I obsess over my presentations. I love presenting, it is one of the best ways in which I can communicate my ideas (although these days, I have really taken a liking to videos too.) I have found these five tips to be very useful both on “game-day” and when I am preparing the presentation.
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**Use humor to good effect, **especially, when starting. Depending on how well your previous presenter was, or time of day etc,. nothing like some self-deprecating humor to wake up the audience, and get then all excited about what you are going to say.
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Lay out an agenda. Lets face it. Some people always think forward and wont be with you. Instead of leaving them wondering, tell them what it is about, so that they are with you.
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**Use lots of pictures : **This one is obvious, yep, as obvious as exercising, eating your veggies and calling mom. Yet this is where most of us tend to falter the most. I wish I could get away with Larry Lessig style presentations, but in my experience, a healthy mix of relevant pictures and good ol’ bullet points convey the message.
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Improvise For example, in my Xconomy Cloud^3 talk at the Microsoft NERD center, I consciously said that OfficeDrop was like Google for your paper documents and then corrected myself to say like a “Bing”. This shows that you are not blindly reciting a memorized presentation, makes the whole experience contextual and builds your credibility with the audience.
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Channel your inner adrenaline to good effect. Move around, use your hands, be animated. Again, these will promote how engaged your audience are with you and what you have to say.
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**Be your worst critic : **(This is a Bonus tip for Rookies) : Record a dry run with a webcam / Flip video and watch it. It will be painful, it will hurt, but it will help more than anything else. You will find answers to delightful questions like “Did I really do that with my eyes?”, “Is 47 ‘ums’ or ‘you know’ too much’”
Anyone can become a good presenter. All it needs is practice. Just ask Bill Gates.
Care to share any of your own tips? What has worked for you?