Presentation Dos & Don'ts

Without any further a -do (see what we did there…), here are our key do’s and don’ts for a successful presentation.

Do…
Practice, practice, practice. Unfortunately, sometimes mothers do know best. Even if you’ve spent weeks painstakingly crafting every word of your speech, you’ll always find it sounds different when read out aloud. Rehearsing with a friendly colleague, family member, or obedient pet (we’re not fussy), and having a walk-through once you’re on site will help you to master your moment.

Don’t…
Wing it. Unless your speciality is improv, it pays to do a bit of preparation beforehand. Maybe you work better without a full script, but spending even a bit of time thinking through the structure of your speech, and the main points you want to get across will save you and your audience a lot of pain (not to mention a lot of ‘umm-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’)

Do…
Vary your pace and rhythm. Your audience is pretty much guaranteed to tune out and start thinking about what they’re going to have for dinner if you deliver slides of bullet points in much the same monotone voice throughout. So try alternating text slides with images, graphs, polls and video clips. And let your enthusiasm about your chosen topic shine through –if you sound interested and passionate everyone’s going to be listening.

Don’t…
Be afraid to hold your silence. There’s something very powerful about a speaker who doesn’t rush their speech, but stops to let their point sink in at key moments. (Plus, if you’ve lost your place it gives you a couple of seconds to get your bearings back).

Do…
Make it interesting. There’s a whole world of event technology out there just waiting to make your life easier and your audience more engaged; everything from Eventbrite for registration, to etouches for event management, to using Glisser’s own technology for live polling, audience Q&A, and better data capture. If it’s your first time start slowly by introducing just one thing that you’ll do differently the next time you present.

Don’t…
Go for the Death by PowerPoint option. It’s a cliché but it seems people still feel the urge to cram as much information as they can into their slides to prove their credibility. For presentations we follow the one thought per one slide school of thought – try it and let us know how you find it.

Do…
Involve your audience. We founded Glisser because we wanted to change events from being a one-directional lecture into a two way conversation. Noone consumes content online passively these days – if you visit the BBC’s website these days you can share, like, comment on and socialise all the content you see. So remember to get your audience interacting with your content – use Glisser to poll, let your audience like slides, keep content, and ask questions. Make sure you leave enough time for Q&A at the end of your event. And if you’re using a hashtag for the event encourage your audience to tweet.

Don’t…
Try and be too funny. Humour and wit yes, all-out jokes probably not. It’s impossible to know how your room full of strangers will react. We use our memories of the last Best Man’s speech we had to sit through to curb our urge to imitate stand-up comedians during on-stage speeches…