zing! Spark Your Creativity & Powerfully Present Your ideas

“Creativity isn't for sissies. It takes guts to hold up ideas for people to criticize, reject or ignore. But the possible pain is worth the potential payoff.”
― Sam Harrison, Creative Zing! Spark Your Creativity & Powerfully Present Your ideas

“When presenting ideas, help decision makers get past their myopia. It's easy for clients to say no to an idea right in front of them. But if they can visualize your idea's future value, they'll have an easier time saying yes.”
― Sam Harrison, Creative Zing! Spark Your Creativity & Powerfully Present Your ideas

“100% of statistics in presentations are instantly forgotten.”
― Dirk Stael

“Your audience has got a long list of things that they'd rather be doing than listening to you!”
― Alex Merry, Make It Count: How to deliver high-stakes presentations to people you need to impress at work

“These are the ancestral lands of. . . .' The phrase carries both truth and trauma that can slip past uneducated ears. Indigenous homelands on the Coastal Plain are places of deep connection and remembrance, but they are also places where horrific colonial experiences befell our ancestors. The trauma of those experiences still flows through our communities today. The pain of racial oppression and cultural loss combines with the radical transformation of our homelands, and it haunts us from generation to generation.”
― Ryan Emanuel, On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice