Communications Pro Blog

by Barbara L. Sherf

You’re either guilty, or you’ve been in a room when someone did one of these.

1) Reading bullet points from a slide.  (Hello, I have a college degree and we are avid readers.)  Tell us a story that goes with the bullet point, or use an example to make the point.  DO NOT READ YOUR POWERPOINT BULLET.  PERIOD.

2) Using photographs and clip art in the same presentation.  When in doubt, go with actual photographs instead of drippy Microsoft clip art.  We are in 2010.

3) Don’t Over Animate! Some animation can liven up a PPT, but know when to say when.  Have a colleague or speech coach critique your animation to tell you when enough is enough.

4) Practice, Practice, Practice – on somebody else, not me.  Don’t give a talk you haven’t given before to your target audience.  Find a group or a video camera to practice on to figure out what works and what doesn’t.  Get thee to a Toastmasters, a speech coach, or even the local nursing home to find an audience to practice in front of!  Just do it.

5) Do not stand in front of the beam of light coming from the projector.  Trust us, it just doesn’t look good…you are squinting and have text on your face.  Stand to one side or the other and face your audience.

6) Learn to troubleshoot your technology.  How many times have you seen a speaker not know how to set up the projector and then give a talk while looking off of their laptop.  One is too many!

7) Get advocates in the audience early on.  Assign someone the task of being your timer, your lighting person, your technical troubleshooter.  Do not get up and ask for volunteers once your talk begins.  Go over non-verbal cues with your timer to know whether to stretch or close your presentation.

Do use a formal evaluation form.  Participants will not give you corrective criticism to your face, but will do so if they are anonymous.

9) Graphs and charts that you can’t read on screen.  If you really feel the need to add a graph or chart, then use it as a handout or keep it simple on screen.

10) Using a variety of fonts and size fonts in one slide. Pick one easy to use font (Arial) and stick with it.  Period.

11) Use of too small of a font.  Use a 24 font size as a minimum.  Bigger is better.

12) Too many bullet points or information per slide.  Four bullet points tops.  Don’t write out a whole paragraph onscreen.  Learn to use and print your notes field.

13) Less is More: Give us the basic overview.  If we want more information, we will enroll in the second session…or seek out your consulting services on our own.  When we ask what time it is, don’t try to show us how you made the watch.

14) Lighter backgrounds are easier on the eyes (and the printer).  A dark background weighs everyone down.  Lighten it up and you’ll save your and our color ink cartridges and the environment.

15) Use your company logo and footer sparingly.  While we understand your need to have this on every slide, does it really need to overpower your message?  It should be seen subliminally, but not heard (or shouted) at the audience.

16) Decide early on whether you are going to take questions as you go, or hold them until the end.  We prefer the latter.  So many audiences jump around and ahead.  Set the ground rules early on and stick with them.

17) Don’t co-present with someone you are not comfortable with: IT SHOWS.  Big time.  You must have a certain comfort factor and chemistry with an individual you are going to get up on stage with.  If you don’t, go solo.  (see #4)

18) Involve your audience along the way.  We suggest investing in the Sharon Bowman book “How To Prevent Death by Lecture.”  Sharon is all about audience involvement…and so are we!

19) Please put your presentation through a spellchecker.  Once we see a typo, we are not paying attention to your message, but looking for other typos the whole time.  It’s annoying.  Thank you.

20) We again offer an evaluation form for those who don’t have one.  It’s free.  Learn from your mistakes.  That’s the only way you will become a better speaker (other than a bit of speech coaching, that is).

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