Tips and Techniques for Presentations

(photo by JJ)

As presented at BarcampSydney3: 

• Imagine the best presenter/presentation you have seen
  • This person has practised more than once.
  • plan for the worst case scenario (no projector, laptop nor audience)
• know audience, topic, environment
  • If you are not comfortable wit the topic, don’t present it
• Theatre
  • projecting your voice: always stand
  • volume levels: for any audience above 4 people, you need to turn it up a little bit
  • breaking the fourth wall (that is, walk and talk into the audience)
  • Use props.
  • hot vs cold liquids: careful with water as it tightens the vocal chords
• emotional connection
  • Emotional projection: like voice volume, you need to turn it up a few notches to make an impact 
  • tell stories: humans have brains wired to remember stories and retell them
  • audience involvement: get someone on stage and break the fourth wall
• referential comedy
  • appropriate humor (think of your audience) is always a good thing to incorporate
  • to help: keep referencing one humourous comment/moment
• Dealing with the hecklers
  • attention seekers (so give them some attention)
  • or are pained by some experience (divert to post-presentation one on one)
• always leave your audience wanting more

Thanks, Sridhar, for the positive blog comments. 🙂