You’re probably familiar with the idea of storytelling to create a better presentation. But your stories could turn to nightmares and haunt you if you don’t avoid these traps in your presentation.
4. Taking a slide from your last presentation, a few from Bob’s, pasting in quotes from the web and inserting charts from a report is the equivalent of robbing body parts and stitching them together. You may have the juice to make it come alive, but it’s still ugly.
5.
6. There is no one “right” way to present.
Understand what type of presenter you are and let you and PowerPoint work as a double act. Build on your strengths and let PowerPoint cover your weaknesses.
7.
8. A slide without a point is a big, shapeless blob.
It doesn’t direct your attention, it fails to tell you what you need to know, it washes over an audience. Make sure your slides have a point. Make sure you know what that point is, and sharpen it.
9.
10. “leverage a best practice on cloud asset utilization…”
It may make you feel smart saying it, but trust me the audience doesn’t get it.
Corporate pig latinkills your message.
It’s the scary opposite of a deliberate wordhack, which entices and intrigues.
11.
12. Make the font
big and legible. If you have a lot of detail that needs to fit on a page, PRINT and hand it out. It’s not for your slide deck.
The 8ft Rule can help you avoid this mistake.
13.
14. Defaulting to labels instead
of headlines doesn’t help
you, or your audience.
Turn the label
into a headline
so your audience knows
at a glance the point
you’re trying to make.
Back it up with evidence.
15.
16. No one likes bullets except a lazy presenter. There are times when they work, but in this case, it’s not one bullet that kills, it’s the clipful. More than 3 on a slide,
you may want to begin exercising a little control.