January 2011

10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Rehearse!

by David Lee King on January 27, 2011

Tip #8: rehearse!

I always do a dry run-through of my presentations the evening before I give them. If it’s a longer, multi-hour seminar, I probably won’t – but I WILL look through my slides, give some thought to how long each section should run, make sure I have time for Q&A at appropriate places, etc.

But if it’s an hour-long presentation or under? Yep – I’ll probably run through it once or twice. I know – some of you are saying “well, gee David. Glad that works for you – but I don’t need to do that.”

Really? Sure, your presentation might be fine. Yay for you. But I’m guessing this – if you DID rehearse, even just a little bit – your presentation would be that much better.

For the rest of us – if you don’t rehearse, it shows. Here’s why I rehearse:

  • To make sure my transitions work.
  • to make sure my timing is accurate (ever seen someone get the 5-minute warning at the end of a presentation, and they freak out because they still have 20 slides to go over? Sure sign that person didn’t rehearse).
  • To practice saying any specific things I want to say, and to make sure I can actually talk coherently over each of my points.
  • OK – and to feel better about the whole thing, too.

So go rehearse – your presentations will rock that much more if you do.

Pic by Suzy Glass

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Tidy up those Transitions

by David Lee King on January 25, 2011

Tip #7: Work on Introductions, Transitions, and conclusions.

Intros, conclusions, and transitions have always been a challenge for me – in writing and in speaking! In college, me professors frequently said “David, you need a transition here” or “you need a stronger conclusion.” So I’ve been working really hard on those transitions.

And I’ve noticed that I’m not alone. I’ve seen more than one presentation where the presenter was introduced, then starts their slides with an uncomfortable “um … I guess let’s get started now” and jumps right into the presentation. Or when they’re done, they end with a weird smile and a “um, I’m done now” (I have to admit, I’ve done that myself).

They’re not really that hard to do, either. Here’s what you’ll see me do:

Intros:

  • Usually, someone announces who you are. If they don’t, take a minute to introduce yourself. It gets you used to talking, and gets the audience used to you
  • You might start off with a question, or a statement (sort of a statement of purpose for the presentation). Then briefly cover what you’re going to talk about.

Transitions:

  • also easy. At the end of one point, flow into the next point with something that relates to it. Or at the least, say something like “we just learned about this. Next up, let’s talk about this for awhile.”
  • These transitions make it easy for people to follow along or take notes.
  • If you like to walk around while giving a presentation, it helps visually to actually move to another spot while making your transition
  • And of course, show something like “point #2” up on the screen if you’re using slides.

Conclusions:

  • Remind people what they just learned – something like “we’ve just covered these 5 things.”
  • Then I like to end with some broad statement about what can happen if you put these ideas into practice (ie., “put these easy steps into practice and you’re bound to improve your website and make your customers happy” or something like that).
  • Actually have an “I’m done now” slide. I wrote a book and have a blog, so my last slide says “Thank You,” shows my book cover, and displays my website’s URL.
  • If you know you’ll have a question and answer time afterwards, you might just show something like “Q & A time” on a slide, then say “it’s time for questions.”

Improve those transitions – I promise to work on them too!

Pic by dnnya17

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Do What you Said You’d Do

by David Lee King on January 21, 2011

Tip #6: Talk about … what the program description says you’re going to talk about.

Has anyone ever read the description of a presentation, thought “that sounds interesting, I think I’ll attend it” … and then left highly disappointed, because the presenter didn’t actually cover what the description said they’d cover?

Yep. Me too. And that has never made any sense to me. Guess who writes those descriptions? Usually, it’s the presenter.

So presenters – if you say you’re going to cover five tips in your presentation, or answer three questions, or mention a list of take-aways … actually include those things in your presentation!

I know, I know – lightening-fast changes in technology mean that … well … technology changes. And if you’re presenting about technology, well darn – your presentation content might have just changed up a week before you actually present it.

In that case, make sure your description and your list of take-aways are general enough that they still make sense in 6 months time. When writing your description, don’t say things like “you’ll learn how to use Delicious.com to make web-based bookmarks (because that service might disappear). Instead, say something like “I’ll teach you how to create web-based bookmarks using the best tools available” or “… using tools like delicious.com.” See the difference?

So presenters – go clean up those descriptions!

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Use Screenshots

by David Lee King on January 18, 2011

Tip #5: Use screenshots, not the live web.

I’ve seen this (and experienced it, too) – someone wants to show off their new website or a new web tool during a presentation. So they go to the site, and then discover the either the conference center’s web access is down, or it’s not fast enough to handle the demonstration.

Then the presenter is stuck – that part of the presentation depended on the web actually working! Darn it.

Here’s the solution – use screenshots. The live web isn’t predictable … especially when you’re standing in front of a room full of people … and will most definitely slow you down during a presentation. Even if web access is working great, using it during a presentation will still most likely slow the presentation down as you wait for the next page to load.

So if you can, use screenshots to get your point across. Screenshots often work fine during a presentation, and can speed things along. They also give you the option to be a bit creative. For example, int he screenshot accompanying this post, I took a screenshot of a website, and then layered some text and soem arrows to help get my point across.

Obviously, sometimes you will need to go to the live web – training sessions or in-depth “how does this work” sessions pretty much require the real thing. But in most other cases screenshots probably work just as well, if not better.

Something to think about!

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Learn Your PC

by David Lee King on January 14, 2011

Tip #4: Learn how to use your PC (or the PC you’ll be using for the presentation)

I have to admit it – it bugs me when someone stands up in front of everyone – especially at a tech conference – accidentally moves to the next slide … and can’t figure out how to go back to the previous slide.

They get all flustered, blame “technology,” and finally decide to solve the problem by getting out of presentation mode, finding the proper slide, then restarting the presentation. Or by just skipping that slide.

I get it – when we’re standing up in front of people giving a presentation, it’s weird – and we sometimes get a bit flustered when things go wrong. That makes sense.

Because of that, I’d suggest this – take 10 minutes to figure out that PC, and the software you’re using for the presentation. Find all the different ways to advance slides (spacebar, arrow keys, etc). Figure out how to go back to the previous slide (as in the left/right arrow keys).

If you’re planning to do some slightly advanced stuff like playing a video, either in-presentation or not, make sure you test it multiple times – in your office AND on stage. Make sure you know how to turn up the audio.

Do this little bit of prep work, and you’ll look that much more confident and knowledgeable. That weird feeling you get when you’re doing a speaking gig? It’ll still be there (the only way to get rid of that is lots of experience or being an uber-extrovert) … but at least you’ll know how to go back to that slide you just skipped!

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Use Presenter View

by David Lee King on January 13, 2011

Tip #3 – use the Presenter View during your presentations!

The image above is my presentation … in presenter view. I always use presenter view (unless I’m doing a webinar from my office). Here’s why:

  • Presenter view (in Keynote anyway) displays two slides at once, so I know what’s coming up next
  • presenter view has those notes I mentioned in Tip #2 – so if there’s something I want to say a certain way, I can simply glance down at my notes on the screen – pretty handy!
  • Notice the timer in the upper right hand corner? Huge help for making sure I stay on schedule.

If you get too wordy in the presenter notes box, you have two options: 1. a scroll bar will appear – sorta awkward on the fly, but it will work; 2. break that idea into multiple slides. You can even use a copy of the current slide – it won’t change what anyone sees, but your notes will change “behind the scenes.”

Pretty tricky thing, that presenter view!

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New Presentation: Creating Community Experience Using Mostly Free Stuff and Staff

by David Lee King on January 11, 2011

Creating Community Experience using mostly free stuff & staff

View more presentations from David King.

Here’s the Slideshare version of a presentation I did for Proquest at the ALA MidWinter 2011 meeting. It was a fun presentation to do – I was experimenting with creating recurring themes throughout the presentation, and working on my transitions.

I think it worked well. Enjoy!

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Use Presenter Notes

by David Lee King on January 11, 2011

Tip # 2 – always use presenter notes!

The image above shows one of my slides, and the slide’s presenter notes. I LOVE presenter notes! I mentioned one handy use for the presenter notes section in Tip #1 – using them to store the outline of your presentation while you customize your slides.

But the presenter notes section really shines if you actually use it during your presentation. Ever watched someone give a presentation using a laptop and PowerPoint … but they also had a bunch of paper notes that they shuffled through and read? There’s really no need to do that … if you use the presenter notes part of your software.

Both PowerPoint and Keynote have this feature. Basically, I put the stuff I really want to say in the presenter notes box of each slide, rather than actually on the slide itself.

Doing this allows me to use the actual slide to accompany the presentation … rather than allowing my slide to BE the actual presentation (we’ll get to that idea a little later on). I’ll find an image, or a couple of words, that highlight the main points of my actual presentation, and put them on the slide, rather than my whole outline for that point.

Then I use the presenter notes as a memory aid during my presentation. If there’s a phrase I want to say a certain way – I put that phrase in the presenter notes box. If there’s a number that I can’t remember … it goes in the presenter notes box.

To me, that presenter notes box is one of the most useful tools in Keynote (my presentation software of choice).

How about you? Do you use the presenter notes box? What do you use it for? Please share!

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10 Tips to Do Presentations Like Me: Don’t Use Templates

by David Lee King on January 7, 2011

People tell me they like the way I do presentations … so I thought I’d share some tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way.

Tip #1: Don’t Use Templates

Ever. They are evil. Well, ok – they’re probably not that bad. But they sure do suck the creativity out of creating a slide deck!

Generally, I start with a clean, blank slide. I remove all the text boxes, title boxes, etc. Or just pull up an actual blank slide.

For backgrounds/themes, I usually just use a simple white, black, or gradient background (though once in awhile I’ll use a fun textured background that I find somewhere – it really depends on my mood).

From there, I actually drop parts of my outline into the presenter notes part of the slide (so I still have a blank slide). Then I start figuring out what words are important enough to actually use for the slide, and decide what type of image might work best on the slide, to support the point I’m trying to make.

Then I start dropping text and images onto the slide. I usually stick with 1-2 font styles, and make heavy use of layering and shadows (so parts of the slide “pop” out at you).

The image accompanying this blog post is the title slide to my newest presentation (giving it this Sunday at ALA Midwinter). White background, fancy font with a shadow, and some images (that relate back to the three main points of my presentation).

Simple, yet effective. And fun, too (if you like creating slide decks anyway).

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Library Renewal is needed!

by David Lee King on January 4, 2011

Have you heard about Library Renewal? It’s a new non-profit organization focused on making access to and distribution of electronic content much easier and accessible for libraries and library customers.

Sounds simple, huh?

I’m on the board of Library Renewal, and just posted my first blog post explaining why I’m a part of it – here’s that blog post!

Why am I involved in Library Renewal? Really, the question should be “how could I NOT be involved in Library Renewal?”

Because I think the biggest, most important battle in the library industry for this next decade isn’t social media, or what we do on our library websites – it’s how we access and distribute econtent to our patrons.

Our customers obviously want electronic content – the recent “after Christmas rush” of patrons wanting to download econtent actually spiked and slowed down the Overdrive ebook service! Yep – our patrons are ready for econtent and ebook readers.

But that’s only one place to go for content – what about all those easy-to-use consumer services out there like Netflix, or Amazon, or even Apple’s iTunes? Those are the places most people go to for econtent – they work great, they’re easy to use, and they’re relatively affordable.

… And they pretty much lock libraries out of the equation. That’s not good, and I want to help change that. And I think Library Renewal has the potential to be a major change agent in the whole econtent arena.

So here I am – should be a fun ride!

If you’re interested in Library Renewal, make sure to subscribe to the blog for updates, and join in the fledgling community on Facebook and Twitter. Much more to come!

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