Art-of-asking.com

Questions are really extraordinarily simple verbal devices. They are usually at their best when short and to the point.

Questions always, but always demand an answer.

Questions release energy from the questioner and provoke further energy from the respondent. They give direction to

the exchanges that follow. Discussions

How can you use questions to maximum effect when using INTERACTIVE PRESENTER?

News Briefing

Making Waves

Interactive Presenter® is very easy to use, and most people don't need any training at all.

Software Compatible

Interactive Presenter supports a huge range of software and ready made materials on your PC or available in a network.

Interactive -

a revolutionary piece of software

Interactive Presenter is a revolutionary piece of software. In addition to creating presentations, you can formulate audience questions that are incorporated into the presentation.

by Mark Odom

Art-of-Asking.com

www.art-of-asking.com

Cowork

15 years swedish-finnish cowork

FLIPPING BOOK

POWERPOINT PRESENTATION

What effect do questions have on your audience?

No more long monologues - make the audience participate. Stimulate and challenge.

without questions are usually flat and boring. Discussions with questions tend to be much more interesting and exciting and head in a direction that provides answers to the questions asked.

It's vital that we consider how we can make better use of questions. "When and where is it best to ask questions?"

"What is it we really want to know?"

"Who are the best

people to ask?"

"Why might we get different answers?" "How do we pose the questions that elicit the best answers?"

Questions are the very lifeblood of creative thinking. They spark motivation. When questions cease, attention and activity slows down. When a single question is asked, it draws attention to its subject and brings a new vitality to any action that's

concerned.

Questions provoke fresh thoughts and are the key to sharing ideas with others. Questions are words at their most powerful.

Use questions effectively and they give you that power.

by Paul Brown

The most obvious effect is that members of your audience will be more alert and will listen more closely if they know they might be asked a question at any moment. In some cases you might have to deal with one or two strong personalities in your audience who want to dominate the responses or you could wind up with people jumping up and waving their hands like children in kindergarten.

With Interactive Presenter you won't have to deal with either of these situations. Important questions can be answered without taking up too much time and without the risk of anyone feeling silly.

Conventionally, presentations have been question-free zones. Maybe that's because of the limitations of the technology that's been available up to now? It turns the average presentation into a monologue. Anyway that's how things have been. The future of presentations is interactive.

Without giving the members of the audience a way to frequently become involved in a presentation, it's unlikely that much of what has been said will be remembered for very long. It's possible that much of what has been said may not even have been heard because the speaker has lost the attention of the individuals he is addressing.

Monologues are fine in short bursts. With the right words, a subject that has appeal and a charismatic speaker, they can even be inspiring. But just how long can an audience soak up a monologue? Twenty, thirty, forty minutes? An hour? We don't have brains like virtual blotting paper. The levels of absorption may differ from one person to another but once we are close to our limits, little more will sink in.

A series of successive statements doesn't say to us:

"What do you think about that?" "How does that work?" "What is the answer to this problem?" " Why do you think

this happened?" "Where is the right place to do that?" "When have you felt like this before?" These are words that stimulate us. These are questions, NOT statements. Questions engage our brains. Questions make a link between what is already in our minds and what the presenter is talking about. Questions challenge us and get us to come up with the answers. If we give the wrong answer, who cares? We are likely to have learnt the right answer for the future because we've been involved in giving a wrong answer in the past. There is no shame to that. It's just a way of generating learning energy.

by Russell Smith