advocacy skills

I've been doing a lot of training lately. Pretty typical for a government department - the budget has to be spent by the end of the financial year, so we all go to insane amounts of seminars in June.

Anyway, because of the new CPD rules (at least I think that's the reason), a lot of my seminars lately have been conducted by senior QC/SCs. These guys are at the top of their game in advocacy skills, but they vary greatly when it comes to their ability as presenters.

So, after my last training course, I did up a bit of a list of what I think makes a good presentation:-

- practical examples
- be specific in what you say, not vague
- number things off (eg 10 reasons why you should read this blog *g*)
- a sense of humour
- move with the mood of the room
- use power points, but don't recite them, talk about the points you've put on them
- have any written parts of your presentation available to the attendees
- be interested in your subject matter
- be approachable

The last point took me a while to come up with. I was thinking about why some presenters seem to keep my interest, when others don't. And it came down to attitude - some presenters just seem to invite you into their world, while others stay remote from the audience. Doing a presentation is about involving your audience in the same way that acting in a play is. You may not be seeking the same level of applause, but the good presenters do get the same lever of attention and interest in what they're saying.

Of course, I'm not saying that I actually have any of these skills. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I don't, since I always sucked at acting and I don't think I have a "presence". I'm the calm behind-the-scenes type, not the out-there performer type. I excell at mediations, but I suck at public speaking. Which is kind of good in that it matches my litigation style... but anyway...

On another communication note - I've noticed lately that I talk to my cat a lot. Not about my life or anything, but like I would to a child: "No, I'm not feeding you yet"; "Would you like to move your head so I can close the fridge?"; "Eewwww! Stop drooling on me!" - that kind of thing. I've never lived on my own with a cat before, so I have to ask: Is this weird?

And thinking of weird, apparently Spamalot is coming to Australia. I'm looking forward to that so much that it surely can't be normal.

Listening to: Tylea - Colour Your Insecurities (Dark Album)