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Boring to Bravo: Proven Presentation Techniques to Engage, Involve, and Inspire Your Audience to Action

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Whether you're giving a presentation to your peers, or are thinking about becoming a professional speaker or are already on that path - Kristin's new book, Boring to Bravo, is a must read. It's an innovative guide to ditching the gravity wrapped around the way we've always done presentations - helping you to take your presentation from ho hum to high-velocity!

The whole concept of speaking is changing so dramatically these days. Think about it. Twenty years ago we were using flat slides and lecturing to folks in a didactic (and often boring) way. That was what we all expected.

Today's audiences - from our peers to a platform audience - expect so much more than PowerPoint slides and a lecture. The advent of interactive media, conversational discussions on social media and a just plain less formal society have dramatically changed the way we engage audiences. And engage we must if we want to be effective!

Boring to Bravo is the guide we all need to make our presentations sing! The book isn't the traditional 'how-to' book with a step by step (and repetitive) approach. It's a thinkers guide - stuffed with tips that can be mixed and matched so you can apply just the right ideas to make your presentation come alive.

Kristin offers 90+ practical, proven tips to improve your speaking in a format that lets you look for just the tips that are best for you and your needs. From chapters including "You are your number one visual" to "Let your natural humor shine through," Boring to Bravo offers practical ideas that will help any speaker get out of that traditional box and take their presentation -and their audiences - to the next level. Kristin also includes inputs and advice from a wide range of professional speakers and coaches, adding even more value for her readers.

She also includes a chapter on how to "Use PowerPoint with Purpose" -which shares great ideas on how to re-energize those PowerPoint slides that have grown a bit stale. If you read nothing else in the book - this chapter will change the way you build presentations, helping you to create interactive slides and visuals that power your message and engage your audience!

This book is now my one-stop-guide for improving my own platform skills and thinking. if you're planning on speaking - to your PTA, your peers or to a paying audience - this book should be your guide as well!

There are many books on presentation techniques, which usually focus on how to overcome the fear of speaking in public. "Boring to Bravo" is not one of them. Author, Kristin Arnold, has written a manual that will help managers and executives, not just simply speak up in meetings, but to step onto the stage and shine in the spotlight.

The book has several outstanding characteristics. First, the focus of the book is on how to engage audiences: hooking their attention, making them think, and leaving them with messages they remember. Second, Arnold uses a variety of techniques, such as cartoon illustrations, lists, tables, fill-in-the-blank exercises, recaps, and action plans, to communicate her ideas, making them easy to understand, remember, and implement. Third, Arnold has included ideas and best practices from some of the most renowned speakers in the world. Arnold is well-positioned to collect the best practices from the best speakers--she is the 2010-2011 president of the National Speakers Association, a society of professional speakers. Fourth, although the book literally contains hundreds of ideas, it is well-organized. So, the reader is inspired, rather than overwhelmed. One of the many ideas I will personally implement is a spreadsheet format that Arnold provides for organizing a speech.

There is no doubt that "Boring to Bravo" will enable even the most polished corporate executive to take his/her presentations and speeches to new levels of excellence, especially in front of large audiences.

This is not the usual basic presentation skills book. Far from it. Arnold encourages readers to step outside the role of the speaker as an authority figure who controls the audience from the front of the room, to someone who passionately participates in an event that is enjoyed by the audience as a collaborative experience. Rather than speaking at an audience you should have a conversation that engages and connects with them. This tracks the move from Web 1.0 (carefully controlled content delivered in a one-way stream for mass consumption) to Web 2.0 (a social media dialog or conversation with mostly user-generated content).
Dynamic tips

In this book Arnold gives us a smorgasbord of techniques we can start using today. It is filled with nuggets of wisdom based on her years of experience as a professional facilitator. She also features guest content from an A-list of contacts she's cultivated as the current President of the National Speakers Association. Tips range from straightforward suggestions on how to deliver a well-crafted introduction to more subtle hints about which side of the stage to enter (stage right, from the left side of the room).

She lists a range of ways to break the mold of the "boring" presenter and become someone who will elicit "bravos". Refreshingly, she does not attempt to bake all the references you need into the book. Instead, in current social media style, she links to her dynamically maintained website where references are continually updated and readers comment on their experiences using the book in her lively blog.

You just know from how she writes that she has first-hand experience of all of the techniques she suggests. Checklists and chapter recaps provide an easy way to move from reading to implementation.

So, if you are curious about the ways a presenter might use a contractors measuring tape; when it's appropriate to bribe audience members; how to make eye contact with an audience of thousands; who to contact to license copyrighted music or movies for your event; how to conduct pre-event surveys on the web; or eight ways to conduct an audience poll; and much, much more...read the book.

Kristin has combined her years of experience working with companies of all sizes with input from professional speakers, trainers and presenters to give everyone that has to do a presentation a sure fire way to get kudos!

Each chapter is full of practical advice you can put to work immediately. With Boring to Bravo, you won't have to learn the hard way (and I speak from experience).

Thank you Kristin.

I really appreciate this book because Kristin Arnold is right. If presenters do not engage their audiences immediately and throughout their presentation, their audience has better things to do with their iPhones and Blackberries.

This book illustrates many ways to get an audience to "be here now". What better gift to give a group of bored people; something engaging to do with their friends and colleagues.... in person!

This book shows you how to do it.

I have been a professional speaker for years and during that time have picked up a few of the techniques Kristin mentions naturally, or by observing others speak. What struck about this book, however, is how many of her ideas I HAVEN'T seen, or ever imagined. The entire focus is on "interacting" with audiences, something I find critically important. The blank pages in the back are now covered with notes from ideas that popped into my head chapter after chapter. Hmm...now I'm going to have to change my routine before the next talk coming up in a couple weeks. I can't wait!

Boring presentations suck the energy out of audiences, rooms, even entire organizations. That's why Boring to Bravo should be a companion to every person who makes a presentaiton. This book is full of useful tips, examples, checklists, step-by-step guides, and case studies about how to engage your audience. So stop making time stand still with your boring presentation that does nothing to advance your cause or move the audience to act. Kristin Arnold is on a mission to stamp out boring business presentations, and you can help by applying the multitude of lessons in this book.

Randy Pennington
Author, On My Honor, I Will: The Journey to Integrity-Driven Leadership

This book is a great resource for executives to ensure they are conveying their intended message. The layout provides the rapid scanning and adoption approach necessary for people with limited time. And the book provides substantive material for going deeper.

I have personally witnessed Kristin Arnold implementing these tactics to great success. She successfully translated her experience and knowledge, to provide a great users guide for those of us who provide frequent presentations and spend most of our time focused on our content versus the delivery.

When an author has to parade a string of initials after their names, they are obviously seeking to impress you as an authority. One reviewer has succumbed: "The author's qualifications are important for a book on public speaking (where authorial experience in practicing what is being preached is crucial). Arnold's background as a facilitator and speaker is extensive, capped by her new role as the incoming president of the National Speakers Association."

Unfortunately, nothing can overcome the simple fact that this is a cookbook, a hodgepodge of well-known and in some cases time-worn devices for novice public speakers.

Many people have a natural facility for speaking to groups. Typically they have no need to resort to gimmicks of any kind. They are enthusiastic, knowledgeable of their subjects, respect their audiences and just carry people along with them.

This book is not for them.

Rather, "Boring to Bravo" is aimed at people who are unsure of their abilities. For example, do you really have to counsel a potential speaker with advice like: "When you are asked a question, treat each person and his or her inquiry as important. Respond professionally, showing that you truly listened to the participant and you desire to continue the conversation". Do you really need a MBA, CPF, CMC, CSP to explain this to you?

How about "Before you begin to speak, establish rapport with your audience by letting your eyes sweep the room: look from one side to the other and from front to back".

Chapter 13 is supposed to distinguish between mere presentation and facilitation. "As you involve the audience even more, you may find your role transitioning from presenting information to facilitating discussions among participants as well." I've been speaking to groups for several decades and I see the distinction here as meaningless. It all depends on what your role or purpose is. I get the impression that the author, consciously or not, is trying to cast a natural process as some kind of special skill.

Seriously, if you need this kind of advice, you might be better counseled to study excellent speakers and see what they do. There are now so many videos of effective speakers available on the web, you can easily study a vast array of styles.

This book may be helpful to a few who are terrified of facing an audience or those who like to have checklists. But bear in mind that there is nothing new here.

Jerry