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Your Content Advisory Board

Presenter Ian Percy recommends that presenters of all levels and abilities use a Content Advisory Board (CAB). The purpose of the CAB is to give the presenter objective, pertinent, insightful, and crystal clear feedback on where that presenter's content is working and where it is not. Sometimes the material is not appropriate, sometimes the explanation is not clear enough, sometimes better or more timely examples are needed. Just as the milk you buy at the store has a "best before" date, so too does our material. No matter how much the presenter loves that particular piece of material, story, joke, or anecdote, it must be discarded because it is no longer fresh. Your Content Advisory Board must give you balanced feedback, both about what is working and what is not. Ideally, each member of the board will have different strengths, so select the people on your Content Advisory Board carefully. This just may be one of the most important decisions you ever make in your career.

EXERCISE 2-4

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List up to eight people who might form your Content Advisory Board. List specifically what each of these people could contribute to your growth and development as a presenter.

Among the questions your Content Advisory Board should look at are:

1. Is the presentation content light, content heavy, or content right?

   Content light is fluff, not enough new information, too much information the audience already knows, or an excellent five-minute point stretched and repeated to fill 45 minutes.

   Content heavy is too much information and too many details to remember. Nothing stands out from anything else and there is an over-whelming amount of facts and figures.

   Content right is just the right amount of content. It matches perfectly with the time period allotted, the expertise and technical level of the audience, and the context such as at the beginning of the day when people are fresh or at the end of the day when the audience members are tired and information-satiated.

Please rate the presentation on a scale of 1 to 7, with a 1 representing that the content is too light, 4 just right, and 7 too heavy.

2. Is the content meaningful, engaging, and does it resonate with the audience?

   Are the audience members bored, listless, and mentally checked out or are they fully engaged, leaning forward, and watching the presenter with focused attention?

   Not meaningful or engaging and does not resonate with audience				Meaningful, engaging, and resonates with audience
   1	2	3	4	5	6	7

3. Is the content new, thought-provoking, and inspiring?

   In place of the same old content and same old clichés, skilled presenters give their audience new, thought provoking and inspiring information that once learned, allows the audience to view the world in ways that weren't possible before the presentation.

   Not new, thought-provoking, and inspiring				New, thought-provoking, and inspiring
   1	2	3	4	5	6	7

4. Did you provide an incisive analysis along with the information you presented?

   Today's audiences are bombarded with a plethora of information from many sources including the Internet. The best presenters also give their audiences the tools to analyze this information in ways that they could not have gleaned from any other source.

   No incisive analysis					Incisive analysis
   1	2	3	4	5	6	7

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Preparing outstanding content is a result of a variety of elements. Putting together outstanding content involves speaking from a strong point of view and developing titles that will grab and hold the audience's imagination. Frame your beginnings and endings with content that has impact and then work on finding, creating, and developing the perfect illustrative stories. These stories, along with simulations and scientific backup will give you credibility and believability. Once you are ready for a trial run of your presentation, start with the zero draft and end with feedback. When you've succeeded in accumulating the perfect content balance, the next step is organizing it to make it as powerful and as memorable as possible. We'll address that next.