The interesting thing about presentations is that they are totally subjective, although there are some practices that we all dislike when we see a presentation (too much text, background and fonts with little contrast, too many bullet points…), there is no step by step guide on how to make a good presentation.

For those of you who get annoyed at the fact that there are no guides to perfect presentations and those who are curious about how I improved, and still work on improving, my own, here is my only rule: Try something new in each presentation.

The presentation creation process has nothing to do with business and everything to do with design. We all know there are rules for good design, and they should be followed in the creation of each slide and the presentation as a whole; however, there is no guide that can explain step by step how you make a good presentation, since each person’s presentation style and what works for them is different. To make good presentations you need experience to develop an eye for them, to develop a sense of what is a good and a bad presentation. Enter my rule, if you try one new thing in each presentation and watch to see your audience’s response, you can start to identify what things people like in your presentations.

Here is a list of things I included in my presentations and that you can start applying to yours, in no specific order, as I said, this is not a step by step guide:

-          Substitute text for images

-          Use a slide without text

-          Draw attention to the most important word in a sentence by giving it a different color or size

-          Use two different fonts for two different purposes

-          Don’t use bullet points

-          Don’t use slides

-          Ask the audience a question

-          Post your presentation on the internet before you start

-          Give a handout with the most important parts of your presentation or extra information when you finish

-          Draw on a whiteboard while you speak

-          Don’t speak for the first minute of your presentation, just wait until you have everyone’s undivided attention

-          Include a video in your presentation

-          Record yourself presenting

-          Include Charlie Sheen in your presentation somehow (no specific reason, it’s just fun to see how people work around to fit him in, you can always substitute Charlie Sheen for any other ridiculous person you can think of)

-          Put tittles on the bottom of the slide, instead of the top

-          Don’t use your company´s template

-          Use QR codes to guide your audience to more info about the subject

Now I’m going to list a few things I haven’t tried yet, but which are on my list

-          Tweet while I present (not personally, automated)

-          Have a poll for the audience

-          Do my presentation on-line

-          Set a limit to my number of slides (present at Pecha Kucha)

-          Present wearing a hat

-          Use presentation styles more based on text, like Lessig or Takahashi

-          Present in rhyme

These are just some quick ideas, I’m sure there are many I’m leaving out or that will come to me later on. The idea behind changing only one thing is to see what you feel more comfortable with and what your style is, without having to change everything in your presentation. If you realize there is some good advice there about things we’ve already talked about, and then there are others that are just for fun. Who said that presenting couldn’t be fun? Experiment and play with you presentation style!

If you try something new or you think about something I left out add it on the comment section.

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation