There’s a lot of bad science in the training world. Maybe not so much bad as just really old. As I’ve been preparing a new talk for my pharma clients entitled, “The New Science of Medical Presentation,” it’s been clear to me that we need to revise our approach to communication training. And while the fundamental principles remain the same, there have been advancements in presentation technology and our understanding of how the brain works. Following are some ideas for bringing your presentation behavior up to our 21st century understanding.

Attention span is a favorite topic of conversation among training professionals. The problem is that it’s a hard quantity to measure because the question is always “of whom” and “on what.” But it doesn’t take a desktop full of studies to convince anyone that attention spans have shortened over the years. Lloyds TBS Insurance has concluded in a recent study that attention spans in general have decreased from twelve minutes to five within the last decade. That’s a fantastic drop and one that we should take note of while preparing presentations. How? Think short, quick chapters when preparing your outline. Have a 45-minute presentation? Think three fifteen minute chapters. Change your subject with each chapter, using a mini-Q&A session as a segue. Your audience will stay focused and you’ll keep yourself from lecturing.

Fifteen years ago it was thought that sussing out your audience member’s learning style was important if you wanted your message to sink in. You know these styles as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The problem is that any audience is a mix of all three. (The truth is that any individual is also.) Designing your presentation so that it favors one style is foolishness. In fact a blended style will get you more hits than focusing solely on one. I might need to learn a procedure that requires hand-eye coordination (e.g., surgery) by watching it being performed in a video, but to learn to diagnose arrhythmia, I’m going to need to hear it. One thing you can be sure of in this visually driven world is, throwing a few more pictures in to illustrate your ideas certainly can’t hurt. But don’t fall for the trap of thinking that everything needs to be visual. Mix up your presentation modalities—your brain certainly does.

For those of us that present scientific or numerical data, PowerPoint has been the tool of choice for decades. Thankfully you have a few options that can help you pump some life into your graphs and thereby keep your audience engaged. The best of the bunch is Gapminder. This is the brainchild of medical doctor and statistician Hans Rosling. Gapminder is statistical graphics on steroids. And although it can only be used to present the limited data set that is built into the software, this is the direction all graphical presentation tools are headed. I present it here as a look into the future. But for now what is available is Prezi. Prezi is a blend of PowerPoint and mind mapping. It takes your entire presentation and creates a giant mind map that you can zoom into and out of at will. No longer bound by the linear structure of PowerPoint, you can tell your story in whichever way you want, tailoring your delivery to your audience. Prezi is also good at depicting the connection between ideas. The best feature of the software is that it presents content in a more organic fashion, a lot closer to the way our brain works.

Finally, let’s update the Q&A session, the only time most presenters get interactive with their audience. Recent studies show that getting your receivers involved in your message through interactive techniques aids message retention. Last century, that meant the employment of simple audience response systems (ARS). You know, those little keypads that allow you to answer a speaker’s multiple-choice questions. The result would usually be a graphic representation on the screen of the responses in the room. These are fine systems for building some interactivity with your audience, but there are a few drawbacks. First, you have to have a fairly large audience to make it affordable. Because additional hardware and software are needed, costs are incurred. Second, most ARS systems only handle basic multiple-choice questions. They can’t take a textual response. Because of these limitations ARS systems are usually only seen in large symposia or conference settings.

PollEverywhere is a great choice if you have a small group and a similarly sized budget. No additional software or hardware is needed. Working from a web-based platform, the system simply uses the audience’s already available technology: text messaging through their phone. Set-up is simple before the presentation. Audience members are instructed to send their texts to a predetermined number, and the results show up on your presentation screen. It is quite simply the easiest and most convenient ARS system ever devised. Thought of a question you’d like to poll your audience with, but the idea struck you while on the plane to the venue? No problem; with PollEverywhere you can slip that question into your PowerPoint slide deck in just a few minutes and increase your interactivity just like the pros.

Another system that is also web based and allows you to use the audience’s smartphones or iPads is VisionTree. This is polling at its most graphical. There are costs involved and you will have to set up all the details way in advance, but the result is a system that can not only present information while polling, but also allow your audience members to forward their own questions (excellent for anonymous Q&A). The VisionTree system also has a “paperless meeting” feature built in, which allows you to digitize everything you would normally have in print (e.g., agendas, bios, etc.). Need to make a last minute change to your conference schedule? VisionTree will send a memo to all in attendance, instantly.

Do you see how with this wealth of knowledge of how our brains work as well as a significant increase in the kinds of digital tools we have available to us, we can all push our presentations into the 21st century? We stand to gain better message retention, a more efficient presentation, and increased interactivity with our audiences.

Building advocates for our brands can be a bit tricky these days. But by applying some 21st century-thinking and technology we can produce events that leave the old ways behind and forge a new road into the future. Following are five ways you can get your initiatives up to speed in this new year.

First, whatever you produce, it needs to be memorable. Today’s HCPs are looking for what Seth Godin calls the remarkable. “Create remarkable products that the right people seek out,” he tells us in Purple Cow. You can’t produce meetings that just put KOLs and HCPs together in a room and hope for the best. You need to create an experience they will remember. The meeting needs to be designed with the total experience in mind. Ask yourself, what will they remember when they get on the plane going home? Designing for the complete experience is a must if you want to build strong advocates.

Second, the only way you’re going to get your potential advocates to consider taking part in your initiative is if there’s something in it for them. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that your data and KOLs are the best and should draw a crowd. Remember the last time you tried that formula? How did recruiting go? Not so well, eh? Sure, a segment of the population will always come to hear Dr. Vinnyboombotz, but you could be reaping greater ROI if you think beyond that single value and add a few more to it. One of the features in meetings that I’ve noticed HCPs always comment on is the value that they get from exchanging ideas with their peers. Think about this next time you design a meeting. Have some workshops included that exploit this feature. Letting your HCPs hob-knob with their fellow wizards is an agenda item that rarely gets explored. There’s high value there waiting to be delivered.

Third, shift your spend from physical modalities to digital ones. Everybody wants to do virtual meetings these days. The problem is that many of them are worse than the physical meetings they replaced. Maybe the bottom line looks better, but where’s the ROI? The vast majority of virtual meetings are 90s’ versions of teleconference calls with a PowerPoint overlay. You know what I’m talking about: time wasted telling everybody to mute their phones so that we don’t broadcast the dog barking in the background, nonengaging presenters controlling your screen with the same slides we saw last year– and if you thought that presenter was boring onstage, why would you think he was going to be any better as a disembodied voice on the phone?

The problem with this approach to virtual meetings is that it allows the budgetary reason for being to be the sole reason for being. The truth is that when done right, virtual meetings only save a percentage of your budget. If done right, the spend isn’t saved, it’s shifted from things like airline tickets and hotel charges to the high production values of three camera shoots, studio time, and web-developer fees. But the result is a memorable, digital, mobile experience (see point four) that saves your HCPs time while providing a high value, enduring experience, along with a significant cost savings.

Fourth, produce everything twice. Once for the live event and then again for the mobile event. Everything is going mobile, and HCPs are leading the trend. HCPs are the fastest adopters of the iPhone and iPad, showing a desire to consume content on the fly. If you applied point three well, you’re in a prime position to move on point four.

Fifth, invert the dialogue. One-way communication isn’t communication, it’s sermonizing. I like my sermons on Sunday mornings and not in my medical education meetings. You’ve got to think dialogue, not monologue. But the deeper point here is to open the channels of dialogue with your potential advocates so that they are in the lead (inverted) and telling you what they need to get their job done. Letting your HCPs raise their own issues tells you what’s important to them and creates an opportunity for you to provide it. This demands careful design of your agenda to include activities that allow for this inverted flow. Coupled with points one and two, this concept should make your next initiative memorable indeed.

Building advocates for your brands is getting increasingly complex in our current market, but it’s not impossible. Changing your thinking, you’ll find, is the tougher part of the job.