Susan Weinschenk

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Susan Weinschenk for Business Insider. To read the complete article and check out a wealth of valuable resources, please click here.

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How many BORING presentations have you attended in your lifetime? If you are like most people the answer is “too many!”

Recently, I gave a talk on how to use brain science to create compelling and persuasive presentations.

Here are [3 of] 5 ideas from the talk.

1. Talk to the emotional brain with photos

Forget text bullet points on your slides. Those bullet points are your outline. Don’t bore your audience by showing them your outline!

Use colorful photos to capture the attention of the emotional brain. But don’t overdo it. You don’t need a different photo every 10 seconds for every thought you have.

2. Tell stories

Our brain processes information best when it is in the form of a story. Use stories throughout your presentation. These can be true stories or allegorical stories that make a point.

Stories make the information easier to understand and process, and they also get people’s attention. Everyone loves stories. Research shows that when you tell a story the brain is reacting as though you are the character in the story. You are, in essence, experiencing what the person in the story is experiencing.

3. Talk to the “old brain”

The old brain is the part of the brain that is most interested in survival. The old brain is all about ME ME ME ME .

So make sure that you start your presentation with something that is interesting to the people in the audience. Tell them a story or make a point within the first minute of the talk that is about them, not about you. That will grab their attention and their old brain will say, “I’d better pay attention to this. It’s all about me”.

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Dr. Susan Weinschenk is the author of Neuro Web Design: What makes them click? and 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People. All 47 slides are articles that have been republished from her website at which you will find a wealth of valuable resources.