Finding the chase and cutting to it

I love better ways of achieving something.  Talking, demonstrating and presenting on this subject always makes my day.  It also scares me more than anything else I do regularly.

There are many sites giving you great advice on how to get your message across but I often find it’s the little things that get in the way of that message I’ve spent hours honing.

So for those out there who like to look good even if you’re doing something for the first time here are some tips of getting the most out of your great presentation…

1. Know how long you’ve got, otherwise it can be really awkward to rush your material.
2. Have some material to cut if the discussion takes off; this is what you’re looking to achieve and the great presenters manage this effortlessly.  Again, later presenting tools will allow you to jump without the audience knowing.
3. Allow things to be taken off line if necessary: remember you have a fixed slot.
4. Make use of a presentation login – one that doesn’t launch your mail client, IM clients, cartoons, web home pages, anything that might trip up the message.  Some computers focus on a single user, but I make sure there is a basic, often blatantly corporate login for use when roving.  Prep the demo web browsers to book mark only the sites I really need and make sure I know them backwards.  Saves having to know how to shut off all my functional tools and let’s my friends know for an hour or so, I’m off line.
5. Get a site for sharing the slides…  Be it the corporate wiki or your own space.  I know some favour PDF to ensure things don’t get shared, but if I quote or link an image I put the site details in so I don’t really see the point of that.  HTML is possibly best as it works for all.
6. Maps and details of how to get there and who you are talking to – OK really obvious but this sets you up.  Understand if you need food when you get there and remember when the adrenaline has gone, you need to be able to get home.
7. Remember to enjoy the experience.  You have been invited to talk because your work is contributing something people are interested in hearing.
8. You can get all the benefits out of your PC without having to buy a new one.  Windows 7 is awesome and is surprisingly not resource hungry.  You can download a checker to verify it will run without going to the expense of buying software that won’t run on your kit.  My 5 year old PC is Windows 7 compatible (64 bit even) so don’t feel you can’t enjoy the benefits…  I’m doing this in the next month.
9. Learn to exploit your software tools…  I love taking my PC to do presentations: Office 2007 allows you to do the split view (most Mac users will talk enthusiastically about this) where the laptop will show you not only the current slide and the next along with the time remaining and any notes but hide all this from the main view.  Really useful and your laptop doesn’t have to be that flash to use it.  If your work doesn’t supply Powerpoint 2007 ask them if you can upgrade your software build yourself or take your own machine.
10. Memory – if you can, get RAM and hard disk space.  Laptops will have the ability to add some more, use the web to check out how to do this for yours.  Windows 7 allows you to use every last byte but even XP and Vista benefit from a little extra.