Posts Tagged ‘Eyeful People’

Simon takes on ‘Dragons Den’

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

Next week sees our very own Simon Morton lending a hand at Henley College’s Enterprise & Employability Week.

Simon will be undertaking the unenviable task of tackling the ‘Dragons Den’ – from both sides.

On Wednesday 22nd he will be maintaining his usually friendly persona and helping the young entrepreneurs prepare for their Den encounter by sharing his skills and knowledge on ‘How to present to a panel’.

In the Den, a great presentation marks the difference between an idea you’ve had – and a business you will have.  In life this can be translated as the job you really wanted and the job you got.

Most people are distinctly uncomfortable in front of an audience – it can feel like a test that you haven’t revised for.

Yet the rules for presentation success are simple and can be essentially summarised as ‘three knows making an ess’* – know your subject, know your audience, know yourself = success.

Bringing that to a life actually needs a little something extra and that’s the ‘secret sauce’ that Simon will be sharing with the students.

Then he’s back on Friday 24th – flying in and donning his incredulous face (practice ongoing) to take his place as a Dragon.

It’s unusual to see both sides of a pitch and Simon is hoping that his Wednesday masterclass will minimise his exposure to the type of cringe inducing umming, ahhing, panicking and fudging that we often see on the telly.

Dragon Morton

*feel free to insert a bad pun as required.
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Kicking off a week of Guest Blogs

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

We love our blog.

Not only does it provide us with a quick and satisfying medium to sound off about presentation topics that either delight or frustrate us, it also acts as a platform for those that feel the same levels of passion.

Comments, thoughts and ponderings hit us via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and via the blog pretty much every time we put forward our thoughts…and we love it.

In light of this, we’ve handed over the Eyeful blog to regular readers who have something to sound off about.  It may be in response to one of our earlier blogs, a current hot topic or something they simply had to get off their chests.

Whatever the reason, we thank and salute them for their enthusiasm, passion and insight.

Read on…this is going to get interesting…

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Team Eyeful grows again… Ladies & Gentlemen, introducing Louise Cramp!

Monday, April 8th, 2013

We never sit still here at Eyeful Towers – our world is always evolving and expanding to cope with new customers and new technologies.

Indeed, it was pointed out over Christmas drinks that in 2012 we recruited 10 new staff across the teams at Head Office, opened 2 new global offices (in Russia and Ireland), grew the business by 30% and increased our product offering.

All rather exhausting if you think about it for too long…

So, to make sure we deliver all this new work with the now expected “Eyeful way” we’ve added to our renowned Project Management team. Here to introduce herself is the lovely Louise Cramp:

Hi I’m Louise, the new(ish) Project Manager in the delivery team.

Project Management is in my blood; I love organising, planning and delivering tasks, whether its work related or planning our next adventure in the sun!

I’ve spent quite a bit of time working in the hospitality sector, so I’m use to an ever changing, fast pace environment. From what I gather, I should be right at home at Eyeful! I always strive to exceed the customers’ expectations and work hard to achieve my goals.

It’s great to be part of such a fresh, progressive company – bring it on!

We’re very pleased to announce that Louise is fitting in really well and taking everything we throw at her in her stride.

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Every cloud has a silver lining…or life in the fast lane?

Thursday, March 28th, 2013

Speed cameras are a constant source of debate and grumbling amongst UK drivers – are they a source of revenue or do they improve road safety? Debates aside, this story is about turning a negative into a positive.

Last year UK consultant Paul Newsome received the dreaded letter informing him that he had been photographed exceeding the speed limit whilst driving in Hull. Paul was presented with two options: take the fine and points or pay the fine and attend a road safety awareness course. Of course, Paul opted for the latter and duly signed up to attend the one-day course.

The course, for those careful, law-abiding drivers who don’t know, involves a presentation followed by some practical advice. Now Paul has been a presentation consultant with Eyeful since 2009 and is always spotting opportunities to improve poor slides. By pure chance the Road Safety Partnership had already contacted Eyeful for a quote and it was our Presentation Optimisation methodology that gave us the edge over other companies and helped us to win the contract. Along with Paul’s “experience”.

Cut to a few months down the line and delivery of the new  ‘High Vis’ version of their original presentation.  The process was a familiar one to anyone who has experienced the Presentation Optimisation methodology, as Paul explains:

“It’s a slightly different scenario to most of our customers but the theory is the same. A presentation needs to have a structure that ensures audience engagement – perhaps more so in this case as many attend the course with a very cynical or negative attitude and need convincing that the information being shared is relevant and important.

Most importantly the presentation needs to encourage and facilitate active and positive contribution to the session whilst being memorable so that it is not just about what they see on the day – it’s about adopting it in their day to day life after the course”

The feedback has been fantastic and we’re proud to have made such a positive impact on something as important as road safety.

In some ways we hope that you do see our work… but on the other hand, we understand that you probably hope you don’t.

Either way, Paul is naturally a much better driver thanks to this experience!

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Your Audience – Give A Little Respect…

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

The more you think about it, the more obvious it is…yet too often, we see presenters forget this most basic of rules.  The audience is king/queen.

I was reminded of this recently when speaking at an event.  The agenda was a Who’s Who list of speakers who had a huge amount of knowledge and experience in their field (I know what you’re thinking – what was I was doing there?).  The audience was made up of senior people, all of whom had got up early or invested in a hotel to attend the event.  It was as friendly and enthusiastic crowd as you could have hoped for.

And then things started going awry…

The first speaker didn’t inspire confidence.  He seemed to bumble through his slides, reading most of the bullet points out and looking genuinely surprised at some of the animations that befell him.

The audience started to look uneasy.

The next presenter was great – got everyone back on track by sharing her enthusiasm for the topic and demonstrating it through stories, strong visuals and building a real connection with the audience.  The energy returned to the room.

Unfortunately the entire morning was like a rollercoaster – for every engaging and prepared presenter, there was the cliched “bumbler”.  Outside of issues around message, structure, content and visuals (I could go on), the latter group displayed one consistent trait – a lack of respect for their audience and the event.

As a presenter, every presentation represents an investment in you by the audience.  It’s the obvious stuff like time and attention but also something a more intimate – their willingness to connect with you and your story.

It’s a huge privilege…

Despite this investment on their behalf, we all too often see presenters pay scant regard for their audiences and simply “roll up” and deliver the same pre-canned, half-baked presentation that not only fails to interest the audience but also, from their tone and approach, bores them too.

When preparing your next presentation, please ensure the very first thing you consider is the audience – treat them with the utmost respect.

They are opening themselves and their minds up to your message.  They probably don’t need to and, chances are, they have a whole bunch of other interesting stuff to be getting on with…yet they chose to invest their time, energy and attention to you.

Forget this at your peril.

I’ve seen it happen…and it wasn’t pretty.

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Sharing some “Eyefulocity” – Transparency

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

Technology has a way of getting in the way sometimes.  It’s all too easy to get tied to your desk endlessly e-mailing and IM-ing and, over time, losing the personal connection you used to have with customers and colleagues.  Yet, when harnessed intelligently and with one eye firmly on the people around you, technology can also dramatically improve your “connectedness” with the very same people.

In their wisdom, Microsoft have recognised this and thrown their weight behind a new forum and web community, Business Reimagined (http://www.businessreimagined.org/).  The question posed to leaders of businesses both large and small was a simple one – “If you started again today, what would you keep and what would you reimagine?”

We were mighty chuffed to be asked by our chums at Microsoft to contribute to the discussion.  The first topic on the agenda was building transparency into your business processes and culture…something we know quite a lot about.

Spoiler Alert: The following video makes reference to a very exciting new programme about to kick off here at Eyeful Towers entitled Eyeful Labs.  We’ll tell you more about it when the decorators have finished…

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Presentation Pressure..?

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

Presenting brings with it all manner of pressure…  Heart palpitations and sweaty palms are commonplace in meeting rooms and conference halls the world over, as presenters wrestle with the fear of stumbling over their words or completely losing the plot as they deliver their slides.

A statistic often dragged out and dusted down at this point is; that more people are terrified at the thought of standing up and presenting to an audience than they are of dying. This is typically followed up with the quip, “So they would rather it be their funeral than give the eulogy at someone elses”.

Funny…but the impact this fear can have on a presentation is deadly serious.

We have recently used our Presentation Optimisation methodology to develop a deck for a lovely customer who is presenting today at Buckingham Palace …to HRH Prince Andrew.  Gulp!  Now that is a high pressure pitch!

Both our Presentation Designer, Nicola, who worked on the deck and Consultant, Paul, who developed the messaging and drew up the initial storyboard are happy to boast that they have created slides for royalty.  But, more importantly, we can take great pride in equipping our customer with a presentation that the presenter has complete confidence in.  Once the confidence kicks in, the pressure ebbs away… our job is done.

So best of luck to our lovely customer and we eagerly await an update on how it all went.  Perhaps we could get our Customer Champions to survey the Palace to get their view on it?  Maybe not…

So, if you need some help dealing with those presentation nerves, start with the basics and get your content and story straight and build from there.

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Presentation Perestroika

Wednesday, January 30th, 2013

We’re very proud of our growing global presence and relish the challenges this poses us everyday. The project management team are well versed in dealing with different time zones, geographic trends and the occasional language barrier…but there’s always room for improvement.

So when we saw that the lovely folk at UK Trade and Investment were running a free workshop on Russian Language for Beginners, we jumped at the chance to skill up!

Project Management Team Leader, Vicki attended the day earlier this month:

“When I heard about the course I was excited and also quite nervous – Russian is a complicated language and it’s not like I could even recognise the letters of the alphabet. I am really glad I went though. I was surprised at how many other businesses in the East Midlands have links to Russia and were on the course.”

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of talking to or working with Vicki, she can be a bit shy.  Worry not, her ever supporting chums in the design team tweaked the photo to ensure you could see her in all her glory:

Over the next few weeks Vicki will be sharing her new found skills and chatting to all of our lovely Russian customers (or indeed anyone who fancies practicing their Russian!)

 

 

 

 

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Oh Baby, It’s Cold Outside…

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

No matter how busy things get at Eyeful Towers, there’s always time to doff our cap in the direction of a comedy hero.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce Tommy (in reverence to Tommy Cooper)

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Panic Over – Eyeful Arrives in Europe

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

The EU has had a tough time of it over the last few years.  Economies wobbling, internal squabbles among member states and the perennial debate over how bendy a banana should be (no, really – see here).

No fun for anyone…

However 2013 looks like all of this cross continent tension could be a thing of the past.  The reason?  EyefulPresentations.EU has landed.

You see, we have a sneaking suspicion that much of the recent turmoil is down to poor communication and a dearth of engaging visuals.  Granted, this might be over simplifying the internal workings of one of the World’s most complex and powerful economic entities…but we feel it’s worth a punt.

Either way, we believe the launch of our new EU website is good news for all European businesses.  With us supporting your business through our Presentation Optimisation methodology, you can at least tick of “clearly communicate with prospects and customers” off your to-do list.*

* We know it works because it’s going down a treat with the Dutch, Irish and Eastern European customers.

To learn more about our ability to support companies across Europe, simply visit the website or give us a call.

Merci/Vielen Dank etc etc

 

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