The body language myth of crossing your arms
The communication industry is full of myths that are repeated without any scientific backing. I recently watched this video by a former FBI body language specialist. He used his skills to help bust criminals. The first thing he does (at 1'10") is bust the myth that crossing your arms is a blocking behavior. Bingo. I cannot agree more with this. Most people cross their arms because it’s a comfortable position, not because they have a mental block, period.
Continue ReadingBonjour les Champs Élysées !
Ideas on Stage now welcomes you in their Champs Élysées offices. Located in the heart of Paris, they offer the perfect atmosphere to make the best out of your public speaking coaching sessions. And above all, the coffee is very good (although we recommend to avoid it before speaking in public)! What a change a few years can make. When we created the company, we rented a space in a shared office. But the business center was nearly always full and we had to book the rooms weeks in advance, which was extremely inconvenient. As a young company, we didn’t want to spend too much, so when the first promotion of startups graduated from the Parisian accelerator “Le Camping,” we moved with them in a place called “L’After,” a name that was more reminiscent of a place where spent partygoers would try to recover than a place where you conducted serious business. It was also a bit decrepit, and we had to fight for space between the ping-pong table and the Geeks.
Continue ReadingPublic Speaking Coaching With Virtual Reality in Paris
I don’t think it’s exaggerated to say that the mentality in public speaking coaching and oratory coaching is fairly conservative. After all, many of the techniques that are taught today were developed by some guys in togas before year one of our calendar! But the world has changed a lot since then, and recent technology advances have opened new exciting possibilities for public presentation training. One of these technologies is virtual reality. If you’re in the Paris area, we now have the possibility to supplement our traditional public speaking coaching with virtual reality in combination with our traditional oratory coaching.
Continue ReadingWhy Prezi failed at revolutionizing presentations
In 2009, the year when TED decided to launch its TEDx license program, Prezi was born out of the desire to overcome the limitations of tools like PowerPoint and Keynote. With its dramatic zooming and panning effects, it certainly did catch the eye of audiences worldwide when it was introduced. But its over-reliance on movement effects quickly became a visual nuisance, making the audience feel as if they had been on a boat caught in a category 10 hurricane. During the first three years after its launch we got requests for Prezi presentations regularly, but it’s not the case anymore. So what went wrong with Prezi? The core problem of Prezi is simple: it does not address the real problem of PowerPoint. Audiences are not bored because of PowerPoint, but because of how PowerPoint is misused by presenters, and adding more zooming in and out ad nauseam is not going to solve anything. The true remedy to bad PowerPoint presentations lies somewhere else:
Continue ReadingGame of Thrones and the importance of the storyline
By now, the last episode of the cult show Game of Thrones has aired. I haven’t seen it, and I didn’t want to see it before writing this article. Whether it accurately follows the storyline of the books or not is a moot point, because said book hasn’t been written yet. And it shows. I won’t spoil anything, don’t worry. But everyone noticed that the screenwriting of the seasons that could rely on George R. R. Martin’s material was much better than the seasons that had to rely on external writers. And I will use that as an example of how important a great storyline is for a great presentation.
Continue ReadingA New Cure for Medical Conferences
Most conferences are fairly boring. Even well-known tech conferences fail to engage their audiences all the time. But medical conferences can be among the worst. Check out this quick interview between Ideas on Stage, new partners with Doctors 2.0 & You, and Denise Silber to find out how to take medical (and other) events to the next level. Our friend Ross Fisher, a paediatric surgeon based in the UK, has had enough of poor medical communication, and when he’s not operating, he spends time educating doctors about a better way to present. There is a clear need, and Ross is making progress.
Continue ReadingWhat Makes an Amazing, Culture-Shifting Event?
Case study of Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts’ 2018 General Managers conference in Regensdorf, Switzerland. __ The Story It was a cool September morning in Paris when my colleague and I sat down in a stylish hotel dining room to meet a Mr. Olivier Chavy, President of Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts. Before 8:00am we jumped right into business: Olivier’s vision and objectives for the spring 2018 general managers conference. “We want people to leave with the sensation ‘wow, I am really proud to work for this company’,” emphasized Chavy.
Continue ReadingOur upcoming events in London
A big part of the way many companies sell is to create a presentation that shows the complex benefits of the solution they are offering. But even great businesses — which are very good at what they do — often lack the ability to clearly share their message to their target audience using presentations. There are many reasons why people and companies want to improve their presentations but at the heart of it what they really want is to win more deals, get more customers and sell more.
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