Playing Presentations..!!

Recently, I saw a community post where somebody asked about Powerpoint Presentation or in general Formal Presentation skills. Tips on building content for it, which may keep the target audience engaged, thereby leaving a powerpack impression as an effective communicator rather than being just a gross disengaged orator.

Personally, I was (and I guess I still am) pretty much fascinated about going to the dias and putting my points forth, be it any form of public speaking, both in Schools & College and enjoyed it thoroughly, be it a solo or a team thing, but had a very few experiences of doing so in last few years, after I started working. The medium keeps changing over time, becomes more fancy, sophisticated and high-tech, but the basics remain the same I guess,

1. Keep your audience engaged, making it as much interactive as possible. Don't give them a chance to sleep :)
2. With the advent of social networking, there are more chances of them enjoying the live feed criticism than your presentation, if it fails to grab and hold their attention.
3. Put in interesting content by adding relevant images, audio, video etc. and as less text as possible.
4. Keep it Simple, Concise and Short. Check Out for Rule of 6/7 basics.
5. Please do not read out your slides as it is. If that was the purpose, audience could better sit at home and read it.
6. Don't keep hovering over the same points for too long.
7. Stay confident and be honest to acknowledge if you are not sure.

Just put yourself in their shoes or ask someone else who could give you a constructive plus honest feedback and present your content, this may help in realizing normal human reaction and improving it and yourself for better.

There may be some anxiety for the first few seconds if you are there on stage for the first time or after a long time or if the audience size is too large or too small, highly scattered with nobody on first few rows, but everything will be normal after a while and you will find yourself enjoying it.

If it is a group or team thing, make sure each of you go through the whole content and are capable enough of taking it over, either presentation or questions or both, in case your fellow presenter feels choked. Pitch in to help. Have never seen this happening in corporate presentations or seminars but I have had such experiences in Schools & College. Only your quick wit, presence of mind and being collaborative with your fellow team member without making him/her uncomfortable will pave the way. Believe me it's a difficult situation since you need to make sure that the show must go on but your teammate is not demoralized or discouraged. At the end, you get a lot of appreciation and feel a lot very contented when you succeed in doing so. Personal Experience :)

Don't be flattered by that, go see your companion first after it is over.

These are a few things which I can think of right now. May be you have some more points or may be the ones above do not make sense to you based on your experiences, just drop them here as comments/feedback.