There are loads of ways of making a mess of the great opportunity which a presentation presents.
We have all seen some of these in action and many of us have committed them ourselves.
Here is my selection of some of the most common.
Presentation Killers
- Give too much information.
- Expect your audience to know your jargon, acronyms and in-jokes.
- Read your slides or handouts – suggesting that you think they are illiterate.
- Talk too quickly, or too slowly, or too monotonously, or too excitedly or too quietly – or too loudly.
- Use sentences that belong in books, not on lips.
- Laugh nervously from time to time.
- Grip a script in your white-knuckled hands and read it.
- Over-cook, or under-cook, the whole thing.
And just to balance things out, here are some top tips:
Presentation Makers
- Speak as if you are addressing people you like, admire and look up to.
- Offer the tip of the iceberg of the subject.
- Don’t even think about using gimmicks.
- Eliminate jargon.
- Bring in colour and imagery.
- Be emotionally present – share your enthusiasm and your feelings as you go along.
- Get at least one story in there somewhere.
- Be genuinely interested in questions and feedback.
What would you add to (or subtract from) either list? (That’s a genuine question, I’d like to get better at doing presentations – they are such great opportunities.)
I would add to these:
1) If using PPt – watch out for the colours you choose! Roughly 8% of men (though a much smaller proportion of women) are colour blind. If you put bright red lettering on a bright green background (and I have seen it done), you have lost a twelfth of your audience straight away. Plus, ALWAYS check your slides on a big screen. Colours of any type come out a lot more brightly when projected, for some reason. Other colours that I have seen used badly are gray with yellow (they fade together and are indistinguishable).
2) Keep slides simple – you have mentioned not using gimmicks, and I totally agree, but putting too much on a slide is also the kiss of death, as it is very distracting. Someone has mentioned using the ‘B’ key to get a black screen – useful if you want attention on yourself for whatever reason, and of course, you just click ‘B’ again to get back to your presentation, but you can also use the ‘W’ key to get a plain white screen, which can be useful if you want to show something from a different projector/in a different format.
3) Don’t put up ‘railway timetable’ slides – you know the ones – 200 tiny boxes with miniscule type. (Medics are notorious for these.) If there’s too much to put on a slide clearly, don’t use it at all. (There is also a tendency for people who use these slides to have a laser pointer and say ‘The only box we need to look at is this one”. If that’s the only bit you need, put it on a slide on its own so that people can see it. But it brings me to the last point’
4) DON’T use a laser pointer unless you can hold it steady – they are difficult to use and are very distracting (or maybe I have pussycat DNA – my eyes follow the light all over the screen). Someone has suggested building slides line by line, and this is a much better option if you need to draw attention to a particular point.
Hi Stephen
My suggestions for a great presentation are fairly radical, but they seem to work. They do need a high degree of confidence in your subject, though. They also don’t work so well in front of a large audience, but they are perfect for relatively small groups where you can get more intimate.
1. Ditch the PowerPoint. I have virtually stopped using projectors and preprepared slides in favour of a flipchart and multicoloured pens. They also mean that you can;
2. put your questions up front. I tend to begin by asking the audience what are the things that they would most like to get out of my talk. These get the audience involved and allow you to pull out themes that are common to them. I list these themes on the flipchart and then work through them. This becomes the body of my ‘presentation.’
3. Involve your audience. Ask “does anyone have experience of this?” and invite comments from the floor.
4. Be prepared to learn with the audience. One of the reasons I enjoy giving talks is because of what I can learn. This doesn’t happen from behind a lectern, though.
The key to this more conversational style is prior preparation. If you have a clear idea of the points you want to make, you’ll be amazed at how the audience will raise issues that fall right into your hands. And they will feel that they’ve been heard, and get much more out of your session. And sometimes the session will go in a direction you didn’t anticipate but where you can add real insight.
It takes courage to leave your presentation aids at home, but the results I’ve experienced have made it well worth it.
Hope this helps
Andy Jervis
I like the sound of this. The idea of the presentation becoming a real meeting of minds.
It makes me think that it is not so much that the audience needs to give the speaker their attention but that the audience gets the speaker’s attention.
I think some people can combine this sort of approach with a few slides, just to being in colour and imagery, or maybe hold a key word in front of people.
I have done this once or twice when the kit has failed to work! It can be great. But tricky if there are a lot of poeple present.
But,like you, I prefer the low tech, high interaction approach.
Many poeple will be pleased with a presentation if they feel they have ‘met’ the presenter. And these days most information can be looked up later anyway.
• Don’t look at the screen. The audience didn’t come to see the back of your head. Engage with the audience.
• Don’t walk into the light between your projector and the screen. You’ll get shadows on your screen and the image that should be on your screen will be on your chest.
• If you want to get your audience to concentrate on what you’re saying, black out your screen by using the B key. Fading into a black slide is also possible, and when you want to start the slides again, hit B again.
• Try and avoid using a script.
• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse !
Sounds like great advice if the context demands the use of PowerPoint or similar. And thanks for point 3. I can never remember which key blanks the screen – ‘B’ for blank, I guess.
Personally I am not a great rehearser (you guessed!) My justification is that I like that touch oif excitment and the possibility of spontenenity.
Some other tips:
- Consider giving out the handouts at a key point during the presentation or at the end, so you are not fighting for the attention of your audience with a piece of paper.
- Use build effects on your slides to summon up the next bullet point/picture/idea as you move on to it. It helps the audience see how you are progressing to the next idea and means they are listening rather than reading ahead.
- Don’t be afraid to pause for a few seconds and have a sip of water. Nothing makes a speaker look more confident than showing the confidence to be take a mini break. It also gives the audience time to reflect on a key point or look at a graph/diagram on screen.
- At the start tell your audience you will make the slides/handout available electroically after the talk. They then feel they have the freedom to listen rather than try to take frantic notes on all details of your slides.
-Try to avoid writing out a script at all. Real enthusiam shows through if the speaker can go just from the slides. Speakers could try postcards with titles/key facts/sources on as a security measure
Yes, all excellent points. I like the idea of sipping water to show confidence. It’s a bit like making tea when there is a crisis. Defuses the mounting panic.
I would add to 1 (Presentation makers) make eye contact. Look at people.
2. Again this shows the importance of knowing who your audience is and their level of expertise. Gear the amount of the iceberg you give to their expertise.
4. Know who your audience is, so know when it is appropriate to use jargon. An expert audience might feel you were being patronising if you don’t use subject-specific language, acronyms etc. as appropriate, whereas if you are speaking to a completely unknown, non-expert audience, I agree with you.
6. I couldn’t agree more about sharing your enthusiasm, but sharing your feelings depends entirely on your audience.
Questions. Be prepared to admit when you don’t know something and apologise if you get something wrong.
I remember giving a presentation about Workplace Bullying in the Church (my academic research area) at an academic seminar in a psychology department. When I arrived I discovered the room full of clergy, so I had to think very fast on my feet to know what level to pitch it at, whether at the (few) academic professionals or at the clergy. Not an easy decision, which I may have got wrong.
Thanks. Very helpful additions. Especially re eye-contact and making subtle judegments about audience.