Multimedia presentations

Powerpoint, friend or foe? If you are going to use it, remember it is in addition to you as a presenter, not a replacement for, nor are your slides huge prompt cards.

80% of us are visual, which means that we take more information through visual mediums, which includes multimedia presentations. Repeat after me 'words are not visuals', but im sure that youre not going to produce slides with reams and reams of text now, are you.

Rule 1. on average slides are up for 90 seconds, but an hours presentation should not consist of more than 20 slides, vary the format with audience intercation and anticdotes.

Rule 2. less is more, ideally if you have to put up text on your slides adopt a 3*3 rule, 3 bullets, 3 words per bullet, they are meant to be pointers, not handouts.

Rule 3. Check the technology, ensure your screensaver is switched off and laptop plugged in.

Rule 4. Animated text and gifs are tacky and unprofessional. Top presenters dont use them, so why should you.

Rule 5. Use fonts and graphics that are known to the audience. If they see something they dont understand they will go shopping in their heads and stop listening to you - use standard sans serif fonts for best effect.