Seasons Greetings
If you needed a break from online shopping, planning a post-holiday detox or procrastinating on that presentation, look no further! I thought I’d jump on the year-end bandwagon and share a few of my favorite things from 2015 and give you a behind-the-scenes look at the questions that are bantered about in budget season.
Favorite reads:
- Make it Stick, the Science of Successful Learning. Not to be confused with the Heath brothers’ book, this one is written by psychology professors and explains how we actually learn, and why most approaches are counterproductive.
- Confessions of a Public Speaker. Entertaining and insightful. (Thank you Anne Dickerson for the recommendation!)
- Design for How People Learn. Great resource for corporate trainers. Biggest takeaway: one-off sessions overwhelm your colleagues and deliver little value. Separate knowledge from skills.
Favorite design examples:
The Economist’s Annual Advent Calendar of Infographics. Yes, Virginia, there are other ways to display your data than pie charts!
Favorite budget discussions:
Finally, many of us find ourselves in the year-end rush of budget crunching. If you’ve been wondering whether it would be a good investment of your resources to improve your team’s presentation skills, ask yourself the following:
Are you getting what you need from your team? Are meetings a good use of everyone’s time?
Does the rest of the organization understand what your department does?
Are your emerging leaders prepared to stand in for you at industry panels and keynotes?
Does your team genuinely collaborate when developing presentations or do they email versions of decks back and forth to one another?
For your company off-site or other large events, who is making sure the presentations are on message (and on time)?
One client shared with me that they spent 4% of their total event budget on speaker training and received 91% approval from attendees. I’m not sure that coffee stations deliver that kind of return on investment.
If you’re intrigued and would like to learn more, schedule a 15 minute consult. If we can’t help you I can put you in touch with someone who might be better suited to your needs.
Happy Holidays!
Meghan
