Author Archive

Success with Sylvia™: Buffalo Wings, Beverage and Balance While Networking

How do you hold your food and drink, eat, shake hands with people, and look poised at networking events? Practice these techniques for professional and personal success!

Enjoy a few “Ideas” quotations to keep yourself motivated.

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all."

~ Elbert Hubbard

"Money never starts an idea.  It is always the idea that starts the money."

~Owen Laughlin

“Thinking about doing something is the same thing as doing nothing.”

~ Sam Milman

"Drawing is putting a line round an idea."

~ Henri Matisse

“Life is trying things to see if they work.”

~ Ray Bradbury

Invitation: If you have any "Ideas" quotations you'd like to share, please share them in the "comments" area. Thanks!
Sylvia

Picture This! Use Visual Aids to Illustrate Your Ideas

When you communicate verbally, you communicate in one of the most direct ways you can to get your idea across to an audience. Yet, you can enhance what you say and how you say it by showing what you say. Letting people see your message adds another dimension to your communication. Visualizing your message may be the deciding factor that clarifies your idea and convinces your audience to act on or support it.

This is where visual aids help seal the deal.

Visual aids support your message in a way that enhances your spoken words. Visual aids help your audience establish a connection between what you say and what the idea looks like – on paper, projected on a screen, in a video, using a model mock-up, or whichever medium best supports your message.

Here are some guidelines to follow to create and use visual aids to reinforce your idea presentation.

• Create a consistent look. Make a visual template. Incorporate logos and colors, arrange information in similar locations, and use the same backgrounds on each visual. By establishing a uniform look throughout, you can ensure that your visuals are focusing only on the most important aspect: your idea. Use this approach when creating handouts, digital format presentations, and even in follow-up materials that you plan to send to participants after the meeting.

• Gauge text size, darkness, and thickness by how well your visuals can be seen from the farthest points of the room. Include side views as well as rear view. By performing this “visibility check” ahead of time, you can save your audience from confusion or frustration at not seeing the visual aids clearly. If you’re considering a PowerPoint presentation or anything digital that will be displayed from the front of the room, plan for extra time before the meeting to set up the projection area. Prepping ahead of time helps you ensure that the entire audience can grasp your message regardless of their position in your dedicated meeting space.

• In visual presentations, limit colors to four: black, blue, red and green. If you use too many colors, you dilute the positioning and value of your intended message. Not to mention it won’t look as professional. Be sure to use the four colors in this way:

   o Black – primary color for text and graphic outlines.
   o Blue – secondary color for text and graphics.
   o Red – bullets and highlighting.
   o Green – highlighting.

• Toys, models, and samples are also visual aids. For variety, use these tools in your presentation, but be sure to use them appropriately and sparingly. If your idea can be developed into a prototype that the audience can see and/or touch, then it will offer even greater visualization for the information being presented. Even if you can’t get a physical object, consider the power that a drawing or animation can provide. These are excellent tools for demonstrating physical relationships of parts, how something works, or clarifying a complex concept.

• Have a “Plan Oops!” As convenient as technology has become in the way of presenting information, there are still times when it fails us. If (or when) that happens to you, you’ll want to have your visuals in an alternative format like a paper printout. Just one printout—in color—is all you need to have with you. And put your visual files on a portable storage medium (CD, DVD, thumb drive, or smartphone). If something goes wrong with the primary technology, your “Plan Oops!” can be copied, printed, or uploaded and distributed to your audience.

Beware of using visual aids just because the medium is the hottest thing out there, the visuals look pretty, or cost a lot of money. Visual aids must support, rather than overwhelm or distract, your message. You may only get one chance to share your idea with the right audience. Consider enhancing your message and the experience you want to deliver by integrating visual aids into your presentation.

Idea Discovery: Article – Start-up Idea Began On the Go

  Make your IMPACT(c) … one idea at a time!

  Here's my Idea Discovery for today to help you do just that.

  Idea Discovery: Article – Start-up Idea Began On the Go
 

Nathan Tesler, a 20 year old student, came up with an idea for a mobile application for writers called Werdsmith, an application that helps writers manage their workflow and collaborate on projects. His best ideas came to him while he was on the go, and he wanted to be able to write when an idea came to him, which is how Werdsmith was born. Nathan didn't have programming skills, so he took an online course in programming and within 3 months, turned his idea into an application.

Nathan developed a strategy, took action to implement his strategy, and turned his idea into success…all stages of my IMPACT(c) process.

See the full story behind Nathan and his idea here:
http://www.watoday.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-tech/startup-idea-began-on-the-go-20120521-1z0st.html

My goal is to serve, with resources and strategies that help you clarify, organize, and implement your ideas.

Stay connected with me for more Idea Discoveries.
IdeaSuccessNetwork.com

Sylvia Henderson, Your Idea Coach
Author: "Hey, That's MY Idea! How to Communicate and Get Recognized for What You Know and Think"
 

Idea Discovery: Book – “Good Idea. Now What: How to Move Ideas to Execution” by Charles Lee

Make your IMPACT(c) … one idea at a time! Here's my Idea Discovery for today to help you do just that.

Idea Discovery: Book – “Good Idea. Now What: How to Move Ideas to Execution” by Charles Lee

From Idea, to Market…A Little Pop of Color!

I interviewed an Olney (MD) Entrepreneurs' Club colleague recently on my cable television program "Think About It!" about how she took her idea for a product and made it a reality. Since I'm now focusing on helping people get clarity, structure, and strategies in place to implement their ideas, this is a perfect program that complements my focus. I'm sharing it with you to inspire you to get your idea "for something" out of your head and start working on it!

“Presentation Xpert” Newsletter – Free Resource for Presentation Skills | Professional Presentations

I receive this e-newsletter in my mail monthly. It has solid content; good articles about how to give good business presentations. The opening paragraphs on the home page note:

PresentationXpert is a monthly e-newsletter for professionals seeking to take their presentation preparation, design or delivery skills to the next level and advance their careers in the process.

Whether trainer, salesperson, marketer, top executive or PowerPoint specialist, subscribers find the latest real-world tips, best practices, product reviews and research from the world’s top presentation experts.

http://www.presentationxpert.com/

Add this to your repertoire of resources for presenting your ideas to the "right people, in the right way".

Differences between getting your ideas “out there” on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Idea Note

We can share our ideas in so many ways. Depending on how much you can share at any given time (with intellectual property rights concerns ever more in the forefront) and what you want to share, popular social media tools differ in how you use them and their purpose for your communications.

This article by Never Stop Marketing is a succinct and simple differentiation of the three and helped me a lot. I like simple. (I also suggest spellcheck, but that's not the point here.)

The Fundamental Difference bet. Twitter/FB/Google Plus

Mental Blocks to Creativity: Unlock Your Ideas

In my "Hey, That's MY Idea!" workshops, the first stage of the IMPACT(c) process from my book that we work on is "details". Sometimes, participants / students have trouble with even coming up with their ideas. I like this post from Brian Clark on creative thinking. If YOU are struggling with figuring out your idea, try a couple of these strategies!

"Do You Recognize These 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking?", by Brian Clark (CopyBlogger)
http://www.copyblogger.com/mental-blocks-creative-thinking/

Google’s Sense of Humor

A friend showed me this. I can't help sharing because it made me laugh. Instructions: "Google" the word 'ASKEW'. Look at the resulting screen. It might take a second to catch it but when you do…! :o)