I have a PowerPoint presentation tomorrow to my thesis supervisors. I start with those bullet points ("I'm gonna talk about X, Y and Z today") and then have one slide per sub-point. I prefer little to no text - the slides should only support or summarize what I have to say. Any Goobster PowerPoint Power Tips for me? :)
EXCELLENT start! Use no font smaller than 20 points, and stay with 30pt if you want people to actually read something. (Projectors and displays are hard enough to read, as is.) Use "builds". Every word you put on the screen will be read by everyone in the room, faster than you can say it. Do not read the words. Hit the button, let the words display, count to 3 seconds, and then ADD to the words that are on the screen by speaking about the point shown on screen. ---- Reading what is on the screen is annoying to the audience, and makes them feel like you are treating them like children. ---- Give people a moment to read and digest your words. Then add something material to the idea. So sentences can be short, and even incomplete. Questions also work. For example, the bullet point on screen says: Traffic heat maps provide one valuable data vector Then you follow up with: "I also found it was important to map this data in conjunction with the size and number of floors of the buildings found at the "hottest" points in my map..." click to show next graph/data plot "Because a 20-story office building is obviously going to have heavier traffic than a 2-story one." --- Most people would present this as a couple of sentences and a big graphic of a heat map. But then you have to leave the audience time to read all the text, grok the image, re-read the text, and then re-assess the meaning of the heat map in light of the text. Yeah, my method can seem like you are spoon-feeding them, but there is a fine line here, and the end result is that you want them to take away 2 or 3 key things. So give them something valuable first. Then INCREASE the value of that information with more detail, or surrounding data. That gets people to the "a-ha!" moment faster, than if you wait for them to figure it out themselves. You can then refer to this a-ha moment in your conclusion, to remind them of this little discovery in your wrap up. Good luck with your presentation!!
>has 18pt font on multiple slides... Good point. I like your concept of builds - it's useful to approach presentation styles as UX design problems. I already do it sometimes but I don't think I am very good at pausing. Usually, I say something along the lines of "...and that leads me to...[click]...eh,...this next slide. [small pause] A part of my degree was a long series of company visits. Usually, they'd ask us students to divide in smaller groups, work on a small case study and present the results after an hour of giving it some thought. While others were thinking of excuses not to present, I usually didn't mind the practice and I ended up refining the bullet-point-method along the way. In high school I was deathly afraid of giving presentations, but now I'm comfortable giving presentations to small and medium sized groups and sometimes get compliments for it. What I don't know is how I can move on from here. How do I continue improving my presentation skills? What are some of the lessons you've learned more recently?
Really, the sad thing is to think like Twitter. People consume data in discrete chunks. This is true conceptually, biologically, and physically. Blinking is actually us cutting up our experience into discrete chunks, so our brain can process and store all the data. (That's an incomplete description of blinking, but accurate enough for the point.) So give them a fact, and a moment to process it. Stack another fact on top of that one. Give them a moment. Stack another one. Then stand back and have a general description for what you have built. Let them process that. So place a brick, place a brick, place a brick, then stand back and say, "pyramid!" Leave out the details. Be general. Get the broad strokes right. Point them in the right direction, but don't give them GPS coordinates. Then, stand back and let them ask questions. THAT's where you give them the detail. People learn better when THEY drive the process of inquiry. So if you give them waypoints on a map, and then let them ask "Hey, how do we cross this river between points C and D?", two things happen: 1. You are no longer the "presenter". You are having a conversation, with another person, about a topic you know VERY well. This will make you more natural, less stressed, and more interesting, all while standing on that (normally) terrifying stage. 2. The person actually learns more, and respects you more, because you were able to provide the answer to the question that they couldn't work out on their own. People try to present an excess of data, to prove their point, and all they do is bury the audience in confusing minutiae. Let them tease out the details with their questions. You can also use their questions as talking points, if they truly need further explanation, and the crowd is interested. Ideally, if you have a 15-minute slot, give them a 5-minute presentation and then answer questions for 10 minutes. You will have the highest rated talk of the day.