As I'm preparing some slides for an upcoming presentation, I thought I'd share with you some things that I've learned regarding presentations in general. This is by no means an extensive list and it's purely based on my own observations:
- No matter who you are or which level in the organisation you belong to, giving presentations is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced. Supervisors and managers do not necessarily give better presentations.
- If you're giving a presentation, keep things simple. Aim to give the main key messages only. Nobody is interested in the details. If they are, they'll ask.
- Have a presentation outline so that your audience knows what to expect.
- Flow is important. Make sure your slides are in a logical order.
- Keep your slides simple. Avoid too many words and small font sizes.
- Practice your presentations. Good to have a small audience, kalau nada, just get some unlucky people around you to be "dummy" audience. If all else fail, practice saja dapan ceramin. :-P
- Nerves will always be there. But the more you practice, the more it goes away.
- Speak in a clear voice. Keep your speed in check. Not too fast and not too slow either.
- Never read from the slides sebigi-sebigi. The audience can do that too. You're there to give a presentation, not narrate the slides. Focus on getting the key points across.
- Have enthusiasm. Baru orang mendangar pun bersemangat. Jangan saja over la.
Cheers and all the best in your presentations.
4 comments:
Few more tips:
1. Don't slam on the mouse or the keyboard buttons.
2. If your presentation slides have links to another file and if you use someone else's computer to do the presentation from, make sure it works and better to check it before the presentation.
3. Reduce the resoultions of pictures, not just the size of the pictures. YOu know what I mean?
4. Be aware of your audience keeping counts of your favourite words, like basically, apparently, actually, etc.
Anyway, good luck with the presentations.
Hahaha. Good one BM.
Those tips are a bit too familiar! Maybe based on personal experiences? :-P
A few more:
1. Voice control. Be aware of starting off normally then suddenly changing of your voice to a different tone. "Legionella..."
2. Don't treat the audience as if you are a dictator shouting out orders and marching around the stage like you really did portal out from the Third Reich. Adolf Arlin has done that.
3. Watch out for antagonists in the audience who think of questions beforehand in order to catch you out and shame you infront of others. These people are like a recurring nightmare. Nakal.
Hahaha. Yeah, those are valuable tips indeed. I wonder how many presentations "faux pas" have we witnessed over the years...
Post a Comment