If you’re a dog person (and who isn’t, except cat people), you might this story helpful—educators are using canines to help students become better presenters.

Here’s a familiar scenario for many of you: someone important is asking you a question. It’s a tough question, but one in your wheelhouse. Like most people, you need a split-second to quickly organize your response. The question is, how do you, as a presenter, handle that moment in a professional and engaging way?

While taking a quick spin around the internet, we found this interesting approach to presenting, just in time for the holidays: When planning your content, think about what gifts you will be giving to your audience. We’re not talking about giving everyone in the room an Oprah-like gift hidden beneath their chairs, nor a financial gift, nor even a Tootsie Pop. But a recent post by Scott Mautz at Business Insider identifies the types of audience-centric gifts that a good public speaker can deliver, based on an idea from Briar Goldberg, the director of speaker coaching for TED. Mautz, a speaker on workplace motivation and engagement, shared six specific gifts that can be wrapped within a presentation:

We’re not going to tell you much about this piece except to recommend it highly. Aaron Beverly, a thirty-year-old project manager, managed to demonstrate how a speaker can be dynamic, funny, entertaining, poignant, and inspiring, all within seven minutes. So take a quick break and read all about why he’s making news.

When a relatively young community activist won a primary election against a long-serving congressman in New York City in 2016, the national news media took notice. Ever since then, the legislator known as AOC has been making headlines, partly for her confrontational style, and partly for her ability to excite crowds. But apparently she shared on Instagram recently that she gets anxious before she speaks. How does such a high-energy politician deal with that fear and anxiety?

Many elementary school students are called upon to imagine their future occupation. Some want to be doctors, others firefighters, and some even hope to become professional athletes. The subject of this piece, Jason Benetti, shared that he wanted to become announcer of the Chicago White Sox. And here he is, not only leading the coverage on White Sox telecasts, but as a spokesperson for a national cause and subject of a national TV news story. He’s a great presenter, too.

Assembling a brilliant group of experts to sit together on a stage and discuss an important topic—a live panel discussion event—can be a great idea. If you do it right, you’ll end up with engaged listeners who learn a lot. But you—event planner, moderator, and panel member alike— need to plan ahead to keep it running smoothly and avoid becoming just another boring session.

Many companies and organizations hold events like this one: a sizable group of sales staff or employees gather in a hotel for a few days for a series of meetings to discuss corporate vision or a new direction, to celebrate a job well done, and to keep a team motivated. We recently helped a company’s leadership team prepare for their presentations at an important all-employee conference. We share a few general recommendations on how you can help prepare your team for your next-such event.

Sometimes we hear presenters—both within our workshops and in the real world—who try to lower our expectations before they even get started. They open by saying things like “I’m not really very good at this” or “I’m not exactly the world’s greatest expert on this topic” or even “I’m sorry I didn’t really get time to proof my slides.” These all fall into the category of “Bad Ways to Start a Presentation.” But there are other bad openings as well…

President Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” It’s likely that he was referring to overly chatty political types who talked too much and accomplished too little. But we want to emphasize the “speak softly” part of that quote, with the suggestion that you can really call your listeners’ attention to a specific idea or phrase by lowering the volume of your voice down to a whisper.