While The Broadband Connection – The Art of Delivering a Winning IT Presentation uses the analogy of broadband technology, it is a non-technical book for anyone, from any industry, who is looking to better understand the components of being an effective public speaker.
It’s no secret that many IT professionals hate presenting and are often very bad at it. Focusing on technical details and speaking in monotone, they can quickly lose their audiences’ attention and interest. Effective presentation skills are critical to the careers of IT professionals and the proper utilization of corporate resources.
The Broadband Connection will show IT professionals how to become articulate, effective, and persuasive speakers—no matter how difficult the information being disseminated.
In The Broadband Connection, author and expert Alan Carroll, a transpersonal psychologist who has helped thousands of IT professionals worldwide evolve from nervous, insecure speakers into savvy, successful presenters, offers his proven strategies in this fresh and innovative step-by-step guidebook. Utilizing language and principles specific to the IT industry, the author teaches vital presentation skills in a familiar language the reader can identify with and understand. This book provides the tools to unleash the graceful speaker hidden inside every IT professional.
A sample of presenting tips included in the book:
Being an IT professional means you’re well-skilled at many things and can solve many problems—troubleshooting, updates, understanding many difficult concepts the rest of our company may not get. However, what is hard for some IT professionals is communicating your message in an effective way to colleagues, superiors and outside departments.
An important aspect of any presentation is to demonstrate your knowledge and authority as the alpha dog on the subject; this is done by “owning the room” or controlling the atmosphere. Very few professionals own the room. And few exhibit alpha-dog strengths.
A few tips to achieve both:
Take your time to express yourself clearly. Don’t rush.
Do not fear silence. A true professional uses silence to gather his or her thoughts and allows the audience to think about what was just said.
Use gestures and move assertively. A common problem for IT presenters is the quality of their hand gestures, and they walk slowly to the front of the room while making no eye contact. These movements (or lack of) suggest fear or discomfort.
Change the speed at which you move around the room. Most people move their bodies at the same speed—once in a while, speed up.“