I’ve seen more than my share of awful presentations. The last thing I ever want to do is give one. Here are the most important things I’ve learned.

1. Get rid of all the text.

Use relevant/emotional/funny images instead. Save the bullets for your presenter notes (or write them on notecards).

Bullet points actually decrease an audience member’s ability to learn.

As an audience member, if you read the slide, the speaker is a distraction. If you listen to the speaker, the slide is a distraction. If the slides repeat everything the speaker says, why bother going to the session when you can read about it in a blog post the next day, or download the slide deck from SlideShare?

If you must use text, use as few words as possible, in as large a font as possible, and split multiple points across multiple slides. Don’t cram them all onto one.

2. Think like a storyteller.

Open your session with the “trailer” version of the talk—summarize it up front with a compelling and enticing teaser. Then go deep.

Don’t just list out point after point. Weave together a cohesive “story”, using a thesis, supporting points, and a compelling conclusion.

Make a single point, and use your whole time slot to do it. If you do this, that single point will be remembered. Your talk will be remembered. You will be remembered.

3. Use whitespace.

Leave room to be funny. Tell relevant side-stories. Answer a quick question. Stop talking for 5 seconds to let a point sink in (it may seem like an eternity to you, but to the audience, it’s just enough time to digest an idea).

Think of presentations like a jazz tune. Figure out what the major points are, and where the story starts and ends, but once you’ve done that, leave plenty of room to improvise. Let’s face it—you’ll end up improvising at some point no matter how well you’ve prepared. This way, you can plan for it.

Leave room to be yourself. You’re not a talking head—you’re a person. And the audience will connect to you as a person far better than they will as a talking head.

4. Save the documentation for later.

If there’s tangible support information you want to give out to the audience, don’t use bullet points in your slides to communicate it. Post the information in a follow-up blog post or other web page (Squidoo is good for this) and give out the URL during the session.

Write it up beforehand, post it on the day you speak, and then tell the audience how to find it.

5. Involve the audience.

Sessions that get the audience involved often earn the best ratings and feedback. Audience participation keeps everyone awake and engaged. And it often makes you the most interesting speaker of the day.

You can pull a volunteer up on stage to help you make a point (or a whole chunk of the audience), take questions after each major point instead of all at once at the end, ask an audience member a series of questions that help you make a point, or any number of other things. Just get them involved.

None of these ideas are new, but they’re all vitally important to great presentations. Think about the best and worst speakers you’ve seen. I’m betting the best ones applied the ideas on this list, and the worst ones did the opposite.

Posted by Robert on June 5th, 2008