Last Friday, I went to a local ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) meeting. The speaker, Kordell Norton, told us that a great way to begin presentations is with a story. Kordell gave us lots of pointers including:
- The first 30 seconds sets the tone for the presentation.
- Find your stories in every day life.
- Just begin the story – no introductions to it, no telling them it is a story.
- Take each segment of the story and add humor to it.
- While telling your story, add pauses and vary the pitch.
Kordell told the story well and set a very positive tone to the training. So, I decided to try a story this morning for a program. Before the program, I was introducing our new “Text a Librarian” service. Therefore, I picked a story about getting a text from my niece and how I used the wrong text acronym. I actually got laughs!
Do you use stories in your training? How do you use them?
Learning With Angie 