I have to do a presentation in a week or so which means I’m spending some time with the new features in Keynote ’08 and trying once again to improve my pretty dismal public speaking skills. The first half of the project is going really well—Keynote ’08 has some really useful new tools.
For the second half (improving my delivery), I have found a few tips that I thought I’d gather and post here—so they’ll be handy the next time this comes up. If you’re looking for more than just a few tips, let me suggest you spend some time over at Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen site.
Let’s start with the obvious—Powerpoint.
Guy Kawasaki has distilled mastery of this medium to a simple 10/20/30 rule: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. Yes, this focuses almost entirely on the visual but that’s not necessarily a bad thing (I mean, we’re talking about public speaking, not an audio podcast). And, you’re right, there’s more to it.
Extending beyond the domain of the 10/20/30 rule, here’s a nice list of public speaking tips taken from Cory Doctorow’s “Rock the Podium” wired.com post in 2006:
1. Don’t read a speech. Write out bullet points on index cards and practice elaborating extemporaneously on each one. Focus on the transitions. Be sure to number your cards in case you drop them.
2. Videotape yourself practicing the presentation. Note awkward body language, stilted movements, and annoying verbal tics. OK. Now stop doing that.
3. Don’t read from PowerPoint slides like they’re cue cards. If you must use them, keep the text short (two words and a picture).
4. Don’t use the conference’s Net connection for your demo. It’s embarrassing to stand on stage whining, “Everyone please stop using the Net!” Turn your demo into screenshots or bring an EVDO card for your own high-speed connection.
5. Don’t rely on the event’s A/V setup, either. To play an audio clip, try holding your mike up to your laptop’s speaker.
6. Use your Q&A time wisely. Field the big-picture queries while you’re onstage and deal with the minutiae offline.
And here’s another tip list, this one from Neil Patel’s QuickSprout blog:
Ten Tips to a Killer Presentation
1. Don’t abuse your visuals – Usually your visuals are posters, charts, or even a PowerPoint presentation. Whatever your visuals may be, keep them simple and don’t put too many words on them. The audience isn’t there to read your slides, they are there to listen to you present.
2. Look at the audience – If you ever wondered where you should be looking when presenting, the answer is right in front of you. Don’t just single out one person, but instead try to make eye contact with numerous people throughout the room. If you don’t do this then you aren’t engaging the audience, you are just talking to yourself. This can result in an utter lack of attention from your audience.
3. Show your personality – It doesn’t matter if you are presenting to a corporate crowd or to senior citizens, you need to show some character when presenting. If you don’t do this you’ll probably sound like Agent Smith from the Matrix. Nobody wants to hear him present. (If you do, you are probably an agent yourself and we will find you)
4. Make them laugh – Although you want to educate your audience, you need to make them laugh as well. I learned this from Guy Kawasaki and if you ever hear any of his speeches you’ll understand why. In essence, it keeps the audience alert and they’ll learn more from you than someone who just educates.
5. Talk to your audience, not at them – People hate it when they get talked at, so don’t do it. You need to interact with your audience and create a conversation. An easy way to do this is to ask them questions as well as letting them ask you questions.
6. Be honest – A lot of people present to the audience what they want to hear, instead of what they need to hear. Make sure you tell the truth even if they don’t want to hear it because they will respect you for that and it will make you more human.
7. Don’t over prepare – If you rehearse your presentation too much it will sound like it (in a bad way). Granted, you need to be prepared enough to know what you are going to talk about but make sure your presentation flows naturally instead of sounding memorized. Usually if you ask experienced speakers what you shouldn’t do, they’ll tell you not to rehearse your presentation too much because then it won’t sound natural.
8. Show some movement – You probably know that you need to show some movement when speaking, but naturally you may forget to do so. Make sure you show some gestures or pace around a bit (not too much) on the stage when speaking. Remember, no one likes watching a stiff. People are more engaged with an animated speaker.
9. Watch what you say – You usually don’t notice when you say “uhmâ€, “ahâ€, or any other useless word frequently, but the audience does. It gets quite irritating; so much that some members of the audience will probably count how many times you say these useless words.
10. Differentiate yourself – If you don’t do something unique compared to all the other presenters the audience has heard, they won’t remember you. You are branding yourself when you speak, so make sure you do something unique and memorable.
Finally, let’s turn once more to presentation software, and finish up with Seth Godin’s 5 rules for better Powerpoint:
1. No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.
2. No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
3. No dissolves, spins or other transitions. (Editor’s note: I refuse to give up my “fade thru color black” transitions, sorry).
4. Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
5. Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.
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A few more links:
Public Speaking Do’s and Don’ts [lifehacker, 2006].
How I made my presentations a little better [Merlin Mann, 43 Folders, August 2007]
There…now I have to go chop some words out of a few of my slides and bump up the font on a few others. I may return and update this post if I find more tips.