Fourteen Tips On Conquering The Presentation

Writen by Arun Sinha

When presenting, you need to hold your audience's attention, convey information, and persuade people to act, while all the time guarding against anything that could derail your performance. To help you master this balancing act, here are a few pointers:

* Know your subject inside out. This is the single most important thing you can do to ensure a high-impact presentation. Be the absolute expert on whatever it is that you'll be talking about. Nobody in the room should know as much about the topic as you do.

* Understand your audience. Speak at their level of knowledge. Know their needs. What do they want from you, and what do you want from them?

* Rehearse. Run through the presentation in front of a mirror, in front of a spouse or friend, or in front of your team. Use a cassette recorder or camcorder. Time yourself and add on a few minutes for Q&A.

* Anticipate questions. As you rehearse, stay on the lookout for places where someone could pose a question. Have answers ready. You'll probably be asked at least one "out-of-left-field" question. Don't be thrown off balance by it; take your time to think about the reply and be candid.

* Anticipate hardware problems. Your laptop may freeze. The overhead slide projector's bulb may blow out. Think of something to say and do while you – and everyone else – wait for the laptop to reboot or the replacement bulb to arrive. Keep an easel and blank flipchart handy.

* Break the ice. Begin with a joke or a personal anecdote that is relevant to the subject at hand.

* Maintain eye contact. As you look around the room, meet each person's eyes while you speak at least one sentence.

* Interact. Establish a connection with your audience. This is easier if you're speaking to a small group. Invite people to participate, but keep the discussion focused and on point.

* Don't talk to the screen. If you're using overhead slides or a liquid crystal display (LCD) projector, keep your notes in front of you. Then you can continue to look at your audience while talking about the information on the screen behind you. If you want to point to something on the screen, point to it on the overhead slide or computer monitor instead.

* Recap often. If it's a long presentation that covers many steps, help people absorb it or you may lose them somewhere along the way. Summarize, in one or two sentences, what you've covered so far and what the next step will be.

* Keep the lights on. Too many things can go wrong in the dark. People may fall asleep, or they may start concentrating on the refreshments. You won't be able to make eye contact or read your notes. If you must lower the lights, dim them just a little, not all the way.

* Don't mix eating and speaking. You can't expect full attention to your presentation from someone who is biting into an overstuffed chicken sandwich. Avoid the "working lunch presentation." First food, then business.

* Give handouts. Always give your audience a written summary or outline – after the presentation. There are times when you may need to hand the audience something during your presentation, such as in a training exercise. In such instances, give them only as much material as they need at that point in the exercise.

* Above all, relax. A few butterflies in your stomach are OK, but if you're too tense, your performance can quickly go downhill. Remember: you're the expert, you have their attention, you're in command, and you're going to make it worth their while. What's there to worry about?

Copyright 2006 Arun Sinha.

Arun Sinha is founder and president of Access Consulting (http://www.AccessConsultingInc.com), a marketing communications and technical writing firm in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.

Tips On Starting A Powerpoint Presentation

Writen by Thomson Chemmanoor

So you plan to start on a powerpoint presentation. Before starting on the presentation, you have to make some preparations. You have to first organize your presentation. You can do this by making an outline of the major points of the presentation, and all their supporting details. Make sure you have captured the most important information for your powerpoint presentation, and think of how the viewer can learn the most you're your powerpoint presentation

When making your powerpoint presentation, plan it in such a way that the vital information can be put on the slides, in printed form as a handout and is explainable to the viewers. This is because a person tends to store information for a longer time if they hear it three or more times. Be as clear and concise as possible in your presentation. Work on your points until you get exactly what you want the audience to get from your presentation.

Now, to start on the making of the powerpoint presentation. To quickly start a powerpoint presentation, you have to click any powerpoint presentation file (.ppt) and select the Show icon from the shortcut menu it displays. Another alternative to starting the powerpoint presentation is to save the presentation as a slide show by selecting the File, Save As icons, and then selecting powerpoint show from the Save As Type box. If you save the powerpoint presentation to your desktop, you just have to double click on that particular file icon for it to start the show. When creating a design or background for the powerpoint presentation, make sure you use a light background and dark text for printed ones. For the shown ones, use dark background with a light text. It is not advisable to use more than one background in a presentation as it only gets the viewer distracted from the message.

When creating the powerpoint presentation, do not get carried away. The information you are giving through the presentation is the important thing, and not showing off what you and powerpoint can do! Avoid centering the bulleted lists or texts in the presentation, as it thus gets confusing to read. Keep the matter left justified, unless you have a good reason to not to do so in the presentation. You have to also avoid centering graphics, unless the graphic is a chart or graph, and the main subject of the slide. Remember, clip art focuses on the making of points and not on distracting them from the presentation. Avoid using all caps in the presentation; capitalizing the first letter of each word is good in the title of slides, and suggests a more formal format than having only the first letter of the first word capitalized. The size of the font of the presentation depends on the size of the room. Usually, it is no smaller than 14 pt.

On embarking on making a powerpoint presentation, you have to first organize all clip arts, graphs and charts that you may need in the presentation of your ideas. If need be, you can convert your ideas into a digital form so that it can be imported into powerpoint. Keep all supplemental materials you may need to refer to and hand out to the audience during the presentation. Now you can start on the powerpoint presentation!

This article was written by Thomson Chemmanoor a Powerpoint presentation expert and webmaster who operates a Small business web design company.To read more about this Powerpoint presentation tips article visit http://www.digitallabz.com You can republish the articles without changing the content and the bio box.

Incorporate Humor In Your Next Speech

Writen by Stephen D. Boyd

Some speakers say, "I could never use humor in my speech; I just don't feel comfortable with it."  I believe that anyone can use humor and that it is a valuable tool in speaking.  Appropriate humor relaxes an audience and makes it feel more comfortable with you as the speaker; humor can bring attention to the point you are making; and humor will help the audience better remember your point.  It can break down barriers so that the audience is more receptive to your ideas. 

 

First, let me make it easy for you to use humor.  The best and most comfortable place to find humor for a speech is from your own personal experience.  Think back on an embarrassing moment that you might have thought not funny at the time.  Now that you can laugh at the experience, you understand the old adage "Humor is simply tragedy separated by time and space."  Or think of a conversation that was funny.  Remember the punch line and use it in your speech.  Probably the least risky use of humor is a cartoon.  The cartoon is separate from you and if people don't laugh, you don't feel responsible.  (Be sure to secure permission to use it.)  You're not trying to be a comedian; you just want to make it easy for people to pay attention and to help them remember your point.

 

Here are some suggestions on using humor to make your next speech have more impact. 

 

1.  Make sure the humor is funny to you.  If you don't laugh or smile at the cartoon, joke, pun, one-liner, story, or other forms of humor, then you certainly cannot expect an audience to do so.  A key to using humor is only using humor that makes you laugh or smile. 

 

2.  Before using humor in your speech, try it out with small groups of people.  Do they seem to enjoy it?  Even if your experimental group does not laugh or smile initially, don't give up on the humor, because the problem might be in the way you are delivering the joke or quip.  I often use this line in talking about the importance of listening.  "We are  
geared to a talk society.  Someone said, 'The only reason we listen is so we can talk next!'"  When I first tried that line, people did not smile; but I worked on the timing so that I paused and smiled after "listen" and that seemed to work.  I was rushing through the punch line and did not give people time to be prepared for the humorous part.  It took practice to get comfortable with the piece of humor.  Only use humor in a speech after you are comfortable telling it from memory and have tested it.

 

3.  Make sure the humor relates to the point you are making.  Do not use humor that is simply there to make the audience laugh.  The humor should tie in with some aspect of your speech.  For example, I tell about my experience of getting braces at age 46 and how difficult it was for me to get used to the wires and rubber bands in my mouth.  After I tell the story I make the point that you may have not had the braces problem I had, but we all have challenges in communicating well, and what we want to look at today are ways of making it easier for us to be more effective in speaking.  The audience enjoys the story but also remembers the point that I'm making.  If you don't tie your humor to your presentation, the audience may like the humor, but will wonder what point you are attempting to make. 

 

4.  Begin with something short.  A starting point might be to summarize a cartoon and give the caption as your humor.  A thought-provoking yet clever line about a point you are making is another way to get started.  For example, when I talk about creativity and getting out of your comfort zone, a line I found that worked well was, "Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license."  In your reading, look for lines that make you smile; consider how they might be used in your next speech.  Be careful about launching into a long humorous story--audiences are quick to forgive a single line that may not be funny, but they do not have much patience with a long anecdote that isn't worth the time.  So start out with brief bits of humor.

 

5.  When possible, choose humor that comes from people you interact with.  You do not have to worry about people having heard it before, and you will feel more comfortable with what has happened to you.  Find such experiences by looking for a humorous line or situation.  For example, I was making a bank deposit recently at a drive-in window.  When I asked to make a second deposit, the teller said solemnly, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to go around the bank a second time to make a second deposit."  We both laughed and I may have a line to work into a speech.  If you have small children, listen for something they say that might be funny to an audience as well.  Art Linkletter made a great living on the notion that "Kids say the darndest things." 

 

6.  Don't preview by saying, "Let me tell you a funny story."  Let the audience decide for themselves.  Look pleasant and smile as you launch into your funny line, but if no one smiles or laughs then just move on as though you meant for it to be serious.  This approach takes the pressure off as you relate the humor.  Remember you are not a comedian entertaining the audience; you are a serious speaker seeking to help the audience remember and pay attention by using humor as a tool. 

 

Humor is simply another way of making a point with your audience, and it can help you be a more effective speaker.  Look at humor as a tool in improving your speech in the manner of attention devices, smooth transitions, and solid structure.  Remember, "A smile is a curve that straightens out a lot of things." 

Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is a professor of speech communication at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Kentucky.  He works with organizations that want to speak and listen more effectively to increase personal and professional performance.   He can be reached at 800-727-6520 or visit http://www.sboyd.com for free articles and resources to improve your communication skills.