Presentation Skills Part 2 – Building Slides

I created this presentation as part of an in-house training program.  It’s an adaptation of an email series that was used to promote a book “Beyond Bullet Points” and uses real-life examples of presentations I was involved in at the time.  I’ve blurred out some of the content to protect the confidential content, but I think the points are still clear.  Hope you agree!

Presentation Skills Part 1 – Planning & Organizing

This is a presentation I created based on a course I took by Rogen Si.  I have sketched this out so many times for so many people I’ve lost count.  It’s such a successful approach – I use it all the time for all kinds of presentations.

The Very Best Slide Transition

You can always tell a novice presentation builder by their choice slide transition.  The total newbie doesn’t even know that there are transition options, so their slides always just “cut” (basically there’s no transition) from one to the other.   The naive newbie selects “random” transition (PowerPoint cycles through all the transition options with every new slide) which is just plain distracting.  But the seasoned presenter knows that the very best slide transition is the tried and true “fade.”

And yes, you can and should use it on every single slide in your presentation, unless there’s a really, really good reason to change it up.  Just because you have all those transitions to choose from doesn’t mean that you have to use them.  A fade transition has a nice, simple, feel.  Stick with it and it won’t let you down.

Now, I will admit that I have used other transitions, but I use them sparingly and for very specific effect.  For instance, the push transition works really well if you want to make it appear as if you haven’t moved to a new slide, but instead that text or a graphic on one slide is being pushed off the page to make room for a new text or graphic (just make sure the background is one flat colour).  Duarte Design created a great presentation that’s actually one of the built-in themes in PowerPoint 2010, which demonstrates another very cool use of the push transition (along with some very neat animation).

But for 90% of your presentations, just fade baby… fade away.

Sit or Stand During a Presentation?

Maybe I’m old school, but if you’re presenting something to an audience, then I think you should stand.  It looks more professional, it’s easier to hold the audience’s attention, you speak better, and it makes you PART of the presentation.  If you’re uncomfortable presenting, and think sitting would take the focus off you, then think again.    The only way to overcome that discomfort is to get up and start really presenting.  Sure it might take some time, and you definitely need to practice, practice, practice, but I promise you that you will get better.  One thing’s for sure, trying to keep a low profile by sitting is not helping you get better.

Now, let me just clarify what I mean by a presentation, because I think this is the thing that really answers the question of sit or stand.  If you are indeed PRESENTING something to an audience, for at least 3/4 of the time, then stand.  However, if what you are actually doing is holding a WORKING SESSION where you are presenting a portion of the content AND the audience is expected to talk more than 1/2 the allotted time, then sitting is the way to go.  There’s really practical reason for this.  Working sessions require you to take notes and capture the input of your audience – that’s tough to do while you’re standing (unless you’re using a flip chart or white board, then you’re back to standing anyway!).

So, now that we’ve got that out of the way, the next question is WHERE to stand during a presentation?