One of the problems many speakers face is that they think that just because they have a gigiantic screen that they always need to be showing something. Wrong! There are times when you want your audience focused on the screen and times when you want the audience looking at yourself. When you want the audience focused on you and your message, go to a black slide so that the audience isn’t distracted by what is showing on the screen behind you.
The next time you’re working on a Power Point presentation, read Garr Reynolds book, “Presentation Zen.” It will give you the basics for changing your text based presentation into one which uses primarily visuals to convey your message. I highly recommend it.
Here’s another example of having a screen which is too small and too many words on the screen. This picture comes from the St.Louis Banjo club. In this case it’s appropriate to only put words on the screen, but don’t try to put ALL the words on one screen. Make the fonts large enough for people in the back to see and use a 2nd or 3rd screen if need be.
At a recent presentation, this presenter made a typical PowerPoint presentation, which could have been improved with a few simple changes.
1. Don’t turn your back on the audience to read your slide.
2. Use graphics, not words – if possible.
3. If you do use words, make them short phrases, not long sentences which you read to the audience.
4. Use a remote so you don’t have to be standing by the laptop to go from slide to slide.
5. Bring your own table to hold your laptop.
Face the laptop toward yourself and use a long VGA cable to connect to your projector.
6. Use Spell Check on your Power Point presentation.
