Presentations - the art of presenting

I haven't always been a trainer. I've done plenty of other jobs, such as Sound Engineering (read "roadie") in which I worked with the Noize Boyz and Gel Belles (sound and lighting crew for bands), setting up and running concerts. Before that, I did a short stint as a projectionist, changing reels of film at the right moments in the movie.

Unfortunately these "behind the scenes" occupations tend to dull some of the shine of the job, as well as giving you a more critical eye over things. When I've gone to a concert, I can't help glancing at the mixing desk, or examine why the lights are positioned in that fashion. Each film I see, I tend to spot cue dots (top-right, 20 mins, 4 seconds apart.) Similarly, I can't drink in the same pub that I've worked in. And as for that corner restaurant where I used to clean the toilets? Well... you get the idea.

The critical eye gets in the way of many things. Especially presentations. I hate presentations. Actually, that's not quite correct - I love delivering them, but dread sitting through them for the very reason that I'm picking faults all the time, thinking how the whole caboodle could be improved. And yes... I'm well aware that people probably sit through mine thinking exactly the same thing.

When I was developing webpages, I came across a great website which taught good webpage design simply by examining bad designs and common mistakes, in the hope that you wouldn't repeat them. I learned a great deal from it, and - in homage to Vincent Flanders - I'll attempt the same with respect to presentations. What are common mistakes that people make when delivering presentations, and how can you avoid them and thus make your more effective?

Firstly, clipart - probably my greatest bugbear. Get hold of every Microsoft Office CD you can lay your hands on and print out every bit of clipart you can find on them. Yes, in glorious technicolour. Now stick them up on the walls in your office and memorize them. The duck about to plant a sledgehammer into a computer. The frustrated middle-aged businessman thumping the desk in anger. The stick figure with the lightbulb for an idea. The olympic runner crossing the finishing line. Good. Now ensure that ANY future presentation you do will NEVER include ANY of these images. There's a whole host of free clipart out there on the Internet: be innovative, be different, find something unusual. Don't be limited to what you've got on that Office CD... because you can bet that the presentation before you and the presentation after will include those Office images, and they've been done to death, quite frankly.

Secondly, structure. All topics must have a beginning, middle and end. That means introduction, content, summary; head, body, tail, etc. It is difficult to jump into a new topic without any warning, and expecting people to keep up with you when you switch topic quickly from one to another is placing excessive demands upon them. There are simple tricks to showing the structure of the presentation, such as introducing each topic with the same index page listing all the topics, the current topic being highlighted and the ones already being covered "greyed out". I once sat through an overlong presentation which, when finished, took a lot of people by surprise, almost waking them up in the process. All it needed was some progress indicator on each page to show people how far they were into the topic, giving viewers a clue that the end was in sight.

Thirdly, visuals. Yes, the red writing on a pale blue background looks nice, but what if someone was colour blind? Choose your colours and typeface wisely. A serif typeface looks formal and could be perceived as stuffy; a sans-serif typeface looks more relaxed but can convey a non-professional aura. Above all, don't use Comic Sans MS, unless you're applying for the job of a cartoonist. Oh, and speaking of animations (which we weren't - but I was thinking it) how should the text/graphics appear? Microsoft Powerpoint has a great many animation effects, but that doesn't mean that you've got to use them all - after a while, viewers will begin to play "guess the next effect", and hibernate their hearing services.

Which brings me onto the next point: speaking. You are addressing an audience. Don't grab their attention; let their attention grab you. Be enthusiastic about your product - if you can't muster the energy about what you're selling, how can you expect your viewers to be buyers? Be energetic and varied with your delivery, but get the point across quickly, scrimping on the details if needs be - you can always return and answer questions later, but get sidetracked by dwelling on one single point, and everyone.. will... start... t....z....zzzzzz

You get the picture. Next time you attend a presentation, look for these points and use them to improve on yours. Next time you run a presentation, I may be in the audience, watching. Actually, thinking about it: wouldn't it be a good idea of several people all got together and practised presentation skills on each other, learning from strengths and weaknesses of each other? Wouldn't you be able to improve your presentation skills and market yourself and your products better?

Now... if only we could find a company that ran such courses...