As part of our assessment for human resource management we have had to give a presentation on different aspects (i.e benefits of offering paid maternity leave). The talks so far have been lack luster at best, with students not being able to answer questions directly relating to their topic, not speaking clearly and miss using slides.
Here are my five key tips:
Know your speech back to front - Seriously there is no excuse for not practicing a speech or talk at least 5 - 10 times. If you don't know what you are saying, you will mumble and constantly look at your cue cards. If you are looking at your cards, you can't look at people in the eye and they will soon lose interest. It's also next to impossible to project your voice when your head is facing towards your hands.
Know your topic better than your speech - Don't just spend all your time learning your speech, you need to understand what you are talking about. Otherwise it will show. If you are giving a speech on web 2.0 then emerge yourself in everything web 2.0. Then when it comes time to construct your speech you will be able to give some true insight. Also you are less likely to 'lose your way' when you actually know what you are talking about. No more mumbling looking through your scrappy notes for where you are up to.
Give everybody a copy of the presentation after the speech - If you give it to them before hand, they won't listen to you and they will just read the hand out. If you don't give them a copy of it at all, they will spend the whole time scribbling down notes and not listening to you.
Keep your slides short/use pictures - Slides/powerpoints are supposed to give the audience an alternate way to see your message. For example if you are talking about the devastating effects of oil spills, use a photo on your slide. Please please please don't put huge amounts of text on your slides, the audience will read them rather than listening to you. Keep it to a maximum of three points per slide.
Keep it short and allow for lots of question time - You need to keep your presentation short so you don't overload your audience with information. If it goes to long you run the risk of them not retaining any of your content at all. Also you need to allow for plenty of Q&A time, the best rule of thumb is 1/4th of alloted presentation time should be kept for Q&A.
Bonus: Read more about great presenting skills here (Guy Kawasaki) and this (Seth Godin) if you want to be a great audience member.
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