Making presentation is one of the most important skill. But, like a writing skill, there may be basic rule though, there is no specific goal to achieve. That makes us difficult to build the better presentation skill. This book is the one of suggestion. I could learn a lot. I will summarize what I learned from this book.
1. Simplicity
Chose only 1 topic, what do you want the audience to understand the most? Chose only 1 topic. What is the message you are going to present? Keep in your mind. Practically, this book suggests you that you had better chose 1 message for each slides.
2. Clarity
If you do not have clear understanding of your topic. Who can understand clearly? Clear understanding of your topic also makes your presentation clear. You should be most familiar with your topic in the room.
3. Draw pictures by your hand.
You are told to make presentation in 1 week. How do you start preparation? Do you open the laptop and Power point, start making slides? This book suggests you to draw the pictures by your hand on notebook first. What kind of figures are you going to use? what is the message of your presentation? What is the story of your presentation? You should try this technique. I actually am not good at drawing, but it is fun and beneficial, I have really enjoyed doing this. Also, this technique can be used for writing.
4. Save the time for the everybody.
I have not noticed before reading this book. On the presentation, you are using everyone’s time. Take advantage of it. For example, you have 10 mins for your presentation, and 100 audiences. You might think you are using your 10 mins. However, that is of course not true. You are using also audience’s time which is 100*10 mins = 1000 mins. Why don’t you imagine the benefit of this situation? If you use this time effectively, you will get a lot. If you use this time poorly, you will get almost nothing, sometimes even minus. Let’s practice for better presentation for you and your audience.
5. Practice makes perfect only when you practice effectively.
There is no goal to perfect presentation, we have always improvements. Like music, writing, sports. But there are ideas you can try to improve. Why don’t you try 1 idea for each presentation, see what happened? If possible, you can increase the chance to make presentation. Let’s practice effectively, present effectively every time.
It is an old joke. A man hurrying along a New York street asks a passing musician, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The man said “Practice man, practice.”
Let’s do it effectively, I like this old joke though.