I am talking about the basic presentation workshop that I attended on 20th March (Tuesday). Remember the previous article about going back to basics? Well I walk my talk and signed up for a workshop (by Matthew Linus) so that I can learn and re-learn. Here’s what I got out of the workshop.

1. Everything you put on your slide should have a purpose
That’s a good reminder for me. Sometimes it is tempting to fill up blank spaces on your slides with cute pictures and animation that frankly doesn’t serve any purpose… except for filling up spaces. There was once this investor’s presentation that I sat through where the presenter had a power plug image on her slide that says “Power Requirements”. Not only was the association crude, it did not help that the plug went in and out of the socket every two seconds. Instead of listening to the presenter, we - including the investors - were wondering when the plug will enter the socket again… how else will I have known that it was at a two seconds interval (grins)

2. Avoid cramping all your points into one slide
Again another common mistake that presenters make. Sometimes I wonder if adding a slide actually cost the presenters money? It’s not paper for crying out loud! When you have too many points on one slide, we get overwhelmed. As we try to make sense of your points (and how they relate), very often we will not have any more RAM (or listening space) to hear you talk. This is the same with speeches as well. Refer to previous article: We Don’t Complain Enough? Instead try to limit to one point every slide. Remember simple is good!

3. Content is King!
You can give the best delivery, use state-of-the-art technology to run your slides or design aesthetically appealing slides that shames Van Gogh, but if you have no content, it will not impress your audience. In fact, I realize that the audience is more forgiving if you have great content and lousy visuals. So the next time you prepare for a presentation, focus on what value you can give to your audience. Ask yourself what they can take away from your presentation. Once you have figured that out, you can then spend the remaining of your time deciding the best way to display the information.

So kudos to Matthew for reminding me about the above three pointers. My only complaint is that the he should not have stood in front of the projector. It casted a black shadow on the screen which was extremely distracting… but still, yay!!! I finally got to be a participant again. (grins)

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