A recent post over at the 6Minutes blog (by Andrew Dlugan, @6minutes) broke down some survey data gathered by Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan) about speaker Do's and Don'ts. I thought the findings were GREAT and many of the responses were insightful and spot-on. If you're a presentation newbie, this is one of the best resources to learn the best traits of effective presenters.
Some of my favorites were (my thoughts in italic):
- Involve the audience; Make your presentation a conversation (a.k.a. a two-way street)
- Focus on the message; avoid lengthy self-promotion
- Provide useful handouts (not just slides) - in other words, create a takeaway separate from your presentation slides. Don't fall into the trap of creating a slideument
- Know your audience
- Don't go over time; Leave more time for Q&A
- Don't read your slides, they're not a script
There are plenty more, and Andrew took the time to separate them into more defined meta-groups as well. Hop over to his blog to read the entire post, but make sure you come back!
-JT
