Tips on Presentations

Know the material back to front and upside down.

If you know the material, presenting it is easy.

If you rely on notes and/or PowerPoint slides as a prompt it'll show.

Rehearse. Rehearse. Practice in front of someone if you can, even if it's the cat.

:)
 
Burnsy2023 said:
I totally disagree with that. PowerPoint can be extremely useful when used RIGHT.
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When used right, but often it's used when it's not needed simply to emphasise points being made little more. If your audience prefers to read the slides rather than listen to you then this is where the problems often start. If I am engaged by a presenter I don't really pay much attention to his/her slide content, but they need to be good, hence my point. Of course there are many situations where illustration is needed, as I said in my post above, but often it's slide after slide of bullet points and those are useless.

I have been presenting, guest speaking in business for years, I get invited to events often, sometimes paid and to many hundreds of people, so feel confident of when it's right to use it and when not. You need to be absolutely on your game, confident you can hold the interest of your audience and not need to illustrate but I am dropping slides when able as I find it's well received most of the time. Doesn't work for everyone or all the time of course and it really depends on content.

I have been living and breathing PowerPoint and before that overhead projectors and transparent slides for 25 years, it's nice to dump them now and again! :D
 
Housey said:
When used right, but often it's used when it's not needed simply to emphasise points being made little more. If your audience prefers to read the slides rather than listen to you then this is where the problems often start. If I am engaged by a presenter I don't really pay much attention to his/her slide content, but they need to be good, hence my point. Of course there are many situations where illustration is needed, as I said in my post above, but often it's slide after slide of bullet points and those are useless.

I have been presenting, guest speaking in business for years, I get invited to events often, sometimes paid and to many hundreds of people, so feel confident of when it's right to use it and when not. You need to be absolutely on your game, confident you can hold the interest of your audience and not need to illustrate but I am dropping slides when able as I find it's well received most of the time. Doesn't work for everyone or all the time of course and it really depends on content.

I have been living and breathing PowerPoint and before that overhead projectors and transparent slides for 25 years, it's nice to dump them now and again! :D
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I find it rather difficult to disagree with any of that. I have seen many more bad presentations then good ones, but if you know where, and more importantly more where NOT to use slides they can be very powerful.
 
Don't use powerpoint unless you really have no other choice. The best presentations I've ever done have just been me standing at the front explaining stuff and answering questions, occasionally drawing on a blackboard or whiteboard.

If you absolutely HAVE to use it (and I'm aware there are situations where you do), minimise the amount of text you use. In fact, ideally, you want to have no text at all apart from titles: just pictures and charts. If you know the material, you don't need text.
 
Innovation is key, shake it up a little, use 1 slide, no slide, sit amongst them, open it to the audience to contribute, just be fresh and different, walk amongst them.

I invited a senior member of local government to a recent event to speak for me. I expected him to be dour but he was brilliant. Around 60 people in the room, 30 down each side and he walked the walk down the middle, engaged the audience brilliantly, was funny, light hearted but really nailed the points he was there to make. He had people laughing, smiling and agreeing with each and every point he made, empathy was all over and in 30 minutes he used 1 slide, dumped the rest and got a solid round of applause at the end but most of all he engaged every person in that audience, got feedback, small from some vocal from others but really spoke to them on a level they appreciated. It was from the school of 'been there, seen it, done it' got the t-shirt' but in a non condescending or patronising way.

That is good presenting.
 
Housey said:
Innovation is key, shake it up a little, use 1 slide, no slide, sit amongst them, open it to the audience to contribute, just be fresh and different, walk amongst them.

I invited a senior member of local government to a recent event to speak for me. I expected him to be dour but he was brilliant. Around 60 people in the room, 30 down each side and he walked the walk down the middle, engaged the audience brilliantly, was funny, light hearted but really nailed the points he was there to make. He had people laughing, smiling and agreeing with each and every point he made, empathy was all over and in 30 minutes he used 1 slide, dumped the rest and got a solid round of applause at the end but most of all he engaged every person in that audience, got feedback, small from some vocal from others but really spoke to them on a level they appreciated. It was from the school of 'been there, seen it, done it' got the t-shirt' but in a non condescending or patronising way.

That is good presenting.
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I can tell you're good at what you do. This is exactly what I would call a big chunk of good presenting. Also the most important tool when designing a presentation: a whiteboard. If you can't organise your ideas into a logical fashion then how can your audience? Post-its and a marker are also very useful tools. Write down everything you can think of and then refine the ideas to core principles. That is what you should be trying to get across.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
I can tell you're good at what you do. This is exactly what I would call a big chunk of good presenting.
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Thanks, practice makes perfection closer, but I never stop chasing it, learning and observing from others. From school I was the one who the other kids looked at to ask questions when the guest speaker came in and never had a problem standing in front of an audience presenting. The most difficult I have found was being a best man, that was without question a struggle, but put me in front of 100 business people and it's water of a ducks back.
 
So what i did, was have slides which were random pictures of stuff that was irrelevent. I had a picture of me and a few guys drinking, then i skipped it quickly and the next picture was some random person on the grass in a park... Made a witty joke about it and then started talking about the subject..

every 60 seconds or so, i changed it to a new picture made a joke (5 seconds max) and continued, with the topic

I got an A for that

Some people just read out random jibba jabba they had on the screen in a tiny voice with little confidence, its boring

Short version = The hell with slides
 
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Up until my most recent job I have hated doing any sort of presentation. But that was mainly because I was under prepared. I kinda knew my material so I thought I could wing it but I knew I would become unstuck as soon as was asked a question so I would rush through, not giving people the chance to speak.

In my most recent work I have been designing and building workflow systems, then presenting them to boards, exc teams, end users. I then train people how to use them. Everyone from directors down to the little people like me.

Because I know what I am talking about back to front, upside down and inside out it becomes very easy to present it.

I usually have about 4 slides giving an overview, I then talk around them, explain why I have made the decisions, what resources I have used etc. I welcome feedback as someone out there may have a suggestion that will solve a problem I came across in building the system.

I still hate doing presentations, the anxiousness I feel is horrendous. But as soon as I start speaking that goes away and I feel confident, that then relaxes the audience and puts them at ease.

So that whole ramble comes down to. Know what you are talking about, winging it and it going wrong is the worst feeling in the world.
 
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