Jul 19 2010

Ensure Your PowerPoint Presentation Spurs Discussion

Don't be a slave to your PowerPoint slides! (c)Thinkstock

Don't be a slave to your PowerPoint slides! (c) Thinkstock

You have an important internal presentation coming up where you’re going to present to a group of senior managers at your company. Here’s your big chance to make a great impression and land the promotion you’ve been after. You’re excited to learn that they’re going to give you a full hour. You invest a lot of time in creating the perfect presentation. However, as you finish your last slide right before the hour is up, you realize you made a critical mistake — you left no time for group discussion. As your audience quickly files out the door to their next appointment, you’re left wondering if you should have structured your PowerPoint presentation differently. Continue reading “Ensure Your PowerPoint Presentation Spurs Discussion”

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Apr 07 2009

Attack of the Bad Presenters! Part II

In my previous article, I discussed how we encounter several different types of bad presenters. I covered the first five presenter types in Part I, and now I’m going to profile the next five naughty presenters. As I mentioned in the last article, conduct a little self-evaluation and survey of your peers to ensure you don’t fall into one of these “bad presenter” types. Continue reading “Attack of the Bad Presenters! Part II”

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Apr 03 2009

Attack of the Bad Presenters! Part I

After you have sat through a few hundred PowerPoint presentations, you start to see patterns in the presenters that you encounter. Hopefully, you have come across some truly inspired presenters that delivered memorable, meaningful presentations. Unfortunately, for every one great presenter you stumble upon, you may run into 15-20 bad presenters along the way (not including 30-50 average presenters). Continue reading “Attack of the Bad Presenters! Part I”

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Dec 02 2008

13 Ways to Quickly Derail a PowerPoint Presentation — Part II

In my previous blog post, I presented seven of 13 missteps that a business presenter can make which can ruin a PowerPoint presentation in the first five minutes or less. Here are the final six mistakes to avoid: Continue reading “13 Ways to Quickly Derail a PowerPoint Presentation — Part II”

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Nov 29 2008

13 Ways to Quickly Derail a PowerPoint Presentation — Part I

Avoid derailing your PowerPoint presentation. Start strong, build momentum, and don't let up!

Most presentation experts would agree that it is important to have a strong opening to your business presentation. Your audience will give you five minutes or less (usually less) to determine if your presentation is worth listening to or not. They may not physically leave your presentation (that would be rude), but if your audience is unimpressed, disappointed, or annoyed, they will disengage mentally. Suddenly, their iPhone/BlackBerry or the doodling in their notepad becomes more important to them than what you’re presenting. Continue reading “13 Ways to Quickly Derail a PowerPoint Presentation — Part I”

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