The Art of Presentation – Part II of III

This is part 2 (of 3) of the article. The first part of this series dealt with high level aspects of giving a great presentation. Now, on to the meat of the discussion - your briefing!

It’s a tricky task – developing your briefing. The briefings are all different kinds and geared towards conveying your message to a particular audience and occasion. However, there are a few key concepts that never change. I’ll try to outline those below.

One thing to remember is – Never, ever, take the task of developing your briefing lightly. This is a very important aid at your disposal and must be utilized wisely. This is tool utilized by experts to – convey details on your products, details on your concepts, details about your plan (among others). Most times, the slides that you present are intended to be used in case your verbal capability fails to capture the descriptions.

Here are a few ideas to help you with your briefing material -

1. Each presentation must have an objective and a conclusion. And there should be nothing new in conclusion that you have not discussed in the body of the presentation.
2. Make sure your slides have less text and more graphics. The more words you cram on a slide, the less interesting it will get.
   • Only use text when completely necessary – Only text should be the one to emphasize what you are going to say verbally. Unless you are quoting someone or providing legal words that you will be going through in grave details – Do not write too much text on your slides. If you are making a sales pitch on your product, get a copy of the pamphlet separately for the audience.
   • Only use 6 to 7 lines of text (maximum) on each slide.
   • Don’t go nuts with different fonts and colors. Be selective and chose a few – stick to them throughout the presentation.
   • If your text size on the briefing is less than 16 and more than 32 – Something is not right.
3.  Make sure your name, company’s name, company logo, slide number, and date appear on each slides – They have a life of their own and so you must have a reference of when you created these slides. Each slide should also contain any intellectual property information (if applicable).
4. Personally, I hate people when they use blank slides with no traces of dates and authors information. Some people do this to stay under the radar, but I think it is a spinless move and we should always take responsibility for what we write.
5.  The briefing should be self containing – The information should be ether in the slides on the back-up slides. Expand all acronyms.
6.  NEVER – EVER have the equations on your slides unless completely necessary (like when you are defending you thesis or something or making a big case for the conventional equations to change – A unifying theory of relativity and uncertainty may be). I have seen folks go through an entire mathematical derivation on a slide – that a no no ... If someone needs the details – give it to them separately.
7.  Each slide should have a ‘bumper sticker’ – A one liner that is the TAKE AWAY MESSAGE from the slide. Unless there is one for the slide that you are preparing – Don’t include that slide in your briefing.
8.  Add all the details about your presentation as backup. If and when a question comes up on the details, bring it up, only if really necessary. Like I said previously, if someone asks a question that takes more than a few lines to answer – take it outside.
9.  Write in the corner of the briefing where (on your computer or your network) your briefing resides.
10. Always include date and your name, phone and e-mail on your briefing (unless you don’t want to find you). In case you don’t want to be identified, at least include your organization or company information.
11.  For a high level briefing (When you are trying to impress folks above your immediate supervisor) – always include a BLUF slide – Bottom Line Up Front i.e. More like an executive summary for the presentation. I find this to be a very effective when folks are short on time.
12.  I found PDF to be the best way to transport your slides. The recent popularity of Apple products have made the PowerPoint compatibility a bigger issue. Sometimes, you may also have to carry the hard copies, in case you are making a critical pitch.

Part III of the series will be coming soon and we will be discussing how to manage your audience as well as your talk.