Presentation best practices, top Power Point presentation advices, tips and tricks

The purpose of this discussion is to provide basic information to improve my and your skills in developing effective presentations. Also I am going to visit IT Jam 2010 in Kharkov conference in two weeks that is why will make new presentation.Top features that need to be used are: visual aids, coupled with good public speaking skills, strong narrative sequence with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end helps the presenter express his or her thoughts better and allows the audience to process the information in the presentation. It’s also important to have a rehearsal run-through if the content is new so that any kinks can be ironed out. We don’t always have the time to translate our verbal ideas and points into visuals that will enhance the understanding of our audience as we present. The downside, at best, is that some members of the audience might think: “well, if it’s all there on the slide, where does this presenter add value? Can he just give me a copy and be gone?” At worst, some in the audience will be outright confused by the verbal attack – both written and spoken. That is really cool and that is what we need.

Establish Connect with Your Audience – Choose the Right Template

Experienced consultants know that while a presenter can make an impact through carefully chosen words, a presentation has to visually connect with your audience for them to respond to it. Slides should be neat and well formatted but the usage of appropriate templates will resonate with the viewer. For example, if your presentation concerns human resources, then ensure that the imagery in the template used reflects the content. Use pictures or illustrations of individuals or groups of people to underscore the theme of your presentation. For example at the beginning you can add something like this:

Planning Your Material

• Do not wait to prepare your presentation while on you way to the training session. You cannot do your best at presenting or persuading by "winging it."
• At a minimum, prepare an outline of goals, major issues to be discussed, and information to be presented to support main themes.
• Limit content to your major point and no more than five key supporting points.
• Analyze your audience. Prepare your content considering such things as whether they are likely to be friendly or unfriendly, lay or technical in their background, and whether they want only to listen or to respond and contribute.
• Select appropriate visual aids and a presentation style that will be effective in the physical setting for your training session.

Establishing the Objectives
For any successful presentation, you must know your objectives. It is these objectives that drive your presentation and move the audience to your end goals. Your end goals may be that the attendees take a particular action, adopt a new perspective, or respond to facts and information. Establishing these goals requires careful planning. The key to designing your presentation is determining these objectives. After all, they become the foundation upon which your content, organization, and visual aids are built.

Establishing the objectives for your presentation requires an analysis of your own goals, as well as your audience's needs and expectations. By considering the nature of your audience, you can more easily determine what you will present and how you will present it. An audience analysis will enable you to:

• Select appropriate points of emphasis in your presentation
• Develop a useful level of detail
• Choose and prepare appropriate visual aids
• Create a tone that is sensitive to your audience's circumstance

Apply Themes or Templates for Visual Consistency

There’s nothing that can kill an audience’s enthusiasm for a presentation than badly formatted slides with varying fonts, colors and page elements. PowerPoint has customizable themes to help you achieve consistency in formatting. You can find these in the Design>Themes gallery. Also You can edit these themes to change colors and fonts. Choosing the right color is important to ensure readability and image clarity. Design>Themes>Colors gives you a range of options from which we can choose the color palette and fonts for your presentation.

PowerPoint can help achieve that by offering some visual tools to make us look good. I am, of course, operating here under the assumption that we use them moderately, in balance and where appropriate. These tools are icons, images, videos, diagrams (e.g., SmartArt) and charts. When supporting your story and timed right, these visuals cannot be replaced with words, or at least not in a reasonable time frame.

PowerPoint Usage

1. Use good slide design. Use standard fonts. Use different size fonts for main points and secondary points. Limit number of fonts, size of fonts and color of fonts to 3 per presentation. Capitalize only when necessary. Proofread your slides. Limit use of animation.
2. Only take 1-2 minutes per slide. The longer the presentation, you’ll lose the interest of your audience, if you have more to say, break the slide up into more than one slide.
3. Update your slides for each presentation. Don’t use the same slides again and again. In the world of visual aids, fresh is good.
4. Use light colors on a dark background and vice-versa. This seems obvious but it’s important to keep in mind. The easiest combinations to read are white or yellow bold text on a dark background.

Relax & Smile
Move: Don’t hide behind the podium. Presentations can be scary, but the audience won’t eat you alive. This doesn’t mean you should pace furiously from one end of the stage to the other, but a little movement such as hand gestures will help keep your audience awake. Smile!  When audience members see a genuine and sincere smile, it makes them want to smile too. What could be better than looking out on an audience of happy, smiling people?

Be Prepared & Organized
By knowing your material and content in detail. Highlight on key points that will draw in your audience. Practice and rehearse: Practice your speech at your school with your Chapter Members, in your classrooms, at home or where you can be at ease and comfortable, in front of a mirror, your family, friends or colleagues. Use a Video Camera or Tape Recorder to Record your Presentation and review to evaluate your own presentation. Don’t read, talk! Your main goal should be to keep your listeners interested and focused. Nothing is more boring than listening to someone read to you what you can read yourself. If using PowerPoint, print out your slides or utilize note cards to focus on your presentation to avoid reading scripted material or ready from the PowerPoint itself, which also helps make great eye contact with your audience. Remember to face the crowd, not your screen. Don’t try and impress a crowd with jargon or speak above the crowd in which the audience will not understand. When you’re speaking in a language that doesn’t compute, the audience will tune you out. The audience may also see you trying too hard to impress and you may come across as false or insincere.

References

Power point team blog

PRESENTATION BEST PRACTICES.pdf (532.36 kb)

Summary

Remember to have fun and enjoy yourself. This presentation is help for your future. What is your best practices in Power Point presentation, what can you advice?