Here is the video of my first Ignite talk . It was at Ignite Hyderabad Volume 1. This was not the first time I was talking to a large gathering (300 to be exact) but this was surely the first time when I was talking at Ignite (and that's tough because you have just 5 minutes and the slides move every 15 seconds). Let me tell you that's scary when I heard it the first time :-) Watch me speak here: You can see the slides here . The talk was very well received by the audience but I know how tense I was before it all started . I was supposed to be Speaker No. 8 so when I reached the venue I was taking a stroll and absorbing the surroundings. Suddenly I am told, "Vivek you go first". I was like "excuse me". So I rushed up to the guy with the laptop, ran through all the 20 slides to see they were the same I had emailed to these guys. While I waited for my turn the introductions were on. About Ignite, about this and about that. I had butterflies in my stomach. I ...

I would like to share this small presentation given by Mr. Raj Shekar of Hobby Hub . He delivered it in TEDx HiTechCity last year (I could only locate it today :-) I had worked with Raj to shape up this presentation. My role was of a soundboard to him. He is very passionate about the subject of environment and he had a lot to share. I worked with him to ensure the vital stuff was communicated in the time allotted. I also worked with him on improving his slides. Raj is the founder of Hobby Hub; an extremely interesting initiative. It allows you to nurture various hobbies (including buying a plant or a pet) and in turn protect the environment. One of his initiatives includes encouraging corporates to 'gift a plant' to their employees on festivals and new year. Check out his presentation (Heart of Living) below and do check his website out.

Here is a presentation on the topic of making presentations. It's 114 slides, but with less content on every slide, you can breeze through the whole thing in 5 minutes. Do have a look. 4 Game-changers for Presentations View more presentations from Fortify Services This presentation is by Rowan Manahan who blogs at Presenting is Simple . The crux of his presentation is: 1. We must rehearse for our presentations. Spend 100 hours rehearsing a 1 hour presentation. (My point of view: 100 sounds too much. Even if we spent 20 hours, that'll make us far better that what we today are). 2. We must appeal to emotions. Just appealing to reason (logic) is not enough. In order to do that we must tell a story. 3. We must master the technology so that we can become better at making presentations. 4. We must take charge of the room. It's your moment and don't let anything get in the way. Be thoroughly planned for the D-day.

We all have our own 'way' of preparing for a presentation. Some people are extremely good at their stuff (content) but do not make great slides. Others make awesome slides (design) but don't know what they are really saying. Then there are others who are miserable on stage (delivery) but we (the audience) knows that they are good at what they do. "Every presentation is unique and every presentation is similar." Every presentation is unique in its own way. The topic, the style, the seriousness, the stakes can all vary. Yet every presentation is the same. We have a message, we need to design slides to convey that message and we finally go on the stage and deliver the message. The three elements common to all presentations are: Content, Design & Delivery. Our presentation performance depends on how well we do all three of these. One cannot be done at the cost of the other. We need to have solid content, we need to design good slides and we have to deliver it in ...

The Back of the Napkin is a book about 'solving problems and selling ideas with pictures'. It is an extremely interesting book. The essence of the book is: "We can use simple pictures to help us solve any problem or to communicate any idea effectively." Overall, this book is about visual thinking. How to think about an idea visually so that we see it more clearly and hence discover new solutions. The entire premise is that when we look at an idea or a problem 'visually' we 'see' it better. This book is for everyone. Managers will find this book especially helpful because they need to constantly 'solve' problems and 'present' their ideas to management. People who think they can't draw please note We will not be making any complicated images, so you don't need to be good at making pictures in order to implement the techniques taught in this book. We will just draw simple images. The images we will draw will have circles, sq...

I am back from the three month break; March to May. Back with fresh ideas and lots to share. To start with, before I share my story how about you sharing your stories with all of us? So here we go... My Presentation Story Share your presentation story with us. You can choose to talk about a presentation you made and how it did well (or flopped) and why? You stories need to have two things: 1. What happened? ( what went right and what went wrong?) 2. What you learned out of it? Take one presentation you made in the last year or so and share it with us. You can also talk about how you go about preparing and delivering your presentation OR you can also talk about why you love or hate making presentations. Send in your entries by email to vivek [at] allaboutpresentations [dot] com . What happens next? I will be sharing your story with all of us here (provided you allow me). I would also like to add my views on your story. Plus for all readers residing in India*, first two stories will get ...