The Mobile Presenter

I wrote a guest post for CTOvision last week, on why we need to reconsider how we do technical presentations. I'm happy to see that it seems to have resonated with quite a few people. Thanks for all the comments, tweets, etc. :)

Now, it does usually take me 2 hours to explain how to do "better" presentations. So instead of trying to cram that into 800 words, I decided to be somewhat provocative in order to get people to think about how they approach preparing their own presentations.

Inevitably, some people who do know a bit more about the topic chimed in and some seem to have taken it the wrong way. As one person on Twitter put it, 20 slides of memes and poor photos don't make for a good presentation.

I attended a low-key concert recently. The opening act was a young man with an acoustic guitar. Nobody in the audience was familiar with his music. At the end of each song there was this awkward pause: Was that it? Can we clap now?

Presentations often end like that - they have no clear ending. Don't do that. Do something that tells your audience: I'm done, you can applaud now.

In the unlikely event that you haven't heard of this TED talk yet and haven't seen it either, I strongly suggest that you head over to the TED website now and watch it before you read on. It'll be well worth your 13:40 minutes, I promise.

It has become a familiar sight for those who know me: When I'm busy sticking Post-it notes on my desk or whiteboard, I must be working on a presentation. I found that Post-its have two main uses in preparing a talk: For brainstorming and as early drafts of my slides.

At a conference, your audience will usually sit for most of the day. So, understandably, they may become sleepy and have trouble following your talk. Have you considered adding some short physical exercise to your presentation, to make them wake up?

Interacting with your audience can mean a lot of different things. You could ask them a question and to shout out the answer or to use hand signs. Or you can make them do short exercises, in groups or on their own. But all of those interactions are usually done sitting down. Consider an activity where they have to stand up and move.