Numerous books have been written about the importance of being present and how to be present. These kinds of books can go into how the body is always in the moment but the mind, on the other hand, is always trying to be somewhere else.

When someone is in the present moment, there is nothing for their mind to do, and this is why it will try to bring their attention to the past or to focus on the future. What took place in their past will have been and gone and the future is yet to be decided.

Point of Power

Clearly, focusing on what happened in the past won’t change the past and obsessing endlessly about what the future will bring won’t solve anything either. Their ability to make changes and to live the life they want to live will depend on what they do in each moment of their life.

The present moment is where their point of power lies, and they will be able to tap into this power by being in their body, not their mind. Their body is connected to life, whereas their mind simply has ideas about life.
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Showing Up

Another part of being in their body and not caught up in their mind, is that they will be able to fully show up around others. Other people will be able to see, or feel, that they are actually there.

This is going to allow them to have deeper relationships with others, to really connect to their fellow human beings. What this comes down to is that it is not enough just to be next to someone, one needs too be fully in their body.

A Real Human Being

If it was enough for one to be next to another person and they didn’t need to be fully in their body (in the moment), it would be possible for them to create a statue of themselves and for this statue to spend time with their friends and family, for instance. But, as these people will want to be in their presence, this is not going to be an option.

To understand how important this is, one only needs to think about what it is like when they are with someone who is not present. The other person could be on their phone, for instance, and this is likely to be anything but fulfilling.

Overlooked

If one was to think about what it is like to be in the company of someone who is not present, they may start to think about how this must be what it is like to eat food that has no nutritional value. In the same way that eating it will be waste of time, it will also be waste of time to be around someone who is not in their body.

Being next to someone like this is more likely to take their energy away than it is to give them energy. They can end up feeling as though this person doesn’t value or appreciate them.

A Challenge

Therefore, if someone was to see that they have trouble being in the moment in their day-to-day life and when they are around others, it will be a good idea for them to do something about this. What they could do is to develop the ability to observe their mind, as this will stop them from getting too attached to what is going on within them and to embrace the present moment.

This is something that can take place by practicing mindfulness, for instance. At the same time, one may find that while this helps them to embrace the present moment when they are in their own company, it doesn’t have much of an effect when they are around others.

A Defence

What might occur to them is that leaving the present moment around others is what feels comfortable. The reason for this is that they may believe that completely showing up will cause them to be rejected and even abandoned.

Deep down, they can believe that there is something inherently wrong with them and, if they were to fully show up, this would give people the chance to realise how flawed they are. One is then going to be hiding in plain sight.

A Key Area

Along with what they believe about themselves, there is likely to be the shame that they are also carrying. This can be held deep in their face, primarily their eyes and cheeks, and just above their stomach.

So, with this trauma inside them, it is not going to be much of a surprise that they find it hard to stay in their body around others and to connect with them. They may also find that they find it harder to be present around men/women.

Back In Time

What this can illustrate is that there was a time in their life when they experienced some kind of abuse. This would have overwhelmed their system, making it more or less impossible for them to feel safe in their body.

There is a strong chance that their early years were a time when they experienced abuse, and this may have been physical, verbal and/or sexual. The years will then have passed but what took place will still be affecting them.

Awareness

The truth is that there is nothing inherently wrong with them but, until they start to work through the layers of trauma that are within them, they probably won’t be able to truly realise this – it will just be another piece of information. This is why the assistance of a therapist or a healer is so important, as someone like this will assist one in getting rid of what is stopping them from being able to embrace their inherent worth.

Presentation materials are not only expensive to create but often embody the essence of a company’s strategic, tactical and future development plans. Electronic presentations have therefore assumed a vital importance as the primary communications tool for many companies.

Despite all this, presentations are typically created by a single person using Microsoft PowerPoint their own PC, with the result that materials are seldom shared; indeed they might be jealously guarded. At best, presentations may be copied to a shared network drive of some kind but will remain hard to find in the absence of powerful content search facilities. There are also other challenges to overcome, such as:

• Not knowing of a presentation’s existence means that the same material must be needlessly and expensively re-created time and again.
• In the absence of an easily searched central repository of approved, signed-off material, presenters can be tempted to make up their own content, perhaps resulting in needless compliance risks and/or legal exposure
• Presentations are typically exchanged between staff using Email or a shared drive. However, colleagues may not be available to send urgently needed materials, particularly in a global setting when 1/3 of staff might be asleep. This results in the non-availability of key assets, as well as imposing an extra load on Email systems
• With many different versions of ‘standard’ presentations doing the rounds it is hard to know which is the most up-to-date. Nor is there an easy way to review previous versions if necessary.
• When new presentations are finally approved it is difficult (often impossible) to recall out-of-date or incorrect copies of slides or to update them.
• Workers in other departments, divisions or countries cannot tell what presentations may be available and how relevant they might be.
• Company-wide branding is hard to enforce in the absence of an easy way of distributing presentation materials quickly and securely to authorized users.
• There is no way of seeing who has used which materials or when. Lack of audit trails can be a severe handicap in the event that legal compliance is called into question.
• It is impossible to determine the origin of any individual slide once it has been copied or moved from its original presentation.
• Selected materials cannot be shared securely with outside users or suppliers.
• It is difficult to quickly pull together tailored presentations for a specific audience.
• Expert and novice users alike have no option other than to be proficient with PowerPoint.

This is very costly

Make no mistake; living with this kind of inefficiency is very expensive. When the biggest outlay for most organizations is the salary bill, having highly-paid executives spend their time messing around with PowerPoint is just not smart.

Presentation Management therefore quickly leads to more effective collaboration between staff, with more efficient use being made of expensive presentation assets.

What’s the alternative?

If a solution can be found to address each of the above, it follows that large savings are possible, especially for organizations employing many presenters.

These are some of the challenges Digital Image set out to solve by creating a Presentation Management service to act as a secure central repository for an organization’s PowerPoint slides.

What’s in it for me?

Typical Presentation Management benefits are:

• Re-purpose expensive presentation materials saving time & money
• Web-based libraries of key PowerPoint presentations & slides
• Secure distribution of business critical presentations worldwide, 24/7
• Create new presentations ‘on the fly’ from existing slides
• Users save time by easily managing and sharing presentations
• Maximize revenue – react quickly to sales opportunities
• Stay on-message; Automatically slide updates when an original changes
• Share approved, signed-off information with remote users
• Save confusion – manage different drafts using ‘Visual Versioning’
• Save time with a powerful slide search and retrieval engine for individual slides
• Help Compliance- help enforce & monitor the use of legally approved and up-to-date materials
• Brand integrity- help impose current branding & template use
• Management controls record and report on usage of sensitive or valuable assets
• Reduced loading on Email systems by posting links, not large files
• Forensic reconstruction of historic materials delivered at any past time and date
• Zero client installation
• Minimal training because of an easy, intuitive interface.

Need to know more?

A solution does now exist for users and managers to share presentations with colleagues, perhaps worldwide, whilst keeping a record of who downloaded which material and when.

The main purpose of a microphone (mike) is straightforward – to amplify your voice. But that’s not the only reason for using one. An important reason is to prevent vocal strain. It’s surprising how often people shout into a microphone, when turning up the volume would have a more pleasing effect.

Effective use of a microphone requires some basic knowledge, awareness and experience. Unfortunately, too often these factors are not simultaneously in play when a microphone is in use. I’ve heard speakers, unfamiliar with the use of a mike use it incorrectly thereby detracting from their delivery or simply become flustered with the technology. Microphones are not complicated, but unfamiliarity with their operation can create problems for a presenter and embarrassment for, or harassment of the audience!

Firstly, when do you need one? There are 3 main determining factors – the size of the audience, the size of the room and the strength of your voice. Other factors include the length of your presentation, the room’s acoustics and background noise like air-conditioning. Logically, for an audience of 40 or less people in a small room a microphone may be unnecessary. If this is the case there is no point in using one. The bigger the room, the larger the audience and the longer the presentation the more need there will be for a microphone.

However, not all mike’s are created equal. Although there are some good deals around, price is a reasonable benchmark of quality. The same can be said for amplifiers or public address systems. No matter how good your voice is, it is unlikely to sound like much on a poor sound system. You should also consider the different microphone configurations – hand held (wired and cordless), on a mike stand (limiting your movement) or a headset. For example, a pickup is used to amplify a string instrument from a location very close to the strings. Comedians prefer hand held mike’s because they accommodate vocal variations which are part of a comedy act. Singer-guitarists may prefer a mike on a stand (or a headset) so that they can play the guitar and sing simultaneously. Speakers who use body language and gestures as part of their act like the headset, as it allows freedom of movement and consistently remains the same distance from the mouth. The same would apply to a singer pianist.

But the microphone provided at your event may not suit your presentation style. This possibility begs the question: Should you invest in your own?

I’ve been surprised to find that, in contrast to professional singers, most professional speakers I’ve met do not own a microphone. When one is needed, I almost always have mine with me because then at least I know that the front part of the system is top quality and I know exactly how it works. I use a Countryman headset with a Shure receiver and transmitter. It’s never, ever let me down. You may also invest in a battery tester. Only ever go on stage with fully charged batteries. There are few things more annoying for everyone than a sharp drop in volume due to instant power loss.

Experienced presenters and musicians will never use a microphone without a sound check. This confirms the overall sound, the desired volume settings and the compatibility of the microphone with the amplifier. This requires turning up early. If a receiver is part of the microphone kit, you will want to decide where to wear it so that it remains secure and does not create an embarrassing bulge on your person.

When coughing or clearing your throat, be careful not to do so directly into the mike or you’ll blast your audience clean out of their chairs. Practice speaking in a normal voice during the sound check. It’s not necessary to over project or shout – the mike is there to create amplification for you.

If you perform or speak to audiences regularly, microphones are an essential item in your kit, not optional. Get your own quality mike and learn to use it properly. You’ll look and sound more professional, and you’ll save your voice for the next day. Besides, the peace of mind you’ll have from using your own gear is priceless.