Presentation Skills
Organization:
- Use short bullets,
not long sentences.
- Use appropriate images.
- Keep the visuals
clean. Avoid busy slides with too many words or too many images.
- Use subtle effects
- fade-in transition is OK, eye-popping transition is not.
Presenting:
- Start strong. The
first two minutes is the most important. Don't slide in - "well, I guess
it's time to start". Jump in - "It's been a violent week on Earth."
- Memorize the beginning
and ending of your talk. You want to be able to look at your audience during
this time.
- Paraphrase your slides.
Don't read.
- Tell a little story
when appropriate - your own experience or an experience you read about
- Show your passion
or enthusiasm
Think about
how you use your voice:
- Maintain a loud enough
voice to be heard
- Talk to someone in
the back row - or the back wall if that's too scary
- Don't drop your voice
at the end of a sentence to the same degree as when you talk. Find a middle
range to hit.
Approachable
voice - rises at the end of a sentence
- Sounds like a question
- Invites the listener
to participate or disagree
- Use it when you want
to create a relationship with your listeners
Credible voice:
drops at the end of the sentence
- Implies authority
- Suggests to the listener
that you are the expert
- Use when you want
listener to believe you
Pause -
- at the end of a phrase
to allow people to process
- in the middle of
a phrase to keep attention
Think about
how you use your body
- Posture - stand firmly
on both feet, pull your shoulders back.It will make you look confident
- Face - keep a friendly
expression.
- Smile sometimes,
but not all the time.
- Make eye contact
with everyone in the audience sometime during the talk. Hold eye contact for
3 sec.
- Gesture when appropriate
- Gestures need
to be bigger - start at the shoulder, not the hand.
- "Create
the conditions for gesturing, not the gesture."
- Use your space. Use
your body to ward off boredom.
- Breathe
Create the conditions for gesturing, not the gesture.
Use big gestures. Start
at the shoulder.
Posture
Facial expression: friendly,
not forced; Smile sometimes
Breathe!
Bulletproof Presentations: No One Will Ever Shoot Holes in Your
Ideas Again!
By G. Michael Campbell
Presenters University, The Power of Body Language, http://www.presentersuniversity.com/courses_archives_bodylanguage.php