Les Posen’s “Presentation Magic” seminar is full of useful, common sense, tips for presenting with “Slideware”. A devote of Apples Keynote software, Les shows participants how not to kill with “PowerPoint” based on his knowledge, as a psychologist, of how we learn. There were several good take-homes from his presentation but I’ll limit myself to just one or two. The first of these sits well with my own philosophy that (depending on your audience) presentations should be entertaining. Show people what you are on about using appropriate images, video, audio etc.  If the audience wants to read about something they’ll buy a book, not attend a seminar. The other very important point Les made, one that I learned from studying instructional design, is not to split the audiences attention – e.g. If you have a large slab of text on the screen and you are talking about it, this will split the audience’s attention as some will be listening whilst others  reading.

Having worried over presentations in the past, especially whether I’ve included all the pertinent information or not, Les’ observation that no one else, besides you, knows what should/shouldn’t be in your presentation was a minor revelation. In future if I have to skip a slide or two due to time constraints or I don’t think I’ve manged to get all the information in and the half our presentation is looking more like a four day workshop I’m going to relax and start happily slashing and burning.

If I had anything negative to say about Les’ presentation it would be that he transgressed one of my own personal bug-bares, which is that the design of his slides was occasionally  inconsistent (a mixture of templates). For me this hurt his message a little.

Louise Mahler’s “Vocal Intelligence” presentation focuses on the human element of a presentation, i.e. you the presenter. Her knowledge of the physics of presenting; posture, breathing, eye movement/contact, body language etc. gleaned from her studies and alternate career as an opera singer, is invaluable. Next time I present I’ll take with me her various techniques for breathing/posture which can help to overcome the butterflys we all get in front of an audience. Suggestions for eye contact such as “one thought, one person” and the eternal problem of where to put ones hands when “at rest”, in front of yourself with one hand clasping the other wrist (not your crotch), will definitely come in handy .

Like many people I’m uncomfortable with audience participation so I found this aspect of Louise’s workshop confronting but if I’m going to put myself in front of an audience to present I should really just get over this.

All in all the only real downside to the event was that it was only a half day. I’m sure that Les and Louise could easily have done a half day each and still have more useful knowledge to impart.