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Creating Wonderful Displays for Your Handcrafts
Signing up for my first craft show, fulfilled my long time dream of creating something that would be marketable and enjoyed by others. My goal to build a display that would not only enhance my work, but would cause a customer to stop, look &...
Get Organised Before It's Too Late
Last year I attended a presentation from Parenting Expert and well-known author, Stephen Biddulph on "Raising Boys". As I have an 11 year old son, I was interested to hear what Stephen had to say. In fact, so were the other 800 other parents in...
Simply Awful Training Tips
It's been reported that the most common human fear involves public speaking. In the business world, the day will come when most of us will be called upon to give a training presentation. The result is a flock butterflies the size of pigeons in the...
Turn Your Marketing Pieces into Marketing Masterpieces with These Five Design Techniques
Copyright 2005 Karen Saunders
It's almost 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon. Do you know where
your newest marketing pieces are? If you're a small business
owner, they may be buried on your desk because you've got so
many other important details...
What is the purpose of a website?
After looking over hundreds of websites over the past year, the one thing I discovered is people are still unsure of what the Internet can do for them. People are generally under the impression that a website is used to take their business to the...
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Take Your Good Idea One Step Further
Whether you're an executive, manager, professional, or entrepreneur, you need to think ahead. When you do it in a formal sense, it's called it planning, when you do it informally it's something like speculating.
Whether you're planning or speculating, the exercise represents just the tip of the iceberg. For the plans or scenarios to amount to something, they have to be implemented. In turn, that usually involves other people.
Which takes us to the subject of communication: How do you convert those ideas in your head into instructions or position papers or even real plans?
I recommend writing, as in the sense of spending at least a few minutes to put the ideas to paper. Several benefits come out of the writing process:
First, you'll force yourself to clarify what you're doing and what you want others to do. As long as an idea remains in our heads, it's not made accountable, so to speak. That is, we don't subject our ideas to rigorous scrutiny when they're just thoughts.
But, when we write out an idea, the strengths and weaknesses show up rather quickly; we force ourselves to look at the idea more critically. When I wrote the publishing plan for Abbott's Communication Letter, for example, the writing process uncovered many key issues.
But, writing it down assumes even greater importance when we need to communicate with others. Since most thoughts for the future are inherently complex or uncertain, a written version of your plan enables you to explain much more.
As you've probably noticed, you can't really deal with much complexity verbally, unless you're making a speech or presentation. In face-to-face communication, for example, a train of thought often gets derailed by questions or interjections by the other person.
A written plan also communicates to others a broader scope than a verbal plan. After all, when you're
writing, you can bring in the past, cover the present, and look into the future. Or, you can illustrate your points with more detail than you can in a verbal report.
So, let's subject this article to the writing test, to see if hangs together.
First, the article opened with the idea of looking or thinking ahead, and I assumed -- note, I assumed -- this thinking implied future action.
Second, you'll see the idea to take action, or to get others to take action on our behalf, we need to be clear about the 'what' and the 'why' before we start. Of course, not every action needs this kind of launch; perhaps I should have said "For important projects...."
Third, I suggested the way to get this clarity is to write it out, but in retrospect, perhaps that simply reflects my bias toward writing. Perhaps you manage well simply by thinking, and don't need to write.
Fourth, I next listed a couple of benefits that flow from writing, and looking back I see a that I had bigger projects in mind when I wrote it. Smaller projects may not warrant the writing process.
So, all in all, subjecting this article (at least the first part of it) to the writing process did have the desired effect, and I discovered a couple of assumptions that I wasn't conscious of while writing. And, if I was writing a plan, especially a plan for a big project, those would be worthwhile discoveries.
In summary, writing down your ideas not only helps you clarify your plans or goals, but also helps you communicate what you want others to do or think.
About the Author
Robert F. Abbott is the author of A Manager’s Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results, which explains how to create effective newsletters, newsletters that get the desired responses. Learn how to start a newsletter, with real-life examples, at: http://www.managersguide.com/articles.htm
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Oral Presentation Advice |
Your presentation should not replace your paper, but rather whet the ... Below I consider goals for academic interview talks and class presentations. ... |
www.cs.wisc.edu |
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Presentation Skills |
This site contains annotated links to resources concerned with presentation and communication skills. |
lorien.ncl.ac.uk |
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Presentation Helper - Free PowerPoint templates, help, advice and ... |
Resources on how to make effective presentations. Includes tips on PowerPoint and topic ideas. |
www.presentationhelper.co.uk |
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Neurobehavioral Systems, Inc. |
Neuroscience stimulus delivery software can be used for cognitive psychology, fMRI, erp and single unit research (Windows). |
nbs.neuro-bs.com |
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Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered |
Why tables for layout is stupid:. problems defined, solutions offered. Tables existed in HTML for one reason: To display tabular data. ... |
www.hotdesign.com |
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The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation |
This presentation prepared with the help of Microsoft Powerpoint Autocontent Wizard. ... Permission is granted to use this presentation in any course or ... |
norvig.com |
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Presentation Zen |
I love the clear presentation of the ideas in the book and the fact that the ... In the context of presentations, moving info away can help you and the ... |
www.presentationzen.com |
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Presentation Tips for Public Speaking |
Better Public Speaking & Presentation - Ensure Your Words Are Always ... On the Job: Public Speaking Tips - Twelve Steps to Great Presentations by Elise ... |
www.aresearchguide.com |
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Presentation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Presentation is the process of presenting the content of a topic to an ... You should plan to rehearse your presentation out loud at least four times. ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
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OSCON 2005 Keynote - Identity 2.0 |
“A barn-burner of a presentation. I loved this.” - Cory Doctorow. “I watched it twice, and greatly enjoyed it both times.” - Jon Udell ... |
www.identity20.com |
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Presentations - Effective Communication - Public Speaking |
Tips and tools for creating and delivering presentations: text, techniques and technology. |
www.presentations.com |
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Presentation Information Resources - Presentation Technology News ... |
Presentation Information Resources - Comprehensive presenter's resource providing instant access to up-to-date information on technology and techniques for ... |
199.249.170.231 |
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Effective Presentations homepage |
In addition, the skills needed to prepare an oral presentation can be used ... A spiffy presentation discussing Effective Teaching with Powerpoint from the ... |
www.kumc.edu |
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Impress |
Your presentations will stand out with 2D and 3D clip art, special effects, animation, ... Slide show Animation and Effects bring your presentation to life. ... |
www.openoffice.org |
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PRESENTATIONPRO - experts for Microsoft PowerPoint |
A series of products and services to help enhance PowerPoint presentations with templates and backgrounds. |
www.presentationpro.com |
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Leadership - Presentation Skills |
Presentation, PowerPoint, and Leadership. ... Presentations and reports are ways of communicating ideas and information to a group. But unlike a report, ... |
www.skagit.com |
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Presentation: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
See all blog posts tagged with presentation on Technorati. |
www.technorati.com |
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Secretary of State Addresses the U.N. Security Council |
My friends, this has been a long and a detailed presentation. And I thank you for your patience. But there is one more subject that I would like to touch on ... |
www.whitehouse.gov |
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Rubric |
Organization, Audience cannot understand presentation because there is no sequence of information. Audience has difficulty following presentation because ... |
www.ncsu.edu |
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Presentation Skills |
Presentations are one of the first managerial skills which a junior engineer ... This article looks at the basics of Presentation Skills as they might apply ... |
www.see.ed.ac.uk |
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