This is the last post I’ll write drawing presentation advice from Star Wars, mainly because I can’t get any other ideas. But I think that 5 posts are nothing to be shy about!

I think the movie industry, in general, and the internet have spoiled us. We watch a lot of movies where the beginning is really the end, you have flashbacks in the middle… on the internet everything jumps from one link to another without any sort of order; and this all affects us. I can still remember my teachers at university telling me how the generation that grew up with internet has a lot of problems when it comes to structuring our ideas. We have difficulty with the basic structure of introduction, development and resolution. I don’t really know why, but it has something to do with hyperlinks and movies that start with the ending, that’s for sure.

So, going back to Star Wars, in presentations we do start from the beginning. Logical, right? What does this mean? Just like Lucas put gave us the context with “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” We have to give our audience the context for our presentation. Don’t start your presentation from the middle, or by the ending; start by explaining to the audience where they are, what they’re going to see. It doesn’t matter that the program has the title of your presentation on it; odds are someone didn’t read it or hasn’t understood what it means. Start by giving context to your presentation and then tell your audience why it’s important.

This last bit is probably one of the most important things to do in a presentation, if your audience doesn’t know why your talk is important, they’ll stop listening. As you know, in Star Wars, Lucas first gives us the context for the story and then tells us a bit of the history: An evil empire, a rebel alliance, a princess in despair… All you need to know to think “Ah! This is important, I’m paying attention.” Try to give your audience a reason to pay attention, give them your theme’s context and explain why what you are going to say is important. You’ll see how they’ll be much more involved.

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.

Related posts:

1. How to give an interesting presentation
2. Audience Needs Map
3. How to use humor in your presentations
4. Presentations not suited for teenagers