Tips

The Conscious Business Zone podcast: Listen or watch here for insight on storytelling, how to take the conference stage, prepare as a panelist, and find common ground with others.

We tried top AI speaker coaching solutions to find out.

When it comes to communication – whether workplace or personal – we focus on what we want to say and how to get others to understand. (I have this tendency.)

How and why to avoid the big temptation in virtual presenting

By now you’ve been on more than a few (dozen) Zoom conferences. Upgrade those on-camera speaking skills by taking our one-hour webinar + fundraiser for Miriam’s Kitchen on May 6,…

PORTICO MEETING PREP WORKSHEET Participants often struggle to follow the conversation in remote formats.

If you’ve experienced presentation procrastination and have limited time to prepare 1. Do some quick research What do you need to accomplish?

“He’s bright. He’s a hard worker, but when he shows up in meetings he struggles to make a coherent point. This makes promotion difficult.”

Most presentations and meetings could be better.

When warmer weather coincides with baseball’s Opening Day, we can take comfort that sometimes Washington DC gets it right.

Your company has a new directive that has to get out – maybe a compliance issue or a new expense reporting system. These “required” presentations can be painful to create (and…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Except that you have some shopping, baking, and merrymaking to do in addition to your normal workload.

This is one of the most frequent questions we get, and it’s a problem that is driven by an information imbalance.

A senior executive was dismayed when she saw the results of a company-wide survey on communications. Employees felt uninformed about the strategy and how their work fit into the bigger…

We ask our clients what having better presentation skills might mean for their career.

This year a request kept coming up from our clients. How can we answer the question, “What do you do?”

Presentations often induce anxiety because you see firsthand how your colleagues react. You know whether they agree, disagree, or if they’ve found something of greater interest on their iPhone.

When clients talk about their presentations, they also ask how they can improve meetings: they’re too frequent, too long, too unproductive.

How many of us have heard a presenter say: “I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this slide.”

We are always working towards helping executives to present better.  The other day while reading the

Today on the Portico PR blog, we welcome a contribution from a guest blogger, Rachael Bosch, on the subject of executive presence.

A couple of years ago, I had an opportunity to give a guest lecture for a Public Relations class taught my by former boss and mentor, Frank Walton, Ph.D.

You could have something in common with Michael Phelps, Simone Biles and Emily Infeld.

When presentations don’t work – the client takes its business elsewhere, the board vetoes a program, or potential investors decline

Is power posing little more than a myth? In a profile of Amy Cuddy, The Washington Post talks about her rise to fame for using her own feelings of self…

Seasons Greetings If you needed a break from online shopping, planning a post-holiday detox or procrastinating on that presentation, look no further!

Last night my client took the stage at TEDxMidAtlantic. Giving a TEDx talk had been on her bucket list

When you’re asked to give a presentation, where do you fall on the anxiety spectrum? Even the most proficient and experienced presenters have some degree of nervousness

When I read about Jennifer Lawrence’s reaction to the Hollywood pay gap and how well intentioned –yet unrealistic — it was to discount the importance of being nice

Images can play a powerful role in conveying a concept or emotion. When we spend time thinking about which kind of image would resonate

When you’re asked to prepare a presentation, what’s the first thing you do? More often than not, your answer will be either “Panic” or “Open up an old presentation deck…

For some of us, speaking up in a meeting or asking a question in front of a large audience can be kind of a big deal. As we’re formulating our thoughts

Presentation software works best when combining visuals with text. If you’re only using text, reconsider whether a PPT is the best medium for your message.

 Congratulations! You’ve been asked to moderate a panel discussion. Receiving this kind of invitation is an endorsement

If you’re wondering how to maximize your productivity at the office, reconsidering the meeting is a good place to start.

This British font is remembered as much for its simple beauty as its tragic end, the casualty of dissolved business partnership.

Comedian Amy Schumer seems to be everywhere.  Her “Trainwreck” movie with Judd Apatow follows the end of her third Comedy Central

As much as visuals can clarify and reinforce messages, if we pick the wrong ones we can distract or otherwise undermine our intent.

Many of us create our own slides without ever having taken a graphic design course. The results are sometimes tragic.

Presentations and meetings can cause cause anxiety. We worry about how our audience, whether strangers or colleagues, might perceive our intelligence and abilities. These fears are not baseless; how we…

Great presentations start with great messages. How we say something is as important as what it is we’re saying if we want our audience to pay attention

Today we’re sharing advice from TED’s Aaron Weyenberg, who creates such amazing slide decks that people ask for his autograph.

I love fonts. Most have their own history.  (A great read on this is Just My Type by Simon Garfield).

This spring I had an opportunity to give a guest lecture for a Public Relations class taught my by former boss and mentor, Frank Walton, Ph.D.

Depending on your music preferences, “It Takes 2” might recall songs by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock or Marvin Gaye.

It’s Monday morning, which means millions of staff meetings are coming to order across Corporate America. The majority of presentations we make take place in internal meetings. When I work…

For anyone who has ever planned a corporate event of any size, the details and logistics can be daunting. Now take that to an enormous scale, where several hundred,

How we present shapes how people perceive our intelligence and experience. Despite the frequency that we present, and its importance to our career

This week Foreign Policy magazine examines the problem of PPT in the military.

3 Step Cure for Presentation Procrastination from Portico. Present Better

Meet David Saltzman, a communications expert and former insurance industry and association executive who has given more than 1000 presentations

Developing an effective presentation requires an understanding of our audience. What do they know, and what do they want to know?

This YouTube clip from Tripp & Tyler is a humorous take on the frustrating reality of conference calls. What can we do to remove some of the biggest annoyances

Presenters either enjoy the Q&A session, or would rather do away with it altogether.

Making sense of data through better visualizations.

One of the easiest ways to make the most of your, and your audience’s time, is by removing filler language from your work.

Its that time of year again. Media are full of articles and tips on how to set and succeed at resolutions.

Visual Language, The Science of Comic Strips Fast Company talks to Psychologist Neil Cohn of University of California at San Diego*  about the visual language of comic strips. 

If you give your audience a preview of what you’ll cover, you’re helping them follow along.  If you warn them that  “there’s a lot to go through,”

Great presentations require weeks, if not months, of preparation and practice.  However, we don’t always have the luxury of time: the board wants an update

  Reward those who log on early. Twenty minutes before your Webinar begins, rotate slides.

Welcome to the Present Better blog, a forum to share what works (and what doesn’t) when developing, designing and delivering