The Write Stuff – Choosing the Writing Instrument That’s Right for You

The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

If you have to do any amount of writing for work, study, or in your home life then you are bound to have been dissatisfied with your pen at some point.

Either it’s just too ‘scratchy’ on the paper, or the tip has become all gummed up, or it’s leaked, or the ink didn’t dry quickly enough and it ended up smeared halfway across the page. Yes, I know, you probably should have been more patient and let it dry for longer, but who has the time to wait, right?

Whatever the issue, spending a few minutes thinking about what pen suits you, and what you are writing, is worthwhile.

So, what’s the deal?

Finding a pen that is right for your needs should be pretty easy. In today’s market, you have a much greater choice than was once the case.

If you’re looking for a cheap, effective, disposable option to fill up the stationery cupboard then you probably need look no further than a box of simple ballpoints (see below).

If the pen is for personal use, then it’s worth trying a few options. Many pens these days come in a variety of ergonomic designs, including cushioned gripping surfaces and nicely balanced weights to suit most writing styles.

Let’s run through a few types of pen. You are probably familiar with them, even if you don’t quite know the differences between them or maybe even what they’re called.

Ballpoint pens.

Ballpoints are the most common ‘stick’ pens on the market. Loads of people in the UK refer to these pens as the ‘Biro’, which is understandable (Lazlo Biro was the Hungarian inventor who developed the first ever ballpoint pen) but most stationers will list the pens as either ‘stick’ pens or, more commonly, ‘ballpoints’. They are inexpensive, usually disposable, and use an oil-based ink that dries quickly on the page. However, over time the ink can start to coagulate and collect dust in the tip of the pen, which creates gummed-up blobs. Because these pens are available so cheaply in large quantities, they are the usual ‘pen of choice’ for stationery cupboards in businesses and schools. A typical example would be the Bic Cristal pen – a pen that is so common it’s almost impossible for you not to be familiar with it.

Rollerball pens

Rollerballs. These pens use similar technology to the traditional ballpoint, but they typically have a finer tip (producing a thinner, neater, line when writing) and they use a water-based ink. The ink flow of a rollerball is therefore much more consistent than a ballpoint so it ‘skips’ less often when you are writing. You also need apply less pressure, so it can be much more comfortable to write with than the ballpoint. They do have a greater tendency to leak than ballpoint pens, however, so a rollerball is not a pen you would want to store in your shirt pocket. Also, the ink takes slightly longer to dry than the oil-based ink in a ball pen so, if you are left-handed, a rollerball may be a turn off for you, depending on your writing style.

Gel pens.

Well, the clue is in the name… these pens use a thick gel instead of an oil-based or water-based ink. The gel does have a shelf-life (it dries up after about three years, so an older gel pen may not work) but whilst they are working they are very nice to write with. They have an effortless ‘gliding’ feel to them as the pen slides across the page. However, these pens require you to be patient. The ‘ink’ takes a long time to dry so don’t go touching it too quickly afterwards, or you will end up with your writing smeared halfway across the page. Again, as with rollerballs, gel pens may not be great for left-handed writers.

Fountain pens.

The fountain pen is the oldest form of pen that is still commonplace in the market. Typically, these pens come with a selection of interchangeable nibs, making the fountain pen a versatile writing instrument that rewards practice with some truly excellent handwriting results. The application of different pressure whilst you’re writing can also result in different weights of line, making the fountain pen a more technically challenging instrument to use, but also one that can yield very good results. The downside of fountain pens in general is that, as mentioned it does take quite a bit of practice to use a fountain pen well, and they can have a tendency towards leaking too. However, it can be worth persevering and there are some fantastic relatively inexpensive fountain pens on the market – Lamy do a range of brightly coloured, modern, pens that are comparatively easy to get to grips with.

Felt tip pens.

There are a bunch of different felt tips on the market, most of which are a sort of halfway house between a stick pen and a marker pen (so not something you would normally use for writing). They can be good for bigger, bolder pieces of writing, but not on a lighter weight or matte paper because the ink will tend to ‘bleed’ on the paper. If you want to write on unusual surfaces (i.e. – not paper) then you could do worse than choose a felt tip pen like the world-famous Sharpie – a brand that has become almost synonymous with ‘permanent marker’, and is rightly lauded for its ability to write on almost anything.

Fineliners.

Fineliners are pens that are worth a mention because, although they are intended for use with graphic design or drawing, a lot of people favour them for writing too. Fineliners have a fine fibre or plastic tip and a long metal-clad nib, and they use dye-based inks. The inks are not always permanent, so if you want your writing to last then it’s worth checking that the ones you are buying use lightfast and waterproof pigments.

Hang on, aren’t posh pens kind of expensive?

Sure, you can spend anything from a few pence to a few hundred pounds on a writing instrument and whilst you might not be in the market for a high-end pen, you might want to consider giving a refillable pen a go. It means you have a pen that you get to know well and that you love writing with, and for from being expensive it’s actually cheaper in the long run.

Fountain pens are the most obvious example of refillable pens. Most of the modern ones come with plastic ink cartridges, although you can also still get the old-fashioned type that have a reservoir that you fill from an ink bottle.

But it’s not only fountain pens that are refillable. The more expensive gel pens, ballpoints, and rollerballs are also reusable rather than disposable. And here’s the thing. Refill sticks or cartridges use up fewer resources than a disposable pen so, not only will you have a nicer writing experience but also, it’s a bit better for the environment too.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

Inkjet vs. Laser – Battle of The Printers

Things to Consider When Choosing a New Printer

It used to be so easy – laser printers were ‘business’ machines and inkjet printers were domestic machines.

These days, it’s more confusing with new innovations in technology making the decision a whole lot harder than was once the case.

In simple terms, the difference in the basic technology is still easy to understand:

·       Inkjet printers use liquid ink which is sprayed through microscopic nozzles on to the paper.

·       Laser printers use a toner cartridge (which is filled with a very fine powder) and a heated fuser.

So, with the technology being so obviously differentiated, making a choice between the two types of printer ought to be straightforward:

·       Laser printers have always tended to be more expensive than inkjet, but they have typically been faster (once they have warmed up), and have a higher output per cartridge. If you needed something fast that could handle heavy office workloads, you bought a laser. Hence, they have traditionally been the choice of business.

·       Meanwhile, if you wanted high-quality, affordable colour printing for the home or professional quality photo prints, you went for down the inkjet route.

So far, so simple.

But things have changed:

Colour laser printers have now started to retail at prices tempting to home users, while business inkjets have been taking strides forward in development so that they are becoming more of a credible business choice.

The last couple of years have seen the evolution of a new breed of inkjets that are faster than their ancestors, and more ecologically friendly than their toner-consuming laser cousins.

So, what’s the real story?

Both Inkjet and Laser printers still have advantages and disadvantages, although it is fair to say that improvements to the core technology are helping both types of printer to push past their limitations. There are five main things you need to consider when you are looking at choosing your next printer:

1.       Speed

2.       Quality

3.       Durability

4.       Costs

5.       Networking and security

1.       The Fast and the Furious. Time is money; speed is important.

It has traditionally been the case that laser printers were the fastest kids on the block, but inkjets are the new boy-racers.

Not so long ago, inkjet printers topped out at around 30ppm (pages per minute) in black-and-white and only 10ppm in colour. Yep – the printer equivalent of a Granny in a Honda doing 50mph in the slow lane. Meanwhile, laser printers were routinely hitting speeds of up to 40ppm, irrespective of whether it was printing in black and white or colour. Ferrari territory.

Now, though, laser printers are hitting speeds of 60, and even 70ppm. You might think that this would be like the lasers simply upgrading from sports car to supercar; widening the performance gap between the two types of machine and leaving the inkjets in the dust.

Nope.

The new generation of inkjet printers now have print heads that span the entire width of an A4 page, and they can spew out pages at a ridiculous speed; up to 75ppm, which matches and even beats some of the fastest laser printers, and turning preconceptions on their heads. Granny just overtook Vin Diesel doing 120mph in the outside lane.

2.       Quality is king

In many cases a good quality laser printer will still have the edge when it comes to clean, crisp black text and colour graphics for most business documents.

However, whilst not quite stealing a march on the lasers just yet, inkjets have improved dramatically. Inkjet text reproduction is now easily good enough for all internal documents and even most external use.

Add to that, inkjets almost universally produce the best results when printing photos, and you can see that the newer generation of inkjet printers are very much a contender when it comes to selecting a credible business machine. 

3.       Durability – your business needs a workhorse

This is where laser printers have always smashed it out of the park. They are built to handle enormous workloads of anywhere between 2000 and 20000 pages.

Even with the new generation of inkjets, they still wimp out after a monthly workload exceeding the range of 1500 to 5000 pages (depending on model).

But, you know what? 1500 – 5000 pages is a lot.

In fact, it’s probably going to be perfectly adequate for most smaller SMEs (where an average print job is around four pages) or small departments in large businesses. So, even on the durability front, don’t count out the inkjet just yet.

4.       Money, money, money. How much does it cost?

In printer lore passed down from days of yore, we know that lasers are expensive to buy but cheap to run, while inkjets are cheap upfront but cost you more in the consumables, with a laser toner cartridge churning out thousands of prints, and an inkjet cartridge running out every five minutes.

But, as with so much else in this brave new world of printing devices, this conventional wisdom is no longer reliable.

On the one hand, lasers are getting cheaper to buy up front. Budget models are coming with smaller starter cartridges that run out fairly quickly, though the standard or super-sized cartridges will still have impressive lifespans. In toner alone, expect the cost per page to come in at around 2p for a black-and-white page and 5p to 10p for a colour page.

On the other hand, business inkjets are getting their own costs per page right down, to the extent that some models can now produce prints for around 1p per page for black-and-white to 5p per page for colour. Meanwhile, extra-large cartridges have hit the market and so too have clever innovations like Epson’s Ecotank range. This means a lot of newer inkjets are able to print over 9000 pages (black) or 6500 pages (colour).

It’s only fair to note that there are other costs to consider.

Laser printers still deliver excellent results even on plain paper (although smoother paper will always produce even better results), so there’s no need to splash out on dearer paper.  

Having said that, inkjet paper is no longer so much more expensive, and inkjets usually consume less power than lasers, so they are cheaper (and more ecologically friendly) to run in terms of power consumption.

Combine that with a lower purchase cost, and there’s definite scope to save your business money.

5.       Networking and Security – plug in, baby

It is still true that the top-end enterprise level laser printers offer more management tools, plus support for more high-end networking (e.g. Gigabit Ethernet and IPSec).

But even in this area, inkjets are coming into their own. An increasing number of office inkjet printers have the same or similar embedded management features that laser printers have, plus document security features that you normally only get with MPS (managed print services solutions), such as secure pull-printing, where jobs are held in a queue until released at the printer with a PIN code.

Not only that, but also the new generation of inkjets come with wireless and cloud-printing features that enable the printer to work with a wider range of devices or take print jobs from remote locations.

So, a laser might offer more management and security features at the top end of the market but a business inkjet can still give you all the tools most businesses need.

What’s the bottom line?

It’s no longer a straightforward decision of ‘laser for business’ and ‘inkjet for home’. But that’s a good thing.

As technology has evolved, the range of functions and applications available across a wide range of different machines means that your business can now take advantage of the features it needs at a price that is competitive. Combine a smart printer choice with a MPS solution, and you will be optimising your efficiency in terms of your business expenditure and your operational effectiveness. 

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

Managing Your Print Costs Effectively

Could Managed Print Services Save Your Business 30% on Printing Costs, and Give You a Greener Footprint?

You may have heard of Managed Print Services (MPS). They are a sophisticated way of making sure your business does not pay more than it should for what it prints.

MPS solutions are based around a ‘pence per page’ subscription model and software monitoring the energy consumption of the printers you have on your network.

MPS solutions come in all shapes and sizes, and it is very likely that there will be a Managed Print Services solution that is fit for your business – no matter how big or small you might be.

89% of SMEs in the UK have fewer than nine employees, and they have an average of 1.4 printers on their network. There are MPS solutions that can work to save money and environmental impact even for these small businesses.

Most of the larger printer providers (such as Xerox, Kyocera, Brother, Epson, HP and so on) offer some sort of MPS solution, with some of them (notably Brother and Epson) specifically tailoring solutions for even the smallest SME.

The aim is simple – to give you control and visibility of what your business is printing, to improve your environmental sustainability, and to enhance your document security.

Whilst MPS is not just for big business, bigger companies can certainly get huge benefits from it. When you look at your total print costs (the total cost of managing your printers, their output and the people and processes that support your entire print ‘fleet’) it can make up a very significant chunk of your total office supplies spend – often around 15% of your total expenditure.

If you think that’s an over-estimate, start to work it through as a rough approximation in your mind, and factor in:

·       The physical pages printed by office workers, mobile workers or production print operations;

·       The cost of running the desktop printers, multifunction printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines (yes, some people still have them) and high-volume printers;

·       The materials you are outsourcing for quick print jobs, mailing, distribution etc.;

·       The cost in IT resource (tech support, installations, move and change requests); and, the biggest factor of the lot,

·       Ink and toner consumables.

You can see how the cost soon mounts up.

How does it work?

For any credible MPS solution, a piece of software will be loaded on to your network to assess and audit your current print ‘fleet’ (your print ‘fleet’ is comprised of the printers you have on your network). The software will produce a report showing the current levels of usage and energy consumption from the printers you already have, regardless of what brand they are.

Most solutions will provide you with a suggested roadmap to reduce the number and types of printing devices you have, and optimise your supply of consumables, whilst meeting the needs of your business. This will help you to make informed decisions about whether the printers you currently have are working efficiently for your business.

The subscription model is set up based on a forecast of your likely toner or ink consumption and, instead of buying toner and ink cartridges on an ad hoc basis, fresh cartridges will be ordered automatically for you by the software on your system.

The bottom line:

You never run out of ink or toner, and you never have more than you need.

You reduce your environmental footprint – less paper, less energy consumption, and less waste.

Rather than just paying (often a lot of money) for cartridges whenever you run out, you simply pay for what you have used on a ‘pence per page’ basis which is calculated over the life of a contract – typically three or five years – which can save you as much as 30% on your printing costs.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

To find out more, click here

Shredders and Shredding - a Brief Guide

This video is a quick and easy to follow animation taking you through:

1. Different types of shredders;
2. Some additional things to consider when buying a shredder;
3. Auto Feed;
4. Maintenance;
5. How to Clear a Paper Jam

Managing Your Office Supplies Spend - a Simple Check List

There Are a Lot of Office Necessities, But Are You Wasting Money on Your Office Supplies?

Whether it’s stationery, furniture, office machines, paper, accessories or just the tea and coffee in your office kitchen, it can be hard to keep track of all the supplies you need to keep your office going.

This stuff is as basic to your office as lighting, heating and having air to breathe, so it can be hard to keep an eye what your business is spending.

Why does this matter? It’s only a few pens and pencils, right?

Not necessarily – like a lot of businesses, you could be spending far more than you need to. Precisely because many businesses don’t see office supplies a significant overhead, they don’t regulate their spending particularly closely. Office supplies can easily become a big hidden cost in your business.

If employees want to order in a few extra toner cartridges, so be it. An extra tin of coffee or two for the kitchen? Where’s the harm in that? If the warehouse manager wants to keep a stock of health & safety notices ‘just in case’ they are needed, what’s the problem?

Well, the problem is, it soon mounts up.

What’s the real story?

Tracking and managing office supplies might seem to be a challenge, but only because it’s one of those things that tends to get forgotten about in a lot of businesses. The good news is, it is reasonably easy to get a grip of the expenditure. Like a lot of things in life, it’s a matter of applying common sense.

Just run through the checklist of ten simple questions below:

1.       What items do I need to keep in stock at all times? (What are the basic requirements that I need to have to ‘keep the trains running on time’?)

2.       How much of each item should we keep in stock?

3.       Which department or person is requesting this item, and how much do they need?

4.       What is the purpose for the request? (Think about the example above of the warehouse manager ordering H&S signs ‘just in case’).

5.       What is the urgency?

6.       How reliable is the supplier?

7.       Have we benchmarked the costs?

8.       Can I get this on a next day delivery if it becomes urgent?

9.       Have I received it and, if so, when?

10.   Was it out of stock, do I need to reorder it, is there a reasonable substitute that will do the job, or can I go without?

The bottom line:

Getting started on the questions above might seem difficult. How do you even answer question one?

After all, as we said earlier, ‘Office Supplies’ is a broad church covering almost everything you use on a daily basis in your business. From wastebaskets and filing cabinets, through kitchen and janitorial supplies, to paper, pens and pencils; almost all of the stuff you need to keep your business running comes under the heading of ‘Office Supplies’.

But if you compile a simple office supply checklist (and keep reading, because we have got something FREE that can help get you started), you can track what your business is buying, and start to see trends of how often items are being ordered.

When you have done that, you can start to drill into the information and use it to manage your capital spend and your stockholding more effectively.

·       Are you seeing waste?

·       Could you even have a theft problem?

·       Are you stocking the right amounts? You may have too much of some items and not enough of others.

You can track whether you are receiving all the items you order. You can identify if you are having a problem with your supplier, including seeing how long it takes for an order to arrive. Then you can start to buy smarter – for example, if your supplier can get stock to you quickly and efficiently, do you need to keep as much in stock? You may want to reduce your stock holding on some items, unless there is a cost advantage to ordering in bulk.

Here’s the deal:

To get you started Office Prime Supplies have produced a FREE officesupply checklist in a simple adaptable template. The link takes you to the document which you can download in Excel; a nice, clear, easily adjustable, and printable format. It’s ready populated with 440 commonly-ordered products.

Okay, it’s not rocket science, but it helps to get you going. The Excel document is only an example. It’s intended to be a useful base that you can build upon so adapt it or come up with your own. Just download it and edit it for your business’ specific needs.

Other things to consider:

You may want a manager’s signature for approval and date line at the top or the bottom of the final form if management approval is part of your process (and if it isn’t, maybe it should be?)

Of course, if you open an account with Office Prime Supplies we can help you with this.

Our simple, secure online account ordering structure allows you to set user access privileges for your employees. You can give some people in your organisation the ability to create an order, but not the authority to place that order. Very simply, the order will go to you or to a user you appoint (like a buyer or someone in your finance team) to be authorised before it is submitted to us as your supplier.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

My New Boss Has No Concept of Work-Life Balance

First posted on LinkedIn

Like the headline says, I have a new boss. Frankly he’s a nightmare to work for.  

He has absolutely no concept of work-life balance. I’m expected to work at strange times of the day and night. The hours are not only irregular they are long, and he won’t tolerate anything but my best work.

I would go so far as to say that my new boss is the most challenging person I have ever worked for and trust me, after a long time spent working at senior exec level in some demanding corporate environments that is really saying something.

That’s right, you guessed it.

Ever since the 1st of June this year, I have been working for myself.

I’ve always enjoyed my career. I have always enjoyed work. Some call me a workaholic, which I take as a compliment. I have been privileged to be constantly engaged and challenged in some exceptional roles.

Highlights included Bargain Booze, which I joined in a marketing role in late ’99. I co-led the private-equity-backed MBO of that company in 2005/6, and eventually left in 2012 before the business floated. Later, after doing my Masters and an interim project for Costcutter, in early 2014 I joined the 120+ year old stationery and office supplies chain Ryman.

During the last couple of decades I have worked with some great people and I have covered a wide range of functional disciplines. Marketer, retail operations, sales, call centre director, MD, COO … But the roles I have had can basically be boiled down to being a retailer (running large estates of small stores) and to being a business-to-business supplier (from my days managing hundreds of franchisee relationships within the Bargain Booze business right through to my time directing the development of a direct Office Supplies business for Ryman).

And whether I was dealing with consumers on the high street or business customers, experience has repeatedly reinforced one lesson - customer experience means everything.

"The customer is king/ queen" is a cliché, but it’s true. And there are a bunch of other truisms that -for me personally- come under the umbrella of putting the customer first.  

Here’s my top ten:

1.      The customers’ experiences should reflect you, your business, and your brand.

2.      Build a product or service that you would like to buy. If you believe in it, are passionate about it, and you are proud of it then the chances are you will succeed.

3.      Keep it simple – you know what your customers want and what they need. Give it to them, and charge a fair price. Everyone is happy.

4.      User experience drives advocacy … Deliver a good customer experience and people sing your praises. Advocates are the best marketing tool a business can have.

5.      The ‘hard sell’ approach might get you a sale, but it doesn’t win you a customer.

6.      Treat people (customers and colleagues) the way you would like to be treated.

7.      Always be fair. Respect, courtesy, and keeping your promises all go a long way.

8.      Business is about people. If you don’t like people, you shouldn’t be in business.

9.      Nice guys do not finish last. People buy from people and if you are fundamentally a decent person, that will help you to build long-lasting and mutually-rewarding relationships.

10.  You could be unfair to a customer for short-term gain, once. Maybe twice. But if you do, they will never shop with you again. On the other hand, a partnership based on mutual benefits can last a lifetime.

These aren’t just words, they are the way I like to conduct myself in life and in business. These are my personal values. So, after 18 years of working for other people, I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is, take the plunge, and try my hand at running my own business.

And yes, as I said in the opening paragraphs above I am perhaps a bit demanding to work for right now. But, here’s the secret…

…I am having an absolute ball, and I am proud to say that the business that I am building is one that can absolutely deliver on the kind of customer-focused ethos that I’ve described above.

Having left my previous role on the 31st of May, I was able to ‘soft launch’ my new website on the 30th of June, just four weeks' later. The first part of July has been spent on a bit of tidying up, some bug fixing, and adjusting content, and now the site is ready to start taking orders.

If you would like to know a little more about the business it is called Office Prime Supplies, and you can visit us now at www.officeprimesupplies.co.uk

We cater mainly for small-to medium-sized businesses, home workers, and the public sector, but anyone can take advantage of our fantastic product range – there are over 20,000 products available on the site and if you cannot find what you want, let me know personally, because I can probably find a source of supply and get it for you.

If you would like me to take a look at your office products expenditure to see if, with my low overheads, I can match or beat your current pricing then feel free to contact me at matthew@officeprimesupplies.co.uk

Pitch Perfect – Presentation Skills and Solutions

Click on the image to view it at full size!

If you are in business the chances are that you will have to do a presentation at some stage. They’re hard to avoid. From relatively low-key pitches in front of small groups, through to all-singing and all-dancing keynote speeches in front of hundreds of people, giving presentations is a fact of business life.

You might think that giving a good presentation relies on the aids you use – whether it’s software solutions like PowerPoint or Keynote, or it’s a presentation binder, or it’s physical props and samples.

And yes, those things used wisely can enhance a presentation… but they don’t make it.

The heart of any good presentation is the presenter. That means it’s about what you say and how you say it. The very thought of this may get your heart racing with adrenaline, but don’t panic. It’s a lot easier than you think.

There’s a quick and easy step-by-step guide to presenting outlined below.

But first a story

In my first ‘proper’ job I found myself having to give over 40 presentations a year. I did that every year for 12 years and it’s fair to say that I got pretty used to talking to big groups of people (the audience sizes typically varied between 50 and around 300, but I also had to do a bunch of intense and complex pitches to smaller groups of financiers and executive boards). By the end of those 12 years I had chalked up around 500 presentations. Since then I have had another five years of practice, presenting to groups of all shapes and sizes made up of colleagues, customers, suppliers… the variety is endless!

That’s a lot of practice and I like to think that somewhere along the way I got quite good at it. I certainly got a lot more confident.

But it wasn’t always the case.

I can still remember the first time I had to speak in front of people. I had written out what I wanted to say in a script, and I had it on a lectern in front of me. It was all of, I don’t know, maybe 500 words? Barely enough to keep me on stage for five minutes.

I remember it felt like the longest five minutes of my life was stretching out in front of me.

So, I had my head down, not daring to make eye contact with anyone in the audience. My knuckles were gripping that lectern like it was the grab-bar on a roller coaster ride. I read that script out, completely verbatim, at something approaching Warp Factor Nine and then screeched to an ungainly halt at the end, panting and out of breath. The allotted five minutes was probably four minutes more than I needed, I spoke so damn quickly.

In other words, it was a total train wreck. I can honestly say that the worst presentation I have ever attended was one that I gave; that first one.

So, take heart. If I can do it anyone can!

Use Common Sense

There are a few things that I have picked up over the last 17 years of standing up and giving presentations to people. None of it is rocket science. In fact, all of it is common sense.

The very best piece of advice I was ever given is simple - stick to what you know. Don’t make stuff up or extemporise too much. If you don’t know something, admit it. Nothing undermines you more than getting caught out.

The other thing that people always say to you when you’re starting out with your first presentations is ‘be yourself’.

This is kind of a glib thing to say and so, if you’re anything like me, you will find it a bit irritating. But if you take it to mean that you should be the best version of yourself, and try to project a positive and outgoing version of your day-to-day personality then it isn’t a bad piece of advice.

One of the more important elements of ‘being yourself’ is never, ever, try to show off how smart you are by using lots of long words that you don’t really understand. Only try to be as smart as you actually are and never try to be something you’re not.

Here’s a little example of how not to do it

I remember inwardly cringing once upon a time as I witnessed a relatively senior executive, someone in my team, presenting to the board. He used the word ‘incumbent’ three times in his presentation, but each time he used it to refer to an incoming (new) employee, not an existing employee. I can only imagine that he thought that because ‘incumbent’ sounds a little bit like ‘incoming’, that perhaps that is what it means.

Needless to say, it doesn’t. He made himself look like a bit of an idiot.

So, here’s a Quick Step-by-Step Guide to Presenting

·       Prepare – honestly, it seems obvious but this one cannot be stressed enough. Preparation time is essential; even if you are a seasoned veteran and wholly at home getting up and talking in front of other people, having a clear idea of what you want to say and how you want to say it is essential.

·       Rehearse – this may be a luxury that you don’t get to indulge in with every single presentation but it can be helpful, in particular if you are going to be presenting somewhere unfamiliar and to a larger audience. It is a great idea to get into the space in which you are going to be presenting. Have a quick run through what you are going to say. Even if you don’t have the opportunity to do a full rehearsal, getting yourself comfortable with the environment can pay dividends later in your confidence levels.

·       Excitement – for most of us, getting up in front of other people gets the blood pumping… it’s nervous energy and stage fright can be a real problem. An old trick from Neuro Linguistic Programming is to tell yourself that it’s excitement, not fear, that has caused all that adrenaline to be coursing through your veins!

·       Socialise – it’s a good idea to mingle with a few members of the audience beforehand. Having a chat with people before you get up and talk to them makes you seem more likeable and relatable when you are up on stage, and if you make sure that you ask them a few questions and listen to the answers you are given you might even get a couple of golden nuggets that you can weave into the presentation, making your talk seem more personal and more spontaneous.

·       Entertain and engage – there is nothing worse than a dull presentation. If you want your audience to be engaged with what you are saying, try to be a entertaining. You don’t have to be a stand-up comedian, but a couple of jokes or slightly humorous asides really won’t hurt. Keep your content concise and well-structured so the presentation flows well and doesn’t get tedious. Make sure you invite feedback to keep your audience actively involved – don’t just talk at them – your content will land a lot more effectively if your audience feels like it is participating. This doesn’t have to be anything complicated - just asking for a show of hands on something or inviting a couple of questions from the floor is all it takes.

·       Natural speaking - not too quick! The biggest mistake most rooky presenters make is gabbling; talking so quickly that they become unintelligible. The worst thing about this mistake is it is so easy to spiral out of control – just like my first time on stage I have seen other presenters so overcome with nerves that their mouths start going like a runaway train, building up increasing speed as the nerves ramp up higher and higher until the dry mouth kicks in, and the inevitable train crash happens. The best thing about this mistake, though, is it is so easy to deal with. Just stop talking. Shut up. A two second pause on stage may feel like a lifetime to you but to the audience it feels like… well, a two second pause. And those two seconds allow the audience a chance to consider what you have just said, whilst you sip some water and remind them (and yourself) that you are in total control of the situation and of what you are talking about.

·       Take questions – when you get to the end of what you wanted to talk about give your audience the chance to ask a few questions. George Bernard Shaw once famously said that the single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. If you don’t invite feedback at the end of the presentation you are missing your best, perhaps only, opportunity to nail down any misunderstandings or confusion.

And Now You Are Ready…

…to start thinking about the peripheral stuff. That means you can now think about PowerPoint slides, the props and any other paraphernalia that you might want to use to augment what you are saying.

Remember, make the presentation about what you are saying and how you are saying it; don’t use the peripheral stuff as a crutch to lean on.

Good luck!

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to click on the link below to share it.

Take Note!

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Writing Your Own Success – How the Art of Taking Notes Can Improve Understanding, Retention and Recall of Key Information

Whether you are in a business meeting, a student lecture theatre, or you are in a school classroom the ability to take in, understand, and recall information is a key skill. Consensus amongst educators is that taking notes improves the recollection and retention of facts and concepts by somewhere between 20% and 30%.

Here’s the deal:

You want to be more effective as a member of a team, an employee, a student or even as a boss or a teacher? The answer is simple – take notes!

Taking notes adds an active participatory element – you are not just sitting there passively listening.

When you take notes you ‘have’ to listen properly and process what is being said so you can write down the salient parts. This makes for more effective cognitive processing – in short, you are making your brain take an active part in the meeting or the lecture by adding a manual element to the listening process. You can’t accidently ‘tune out’ or let your attention wander.

This is called ‘generative’ note taking where you are having to process and summarise information as you listen. As you read this, you might be thinking that it sounds kind of similar to kinaesthetic learning (which is skills based learning – having a preference for ‘learning by doing’) and, depending on your preferred style of note taking (mind mapping or whatever) it can be heavily related to it, but it’s not quite the same thing.

That’s not all:

From classroom to boardroom it sometimes feels like handwriting might be in danger of becoming a lost art; the proliferation of laptops, tablets and smartphones means that it’s far more usual to see someone tapping away on a keyboard than it is to see them scribbling furiously with pen and paper.

But there’s a catch

Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University and UCLA Los Angeles discovered that students who write out their notes by hand actually learn more than those to type their notes on laptops.

That’s right – handwriting produced better results than typing!

Over the course of several experiments, Mueller and Oppenheimer tested students’ memories for factual detail, conceptual comprehension, and ability to synthesise new conclusions after half of them took notes ‘the old-fashioned way’ and the other half took notes digitally.

Whilst it’s true that the students who used laptops churned out more content (more words) than the handwriters, this seemed to be a case of quantity over quality; the students who used pen and paper wrote less, but they ended up with a stronger conceptual understanding across the board.

Mueller and Oppenheimer concluded that, because generally speaking people type faster than they can write, the tendency on a laptop was to take notes ‘verbatim’. This is non-generative note taking, which means it is missing the active element of cognitive processing (where you summarise the information as you are listening to it so you only have to write down the salient points).

Not only that, but also how many times have you sat round a meeting table and seen the backs of a bunch of laptop screens? How many times, as a lecturer or teacher, do you find yourself greeted by a similar sight? And then there is the sound of dozens of keyboards being tapped simultaneously.

Using digital media to take notes might be the current trend, but it can be potentially disruptive and off-putting. 

So old-fashioned pen and paper are always best?

Not for everything, no. We should not suddenly throw out our laptops and start investing in parchment and quill.

Typing notes on a screen does have some benefits. For example, electronic documents can lend themselves to better organisation which is useful when it comes time to revisit electronic notes later. On a laptop, notetakers can delete, reorder, and build on ideas with a simple click or keystroke.

What is really clear is the importance of note-taking overall. A couple of decades ago, cognitive psychologist Robert Bjork called this phenomenon ‘desirable difficulty’ which referred to the concept that information retention is increased if there is a reasonable level of active participation or ‘difficulty’ on behalf of the recipient.

So, with that in mind, it’s also important to think about the best way to structure your notes, not simply whether you’re typing or writing.

But I just write it down, right?

Well, you can be a bit more systematic than that. There are basically two styles of note-taking - linear and non-linear.

Linear note-taking is writing in a format similar to a normal written text. Non-linear styles use graphical elements and might organise content in an unconventional fashion, although still systematic. Non-linear notes might be difficult for others to understand but work very well for the individual. Piolat et al. (2005) argue that non-linear styles of note-taking are more effective than linear styles because non-linear styles facilitate the process of making connections between idea units, which enhances learning through deeper processing and strengthens long-term retention of content. 

The Cornell Method

Here are four examples of structured methods of taking notes:

·       The Cornell Method – create a margin of around 60mm-70mm on the left-hand side of the page. Take notes in the wider part of the page (the right-hand side) and then afterwards go through and put a ‘cue’ (a keyword) in the left-hand margin for each significant piece of information. The ‘cue’ keyword helps to act as a trigger for your memory.

The Outlining Method

·       The Outlining Method – start with general information justified to the left-hand side of the page. Each more specific fact is indented below it, like a bullet-pointed list. Relationships between different pieces of information are maintained through indenting.

The Mapping Method

·       The Mapping Method – this is based around relating all the facts and ideas to one another in a graphic representation of the information. It maximises your active participation, because you are actively synthesising the information into a new format as you listen to it.

·       The Charting Method – this works well if you are handling distinct logical data sets (like dates and times). It is effectively just drawing a table and filling in the information in a tabular format.

The Charting Method

Summing up…

Michael C. Friedman of the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching wrote a paper entitled ‘Notes on Note-Taking: Review of Research and Insights for Students and Instructors’. In it he gives a handy synopsis of tips for when you’re taking notes. Basically, he suggests:

1.       Avoid transcribing notes (writing every word). Write condensed notes in your own words.

2.       Think about what style of note-taking works for you, and for the information you are taking notes on (linear vs. non-linear).

3.       Review your notes on the same day you created them.

4.       Test yourself on the content of your notes. Testing yourself informs you what you do not yet know from your notes.

5.       Carefully consider whether to take notes on pen and paper or with a laptop.

6.       Avoid the misperception that you know content better than you do.

Thanks for reading, and if you think that this information will be of use to someone else you know, please don’t hesitate to click on the link below to share it. Check out our range of note pads, books and journals for all of your note-taking needs!