Effective Presentations: Getting Your Slides Noticed - Slideshow
Making effective presentations is all about getting your slides noticed. Chances are, if your slides don't reach out and grab your audience in the first few seconds, they aren't going to do so at all.
The message is clear:
Keep it simple, keep it visual, and most of all, make it visually arresting. Nobody wants to sit through reams of text. It just isn't comfortable to read, and that's not what presentations are for. If you are designing all important content that needs reading - put it in a handout, where it belongs.
Online presentation sharing site Slideshare is not only a simple and effective way to share your presentations over the internet, it's also an invaluable learning resource for those looking to brush up on their presentation skills. In the following Slideshare published presentation, Tony Osime guides you through some key points for getting your slides noticed.
Getting your slides noticed
Among the points made, the importance of an initially striking visual image can't be overstressed. Think of this as the gateway to your presentation, your chance to win your audience over in the first frame of the movie, the first chapter of the book.
This is where you need to hook the audience - whether by surprising them, presenting them with something (or someone) enticing or attractive, or making a high impact statement through a powerful visual metaphor. But none of this will be enough if you don't think about how it projects your message. A beautiful woman is all very good, but if you are giving a presentation about web marketing analytics, or your school's changed syllabus, she'd better be there for a reason.
In effective presentations simplicity is also key. Tony Osime's rule of 6 is a good starting point that gets this point across well. While the numbers can be changed - see for example Guy Kawasaki's 10-20-30 rule, the core message is the same: keep your presentation short, keep it simple, and keep the content on the slides brief and visually driven.
Readability is as important as brevity if you are going to make an impact. Guy Kawasaki recommends a 30 point font for your slides, and Tony Osime suggests that your text should be readable from ''6 steps away from the screen''. If combined with Osime's 6 words per line, 6 lines per page rule you can be pretty sure that you are not overloading your audience with an unnecessary amount of difficult to read text, although you may want to consider paring down even further.
As TJ Walker points out in his video presentation Slides are not for reading, Powerpoint slides are not for reading, they are for conveying your message and supporting what you have to say.
Getting your slides noticed is all about removing the obstacles that stand between your message and your audience's attention span. Say it in as simple and powerful a way as possible, and they will thank you for it.
