My hope is that design thinking becomes an innovative discipline and not just the trend of the decade. As a nation and globally, we have some of the biggest problems to solve we have ever faced. We need innovative ways to solve our problems and communicating the solutions will be paramount. Original thinking, complex problem solving, and collaboration are all important skills for our future.

Practice design, Not Decoration: Don't just make pretty talking points. Instead, display information in a way that makes complex information clear.

The audience does not need to tune themselves to you - you need to tune your message to fit them. Skilled presenting requires you to understand their hearts and minds and create a message to resonate with what's already there. Your audience will be significantly moved if you send a message that is tuned to their needs and desires. They might even quiver with enthusiasm and act in concert to create beautiful results.

Presentations are the most amazing persuasion tool available in organizations today

The greatest communicators have unknowingly used a story pattern. They not only use anecdotes effectively, but their communication followed a persuasive story pattern of tension and release. That tension and release is created by contrasting [what is] with what could be as a structural device.

When someone says "that resonates with me" what they are saying is "I agree with you" or "I align with you." Once your ideas resonate with an audience, they will change. But, the only way to have true resonance is to understand the ones with whom you are trying to resonate. You need to spend time thinking about your audience. What unites them, what incites them? Think about your audience and what's on their mind before you begin building your presentation. It will help you identify beliefs and behavior in your audience that you can connect with. Resonate with.

The only way to resonate at a level that persuades is to know who you are addressing. If it's true that the Audience is the hero, you need to spend time thinking about them. Really getting to know them to the point it feels like they are a friend. May times we picture our audience as a large clump of strangers. Instead, you need to picture them as individuals standing in line to have a personal conversation with you. It's easy to persuade a friend, you need to think about your audience until you know them as a friend.