Presentations

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

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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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Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out – recent presentations

by David Lee King on October 4, 2010

Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out: Trends, Transformations & Change in Libraries

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I recently gave my Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out presentation at Lawrence Public Library in Kansas, and at three fun events in Wisconsin. A couple of them were longer, 3-hour talks, and the other two were shorter – this Slideshare slidedeck is for the 3-hour version of the presentation.

All 4 were fun talks with lots of great discussion afterwards. Lawrence and Wisconsin – thanks!

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Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out Presentations

by David Lee King on May 17, 2010

Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out: Trends, Transformations, and Libraries

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The last couple of weeks, I’ve given my Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out presentation a few times. On May 6, I gave the three-hour version at the “Social Media For the Social Good” event hosted by ohioNET and the Ohio Library Council.

I gave the two-hour version (embedded above) at Omaha Public Library on May 14. Both were fun times – lots of good discussion, and lots of nice people, too.

thanks ohioNET and Omaha Public Library!

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Thank you, Anythink Libraries!

by David Lee King on October 13, 2009

Freak Out, Geek Out, Or Seek Out: Trends, Transformations & Change in Libraries

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Yesterday, I spoke at TechFest for Anythink Libraries in the Denver metro area. Cool place! They have completely re-worked their library brand, they have dumped Dewey, and are quickly picking up speed learning about technology (just the fact that their staff inservice day was called “Techfest” is a testament to that!). Keep an eye on this library – they’re doing some pretty cool things.

It was a fun presentation to do for a dynamic group of people. So thanks, Anythinkers!

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Wisconsin Presentations

by David Lee King on August 31, 2009

Freak Out, Geek Out, or Seek Out: Emerging Trends, Transformations and Change in Libraries

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I gave a couple of presentations last week, at the South Central Library System in Madison, WI and at a library unconference in Stevens Point, WI. Both were a blast! The above presentation is the main presentation I did – this is the longer, 2-hour version (I gave a 1-hour version at the unconference).

I also gave a Designing the Digital Experience talk at the unconference.

Thanks, Wisconsin libraries, for the invitation to speak – you guys really started some fun conversations!

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Presentations in Garland, TX

by David Lee King on August 17, 2009

Garland libraryLast Friday, I spoke at the Nicholson Memorial Library System in Garland, TX (a suburb of Dallas). It was a fun time – nice library, great people wanting to learn new things. Can’t beat that!

I spoke at their annual Staff Day, and gave two presentations: one on emerging trends, and one on change (both whopping 3-hour presentations). Both are embedded below.

Towards the end of the day, we poked around on the web a bit, and played with some of the websites I talked about in the presentations. So – for the Garland folks – here’s a list of websites we played with:

And for the presentations (fyi – for those wanting to see both presentations, click through to the actual post. For some reason, posting two embedded Slideshare presentations in the same posts makes the second embed disappear int he RSS feed version of my post):

Emerging Trends, 2.0 & Libraries

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And the afternoon presentation:

Fishing in the Rivers of Change … While Wearing Your Hip Boots

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Thanks, Nicholson Memorial Library System!

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