Timo Sorri is a presentation designer who helps people turn their ideas into compelling and understandable visual stories. Based in Helsinki, he is founder and owner of Havain, a company specialized in designing business presentations and also offers training in the subject. Author of the Presentaatioiden Pelikirja -blog (the Playbook of Presentations). Member of Toastmasters International since 2009.
His stage fright moment
His “icebreaker” at Toastmasters. In spite of having rehearsed his lines for 5 hours, when the moment approached he was extremely nervous, “about to collapse”. But after few seconds of being on the stage, everything went calmer and he successfully delivered the speech.
Two easy principles to sharpen your slides
The two “S”: (1) So what? and (2) Signal to Noise ratio.
1. So what? -> Be clear what you want to say in the slides.
2. Signal to Noise ratio -> Minimize the amount of things that you need on your slide in order to communicate your point.
When to use slides
Use slides if the audience is very big.
Avoid using slides in company internal meetings, where people should instead interact more.
Useful resources for designing presentations
Creative Commons licensed (i.e. you can use them without charge, just give the attribution to the source) image sites:- www.flickr.com/commons (search engine for world’s public photography archives powered by Flickr)
- www.compfight.com (search engine for Flickr users’ Creative Commons licensed images)
- www.photopin.com (same as above)
- labs.tineye.com/multicolr/Â (Search Flickr Creative Commons by color)
- images.google.com/hosted/life (Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today.)
- thestocks.im/Â (A portal for Creative Commons photo sites)
- www.iconsdb.com/Â (A site where you can search and download icons)
- www.flaticon.com/Â (Another site where you can search and download icons)
- iconmonstr.com/collection/ (Yet another site where you can search and download icons)
- editableclipart.com/Â (A site for PowerPoint vector graphics, meaning you can pull these directly to PowerPoint and start using them)
Finally, Canva.com is a great shortcut to find ready-to-use nice compositions for your next slides.
Favorite quotations
“Your mind is what makes everything else work.” -Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
“A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.†—Winston S. Churchill
Recommended books
“Puhevalta” (in Finnish) by Juhana Torkki
“Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds
“Brain Rules” by John Medina
Routine to Shine
Use a “ToDo list” app on your phone or tablet. This liberates your brain, so you focus only on the things you need to get done now.
Links
Master the Art of Presenting: “Time really flies when you are excited and enjoying the show!â€
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