Now in my fifth decade creating learning experiences for creative professionals, I think it is acceptable for me to think about what type of experiences I might want to create for myself. In other words, what does my personal bucket list look like for the Presentation Summit, now in its 24th season? That’s easy. It has one item on it.

Get Billie Jean King.

Ask, convince, incent, cajole, and maybe beg her to join us as a guest for one of the 20-minute conversations that have replaced traditional keynotes at our virtual conference.

She and I knew one another from my days at Inside Tennis magazine, and while it probably did not register much with her, I will never forget the first day that we met. It was here in the SF Bay Area, at the delightfully named Snoopy Cup, a 1983 homage to Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts cartoon strip, long-time tennis enthusiast, and good friend to Billie Jean. I was just opening the first chapter of my journalism career, while she was writing the final pages of her extraordinary playing career, so I knew how precious this opportunity was. I practically turned the press conference into a private interview, peppering her with questions about the match she just played, her career in general, her place in tennis, and seemingly the meaning of life.

And somewhere in all of her musings, she saw fit to utter four words that have stuck with me ever since: “Pressure,” she said, leaning forward and pausing just long enough for us all to lean in as well, “is a privilege.”

It was probably not the first time she said it, and it certainly wasn’t the last, given that, 27 years later, she authored a best-selling book with that as its title. And as a tournament-level athlete, I had my own relationship with risk, pressure, and the fleeting mysteries of performing to one’s potential. But it was groundbreaking and literally life-changing when Billie Jean said it the way that she did, and it has become a north star for the work that I do with my clients and conference patrons, as you can see in this short clip:

We have been fortunate to have attracted incredibly talented guests to our conference, especially in the virtual era with the obstacles of travel and lodging removed. A virtual visit from Ms. King would forever sit at the top of that fine list, so consider this my official overture to her.

Why might she want to do this? It is always my hope that an appearance at the conference becomes a win-win experience in which the guest benefits as the audience does. In fact, many of our guests appear gratis with the opportunity to connect with our community being sufficient payoff. That will most certainly not be the case here, but perhaps she will find time in her schedule for us anyway, because…

• Opportunity to mentor: The presentation space includes many emerging communication leaders—especially young women—who are shaping their careers and leadership identities. As they did for me, her words could be inspiring beyond measure.
• High synergy: Presenting and elite sport are both about preparation, performance under pressure, resilience, and connecting with audiences. These are themes she has deeply lived and our people deeply appreciate.
• Receptive audience: Our community is made up of thoughtful communicators who value equity, inclusion, curiosity, and diverse perspectives. They honor voices that have shaped culture and paved roads for others, and would welcome her experience and her passion with true respect.
• I come from her world: Would it matter that I have a tennis background, cut my professional teeth with the game, was a respected (I think, I hope) member of the community, and still play zealously to this day? Who knows, but I’ll play every card I might have.

My invitation to her is for a 20-minute conversation—like a podcast appearance before a live audience. It would not have to involve any prep work whatsoever, and could take place any time of day on Sep 21, 22, or 23. While our guest spots are typically first thing in the morning, I will mold the schedule to fit any window she might be able to give us.

So there it is: a public overture to my hero of heroes to spend 20 minutes with a community of professionals, and their host, who would be incredibly grateful for the opportunity.

P.S. At the conclusion of that post-match press conference in 1983, upon my introducing myself to her, she responded, “You ask good questions.” (Of course, I remember it as if it were yesterday.) I promise that, if given the opportunity, I will ask good questions again.

The post Top of my bucket list? Billie Jean King appeared first on Better Presenting.

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After 23 straight years of showing up, building community, and providing people a reason to give a damn, the Presentation Summit has chosen to go virtual-only in 2025.

That decision, and this moment, are both too big for careful spin or corporate double-speak: the Summit has been DOGE’d. DOGE’d and tariffed. Canadians have been advised not to travel to the U.S.; other countries have put the U.S. on their lists of unsafe places; federal employees have lost their jobs or seen their budgets slashed; and companies with federal contracts have lost a major source of income.

Inclusion isn’t just a value I believe in, it’s the lifeblood of this conference. We make it our business to make you feel like you belong and I do not want to create FOMO that runs counter to those values.

And that hurts. That hurts like no spreadsheet can describe, and you are allowed to hurt right along with me. Together we have spent more than two decades creating something meaningful, inclusive, and resilient. Through recession, pandemics, and a thousand curveballs, the Presentation Summit has remained a heartbeat for so many of us. Season after season, we have gathered. We have connected. We belong.

And it’s exactly those curveballs that have brought us closer together as a community. In 2020, when we couldn’t imagine a time we’d be able to convene again in person, we poured our hearts and souls into creating a new digital world for our community. This world became a virtual space for people to learn, connect, and grow from one another, but it also did something magical: it opened up the Summit to new corners of the world and allowed us to expand our conference family across the globe.

We will bring this same magic to the 2025 Summit, and our value of inclusion remains as strong as ever. Year after year since 2020, we’ve aimed to set the standard for virtual conferences and we intend to double and triple those efforts. How can we make this year’s conference the most human and most inclusive virtual experience imaginable? That will be my mantra for the next four months.

I’m heartbroken to share this news. But I’m also heartened by the spirit, humanity, and connection that I know we’ll bring to this event.

The Presentation Summit opens its virtual doors as wide as possible for this wonderful community of presentation professionals. October 19-22. Priced aggressively. Packed full of humanity, like only we know how to do. And with just a pinch of defiance for seasoning.

Please join me.
www.PresentationSummit.com

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While you are sipping your morning coffee, your afternoon soda, or your favorite evening beverage, here is our latest Top Ten list of reasons why you won’t want to miss this year’s conference, Oct 20-23 in Southern California and then Nov 3-6 virtually.

1. Fantastic keynotes

A most dynamic and eclectic group of keynoters: a charismatic icon of technology, a neuroscientist who speaks four languages, one of the most brilliant information graphic theorists in history, and a master motivator from within our own community.

Read up on each of these superstars right here.

2. Ridiculously good learning opportunities

As veteran conference goers will readily attest, there is no event on the planet that brings together talent and expertise like the Presentation Summit does. You simply cannot find a better source for presentation design inspiration, PowerPoint instruction, storytelling advice, and delivery coaching.

Learn more about our lineup of presenters and seminars right here.

3. Incredible community

At the Summit, you do more than learn; you develop contacts within the presentation industry that you’ll keep for the rest of your career. When you put 100 passionate people together under one roof, and assemble another couple hundred virtually, the bonds created go way beyond that of a webinar, a discussion forum, or a faceless trade show. People who have met at our conferences have gone into business together, hired one another, vacationed together, and have married each other.

4. Exceptional value

Despite increased costs across the board with conference staging, we have not increased our prices one penny since 2021. Neither do we skimp on creature comforts, hosting our roomies for most meals and evening receptions, and treating our Zoomies to state-of-the-art virtual technology and the finest engagement practices available.

5. You run the place

You pick and choose which seminars to attend; you do not have to commit to any one track ahead of time and you can cross tracks at will. Furthermore, several of the sessions could feature you! Submit work that you are particularly proud of or feel that needs work and you could find yourself being showcased or made over. Our Birds of a Feather discussion groups will be formed directly from your input to us, and then, of course, there is the simultaneous famous and infamous PowerPoint Trivia Contest, pictured here, which must be seen to be believed.

6. All year long

If any Zoomies missed a session that sounded good, you won’t have to wait long. Recorded versions of seminars will be made available within hours of their live airings. They will be married with the original Chat history, so you can see what people were thinking at the time, and you can actually continue the Chat thread. You will have this opportunity clear through to Fall of 2025. Roomies can add the virtual experience for a scant $95.

7. We bribe you incessantly

Every patron of the conference receives a copy of Guy Kawasaki’s new book Think Remarkable, and everyone who registers before July 4 gets to partake in our Spring/Summer Fling, made possible by digital donations from our presenting team. Sign up this month and go on a shopping spree worth hundreds of dollars. (Alas, this promotion has ended.)

8. Our last hurrah

Perhaps we have buried the lede here, but this will be my swan song: my 22nd and final season hosting this conference in person. So if you have not yet joined us on site, now is the time. And if you are a regular roomie, please come for the last hurrah.

9. You’ll have an amazing time

The Presentation Summit is like summer camp for adults; you would not have thought it possible to have such a good time at an event where you also learn so much. Our roomies will enjoy relaxing meals, evening socials, well-timed breaks, and the wonderful vibes of an oceanside resort. Our Zoomies will appreciate strategic scheduling, professional monitoring, and our “daily dish” with prominent members of the community.

10. Avoid the FOMO

We are the most prominent event in the presentation community. The learning and the community experiences spawned from this conference live in lore and reminiscence forever. So don’t miss out — whether as a roomie or a Zoomie, this is your year to join us!

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CLICK or TOUCH HERE for complete details and to register.

Check out The Summit in 180 Seconds for a breezy tour. Feel free to share…

Ask us anything

The post Ten Reasons to attend the Presentation Summit appeared first on Better Presenting.

The digital world is littered with articles with titles similar to this one. A Google search turns up 750,000 of them. And most of them offer good advice, albeit a bit redundant. Just about all of them warn against calling attention to your having run out of time, asking for the audience to cut you a break because of [fill in lame excuse here], or apologizing for a technical glitch. Many of them admonish those who use too many ums, wells, and likes. And over half of the ones I reviewed are ready to hang you for phrases like “you can’t read this chart, so let me tell you what it says.”

The list of offenses on most of these articles runs 10 or higher, and one of them offers 21 things to never say, in quintessential Buzzfeed click-bait fashion. My list will include only six, with the hope that at least one of them is fresh and useful.

“How are you all doing?”

You might think that you are just being warm and friendly starting out a presentation this way, but what you are really doing is creating an uncomfortable and disingenuous moment. If you are seated around a boardroom with three or four people, and you really want to know how their weekends were, and you are willing to hear their answers, okay then. Otherwise, you’re just acting like a phony. How many are in your audience — 20, 30, 400? Are you expecting them to answer? Are you going to go around the room? The cynical members of your audience believe that you don’t really care how they are, while even the more forgiving ones don’t believe that you really expect them to answer. So most don’t. Most sit silently when asked this direct question. Others offer an under-the-breath “fine” or maybe just some sort of grunt. And everyone waits anxiously for the moment to be over.

There’s nothing wrong with showing interest in your audience’s welfare, and I think it could be perfectly fine to begin with “Good morning, I hope you are all doing well.” This shifts no burden onto them and does not require that you wait for some response that is sure to be unfulfilling. Furthermore, you could use it as an intro to an ice-breaking story: “I hope everyone had as good an evening as I did last night. My wife and I took Jennifer’s advice and ate at 52nd St. Grill, and the seafood was sensational.”

But the empty “How’s everybody doing” opening should be avoided at all costs. In addition to the criticisms that I have leveled already, the most dangerous part of this opening is that it places you just one false move away from my biggest pet peeve in the history of public speaking:

Him: “Good morning, how you all doing?”

Us: “fine…okay…uhh…grunt…mumble.”

Him: “C’mon, you can do better than that. HOW’S EVERYONE DOING??”

Us: “Fine!…Yeah!…Okay!…Get lost.”

Let me be completely clear: I HATE THIS! I despise presenters for chastising their audience for not playing along with their disingenuous introductions. We sit silent to help you get past an awkward moment as quickly as possible, and you make it worse by asking us again? And by implying that somehow the problem is in our lack of enthusiasm?

Don’t ask how we are. And if you do, by all means don’t blame us for not answering to your satisfaction.

“Without further ado…”

This expression is normally used by those introducing others. Do you even know what “ado” means? Most of us know the word from two expressions: the one at issue here and “much ado about nothing.” Merriam-Webster defines ado as “foolish babble or unnecessary talk.” Do you really mean to refer to your introduction as foolish babble? If so, then say “Enough of this foolish babble–please welcome…” That would actually be better; a bit of self-deprecation goes a long way.

In fairness, most of your audience members won’t interpret ado as foolish babble because they have never actually consulted a dictionary for its meaning. They don’t care what it means; it’s not in their lexicon. They won’t use it with their coworkers or their kids. They only hear it in ballrooms or on webinars and it carries zero significance for them.

My real problem with this expression is that it rarely signals the end of the ado. Most presenters use it as a transition from one part of their introduction to another. I once heard someone say it four times before finally having the keynote speaker take the stage. My wife and I were in Napa for a weekend wine festival and we started counting the number of times this expression was used. We lost count somewhere north of 15. Everyone says it and no one cares what it means.

So find a better way to close your introduction. Like maybe “Please welcome John Smith.” There, problem solved.

“To make a long story short…”

Many bad things can happen with this seemingly-innocuous phrase. The first is your suggestion that you indulge in long stories. He might make this one short, but what about the next five? Let’s get out of here now. The second is your implication that you are cheating the audience out of the full story. Why are you making it short? Aren’t I worthy of the long version? I didn’t pay for the Reader’s Digest of this seminar!

But the bigger problem with this phrase is that it usually comes too late: by the time that most presenters use it, they have gone well past the point at which the story could be considered short. You’re calling attention to the fact that you’ve already blown it.

This expression holds special meaning for me thanks to the time that I was meeting with three commissioners of the Port of Long Beach. One of them tried unsuccessfully to sum up his thoughts, and by the third time that he uttered the now-infamous phrase, I slipped in a quick “Too late.” Talk about your awkward silence. He was stopped in his tracks, the others in the room didn’t know what to say, and I could barely muster an apology for the frog in my throat. I would like to say that I learned a lesson about being a smart-ass in public, but the sad fact is that I have probably said stuff like that since.

To make a long story short, this was not my finest hour.

“To be honest with you…”

I know what you are trying to say with this expression. You are trying to signal a moment of candor that you expect to be impactful. There is a diplomatic or more PC response that you could make but instead you are going to be more direct.

The implication is clear, though: most of the time, I’m lying but at this particular moment, I’m going to be honest with you. Simon Cowell of American Idol fame had his own unique twist: “If I’m being honest (that was horrific).” It’s like you can get away with anything because you’re not actually crediting yourself with saying it. If I were being honest, I’d say this. But I’m not so instead I’ll just say something that you want to hear. I’ll just give you a bunch of ado.

Once again, your audience might not interpret it that way, because they have grown so accustomed to the phrase, they’re now immune to it. And perhaps that’s the most damning thing about it: do you really want to say something that holds no meaning at all? It suggests that you gave no thought to it before saying it. It’s nothing more than a verbal tick. It’s like an um.

You can do better. How about this: “You wanna know what I really think? I think that it’s all political posturing to set up that lucrative development project by the lake.”

“It goes without saying”

Same deal. If it goes without saying, why are you saying it? Why are you wasting my time with it? I suspect you are trying to convey that something is obvious–so much so that we can dispense with it. We don’t need to spend time arriving at this conclusion; we are like attorneys putting facts in evidence. It’s just lazy–try replacing it with nothing. Just start the sentence with whatever was going to follow and I suspect you’ll like the meter and tone of it better.

“Literally”

This final one saddens me. A perfectly good and useful word has been ruined by modern culture. With every I literally died and you’re literally throwing money out the window, this word has lost its potential impact. And I’m literally going to cry now because of it. Whoops, I meant to say I’m literally at a loss for how to replace the word in my speech.

You see, that’s how it happens. Public speakers get into a cadence and for some reason they feel as if they must add a few syllables before the verb of their sentence. They reach for the first one they can find and it’s “literally.” You could just as easily have said that you “virtually died” or “you are essentially throwing money out the window,” but in the moment, you knee-jerked your way to “literally.” (This becomes amusing when the sentence is one that could be taken literally, like “it literally made me sick.” Really? Do you mean that you vomited right there in front of them??)

This all means that we can’t use it, even when we want to do right by it. The word has been ruined for at least a generation. (We’ll see if today’s teens can be part of its restoration.) I rarely use the word any longer, but when I feel as if I must, my workaround is to say it twice. “It was literally, literally, just seconds later when the CEO appeared on screen to announce the merger.” The first use of the word would not have been taken seriously; I needed two in order to convey the meaning.

That’s a bummer. Maybe literally. And it goes without saying that I’m disappointed. So without further ado, I’m done. How you’all doing, anyway?

What tops your list of stuff we shouldn’t say? Please share below. We’re all ears…not literally…

The post Don’t Say That! appeared first on Better Presenting.