Preparing for a presentation

Once you know what you're going to talk about, you have a few decisions to make before you start putting your slides together. These decisions are informed by the inescapable parameters of speaking to an audience. These parameters are:

1. Your audience will not remember everything you are going to say. So there is no point in saying as much as possible.

2. Your audience will not remember everything you are going to show. So there is no point in showing as much as possible.

3. Your audience is not there to read your slides. So don't turn your slides into a paper.

4. Your audience will be looking at and listening to a human being. So behave like a human being.

5. Your audience is interested in what you have to say. So keep what what they can get elsewhere to a minimum.

So, now to those decisions.

Because your audience will not remember everything say, and they can't come back to hear the presentation again, you have to control what they forget. You do this by making things unforgettable. The fewer things are unforgettable, the more likely it is that they will remain unforgettable. So your first decision is:

1. What FIVE points must your audience NOT forget?

Make a list of the five most important points you're going to make. Now decide how you are going to make sure your audience does not forget these five points.

But if they still forget some of these five points, then what is the ONE POINT that nobody must forget? Now decide how you are going to make sure your audience NEVER forgets this ONE point.

2. What THREE images must your audience NOT forget?

Make a list of the three most important images you're going to show. Now decide how you are going to make sure your audience does not forget these three images.

But if they still forget some of these three images, then what is the ONE image that nobody must forget? Now decide how you are going to make sure your audience NEVER forgets this ONE image.

3. How are you going to get your audience's FULL attention RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING?

Before you presentation even starts, you are at a HUGE disadvantage: every member of your audience has a mobile phone! Decide how are you going to make sure they put their phones away (telling them doesn't work).

OK, you can turn up naked, but then you might not get to the end of your presentation — and in fact, they might all take out their phones!!! So come up with a less dramatic, but still brilliant idea that will hook them right at the start.

4. How are you going to KEEP your audience's full attention RIGHT TO THE END? Decide how you are going to keep your audience from going for their phones.

Finally, the presentation is NOT your slides; the presentation is YOU.

Now you are ready to start with your slides...

Special Message for Week 10

Hello everyone,

Thank you for committing to the feedback. I appreciated the opportunity to connect with each of you individually and to share with you my thought for the most effective action you can take to make the biggest progress between now and the end of the semester.

Each of you has a different area that would be most effective for you to work on. In the beginning, to a greater or lesser extent, the audience was pretty much absent from each of your presentations. The content might have been good and you said everything that you wanted to say, but it was as if there was no one in the room. As the semester progressed, you started noticing people listening to your presentation, and later you started adapting what you were saying so you audience could appreciate your presentation better. In the week before our feedback, you had much more awareness that you were speaking to people, than at the beginning.

My aim with the feedback was to zero in on the one thing that I saw still standing between you and your audience. Please think back to what we discussed during the feedback. Combine that discussion with all the tips and tricks on this page. All this stuff is just as important as the content of your presentation. A successful presentation is one that works for the audience, just as a successful paper is one that works for the readers, and a successful video is one that works for the viewers, and a successful podcast is one that works for the listeners. In each of these media, your content will be differently put before your audience. We worked only in one medium, slide presentations, so we had only one kind of audience to think about: a group of people sitting in a room in front of us. Ask yourself this question: how will I know that my audience left with what I wanted to give them? For each of you, the answer to this question is different. That is why we had the feedback.

So for this week, unfortunately the Covid-19 restrictions preclude us from meeting in person in one room. I know that I am not the only one who is disappointed about this. We will meet online again. Please prepare a presentation on your thesis topic. Requirements:

• 10 slides in total
• Maximum 6 words per slide (text in diagrams excepted)
  
• Maximum 1 image per slide (no animations)
• Speak for ten minutes

You have to meet each of these requirements. We will also go overtime this week as we need 5 minutes for questions after each speaker, so please be available for 110 minutes.

Start your presentation where your audience connects to your topic. Once you've connected your audience to your topic, you can move away from the connection. We practiced speaking for 10 minutes, then 5 minutes, then 3 minutes, each time with the same content and at normal speaking speed. This was to train you that the audience hearing you is more important than telling them everything you know. Your topic is complex and extremely interesting, and you feel precious about it. But you have to leave things out so your audience has time to process what you are sharing with them. Don't rush. Pause after you make a point. Highlight the detail in the image that you want your audience to focus on. Remind them of something they might be familiar with, just to keep the connection with them. When you get to the point you want them never to forget, pause before the point to create expectation, and pause again after it so it sinks in.  

Remember that when you pause, your audience will experience that you are talking to them. When you talk straight through without pausing, your audience experiences that you are talking to yourself. You can also say different things with different emphasis. It helps you to keep your audience with you.

That's what it's all about.

Finally, here are some more easy tips: