Presentations!!!

I don't do a lot of presentations, but maaaan I've had to sit thru plenty (studies and work-wise). One tip I would definitely recommend is for printing the presentation ... I'm not sure exactly how you would do this (maybe those Powerpoint gurus out there can offer some help?), but it is something that i've seen in presentations handed to me and I find REALLY useful ... if you could print the slides 2-up, with the bottom half of the page being just a simple "text-entry-like" box for the purpose of note-making, I found that helped me to make notes about some of the bullet-points.

What I've sometimes found with bullet-point presentations that perhaps didn't contain "all the relevant information", was that when I went back to them at a later date, I had no idea what some of the bullet-points were about!?

But on the printed presentations with a nice big space for note-taking, it allows the audience to make notes at the time of the presentation for future reference - something that helped me immensely during my studies (from an audience/pupil perspective).

Oh and obviously if you're gonna do this - hand out the notes BEFORE the presentation

What they said,

And have a conclusion/summary slide. but don't mention any new things in your summary slide, it's just a wrap up of the presentation as a whole.

Generally the guidelines on unversity/marked presentations are of the 10% rule - you can go 10% of the time over or under, after that they get hacked off. So make sure your sentences are precise and brief.

I have always been told NEVER to look at the projector screen - you will no doubt have a laptop or some sort of smaller screen in front of you so don't turn your back on your audience to double check every slide has come up on the big one. If you are using a pointing device, then obviously looking at the screen is no big deal, but it's not your sole audience.

Smile, be jovial, it'll all be ok. And good luck.

xx

OK, the basics have been covered by others so I'll just add to them...

... if you've got something complecated, like a table, graph, or (heaven forbid) a spreadsheet or anything else containing maths have a 'pack' of printouts to give to people at the beginning. Then when you get to that point in your presentation, mention that it can be refered to... obviously if you're handing out copies of the whole thing then you don't need to do specific pages.

Fonts - pick ONE and stick to it. Use a bold version, italicised and underline, but don't have a mess of loads of different fonts.
San serif fonts (Ariel, Helvetica etc) are far better in Powerpoint that serif (Times etc).

Don't use a drop shadow on any text - far from highlighting it or making it stand out it just messes with people's eyes.

However, DO make sure your pictures have some form of frame, not too heavy, just something that clearly marks the edges. Drop shadow on them can be OK.

And the biggy, if you can, don't rely on Powerpoint as your only tool - in the dark after x number of presentations, people get dozy.
Keep them alert - if you can, get someone to assist you by standing by the lightswitch. At some point part way through, request the lights be put back on and actually show them something. Something physical, tactile, a break form a dark room and a screen.

Take your crash helmet in, with a plastic tray and a plant mister - spray water on it so they can actually physically see the point you are trying to make. Beats a photo any day.

Then you ask for the lights to be dimmed again as you proceed to the next point.

It breaks the monotony a treat and shows that you have really thought about how best to get you information across.


The above is from a past as a graphic designer and having to make presentations to clients (who generally knew what they wanted once you'd told it too them and made it sound like their idea ) as well as coaching our first group presentation on my degree course.
We aced it by the way.

[embee]

Great advice above.

Keep it simple, less is more.

The 3 phase rule is good advice
1 - this is what I'm going to tell you
2 - I'm telling you
3 - this is what I've just told you.

K, thats a great idea about taking my helmet in and wetting it for all the people to see what the problem is. I'll ask if thats ok to do; my project supervisor said its a scientific presentation....but I dont see why it has to be stale and boring like many scientific presentations!

If i had it my way, I'd ride the SV into the room as my big entrance

Matt

Originally Posted by Speedy Claire

I do a quite of a lot of power point presentations and research has proven that the best colours to use are a pale yellow background with dark blue or black wording. Would echo all of the above points and would also add if you`re new to power point keep the effects simple ie. fading, zooming. I use verdana or tahoma, the size of the font depends on how much info is gonna be on your slide. Headings i always make a bit bigger and in bold. If you like pm me an i`ll email you one of my presentations to give you an idea

Lol, I love the irony of your annoying pink text.

Good advice.

Very sorry... is just a habit, have been using pink text on another bike forum for 4 years now. Will change it from now on

[yorkie_chris]

Don't spend all your time on doing fancy zooms and effects, right pain.

Don't know a thing about power point, there alwasy seems to be someone better than me at it.

Just wanted to say Good Luck Its an awesome idea.

[northwind]

Fill it with as many zooms, wipes, spins and other superfluous w**k as you possibly can, like George Lucas.

Personally I always use my slides/powerpoint/whatever as my cheat sheets too- using notes always bumps me out of my groove but I try to contruct the overheads so that they'll keep me on track as well as the mark. Works for me, your mileage may vary. I'm a good editor so I always hone the slides down to the least possible information to still make the point suitably- too much stuff on screen distracts people from you, it should be a support for the presenter and the audience but it shouldn't take over. IMO

Couldn't agree more about demonstrating the results- are you using a traditional overhead, or a video table? Either way, if you're presenting to more than a handful of people I'd see if there's any practical way to demo it on the screen.

And I still think you should try and get a shot from inside the helmet. Even if it means mounting it on your handlebars with a camera inside it No amount of pictures with pretty beads on it will be as effective as a dog's eye view.

This one, maybe you shouldn't use, but it might be useful to think of the other applications- ie, "While this has been developed with bikes in mind blah blah, it could have other more widespread uses in marine/aviation industries..." that sort of thing. But then that might just divert attention.