Personal Warmth
Personal Warmth is the act of allowing the person behind the title to shine through. The effect of showing personal warmth is increased intimacy and trust. But how do you do that? What is the praxis of personal warmth?
Here are five ways of showing personal warmth:
Scenarios — a five second moment describing a situation with a person, a time and a place, in which your point is concretely put in play. Showing how your point plays out in reality.
Lines of Dialogue
Imaginary Props
Physical Prop (only use one)
Director's Commentary
Preparatory Task A: Scenarios
Preparatory Task C: Using a Physical Prop
When presenting on-screen, showing a physical object (a prop) is a wonderful contrast to the “talking heads” or PowerPoint slides that so many video conferences rely on.
Maybe you are talking about celebrating? Wave around some serpentines or balloons. Talking about a new plan? Show some dice and say that you have thought this through and didn’t just roll the dice. If you’re referring to a report – show the report in physical form as paper. If you’re using a metaphor like “it’s like driving a Ferrari with no engine” you could show a model car.
Your task: Find a prop to illustrate a point for your next meeting.
Preparatory Task B: Lines of Dialogue
When presenting on-screen you lack the immediate facial feedback from the others around the virtual table. So there’s a very real risk of becoming monotonous, getting stuck in the mindset of just presenting to the camera.
Using direct speech changes the dynamics – and points to you as someone who remembers other’s words and can “act them out”.
Instead of saying “everyone responded positively” you could say “Our primary feedback was: That’s a fantastic idea!”.
Your task: Recall a conversation/some feedback/a comment made that is relevant to your point. What was said? How did you respond? Quote the exchange verbatim. Write down the exchanges (you said/they said) from the situation and “act them out” in your presentation.
