3 Observations for Session Speakers
Rene Shonerd, MEd, CAE, a consultant and a member of ASAE &The Center's Technology Section Council, kindly sent us the following blog post with good advice based on the sessions she attended at Annual:
Because I'm currently planning for an upcoming presentation myself, I found myself jotting down notes about presentation delivery while attending the learning labs at this year's ASAE10 Annual Meeting. After reviewing my notes on the long flight home, I found 3 themes:
When it comes to slides - less is more. We can all learn from the great examples at the Ted Talks. Audiences are no longer in awe of out of the box templates with bulleted lists. Instead repurpose those lists as talking points in your speaker's notes and develop slides that are true visual aids. The best slides contain a key takeaway phrase, a simple chart or a professional image that supports the key point. Garr Reynolds's book and blog also contain useful tips to get you started or spruce up your old slide decks.
Internet Connection - don't count on it. I watched several speakers scramble when the internet connection in the convention center wasn't working or wasn't strong enough to run the multimedia features of their presentations. Keep the multimedia segments, but develop a backup plan ahead of time. Download any video presentations (find tools here) to your laptop and save cached version of web pages you plan to show.
Embrace (or at least acknowledge) the backchannel. Tweets aren't just for the tech types anymore. Even if you don't use Twitter yourself, take time to learn how to acknowledge and incorporate feedback from those who do. Simple things like announcing the session hashtag created by conference organizers and including your twitter id on the title slide are great first steps. Check out How to present with Twitter (and other backchannels) by Olivia Mitchell to learn more.
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Comments
Good observations all around. I didn't present at ASAE10, but no doubt I'm guilty of over-engineering slides. I have been working to wean myself; it's for the good of all.
I did sit in a couple of breakout sessions that were severely hamstrung by over-reliance on the internet. One in particular included sound; the speaker essentially bent over to put her lapel microphone next to the laptop speaker. Not good.
I've seen Twitter feedback work well, but I think someone other than a speaker or panelist needs to monitor the stream. Certainly doing the housekeeping up front is a common courtesy.
Posted by: Brian O'Leary | September 2, 2010 2:27 PM
Is the "less is more" advice about slides based on what audiences want or want presenters want?
I find that audiences like PowerPoint and want a lot of detail, so they won't have to take notes. Brief images and talking points don't provide them with adequate leave-behinds.
Posted by: David M. Patt, CAE | September 6, 2010 6:09 PM
Good point, David--but I wonder if part of the reason so many of us are reliant on bullet- and text-heavy slides is because we're trying to combine slides for use during the presentation with handouts for post-presentation use?
It might be ideal to create slides that are designed to be the best possible audiovisual aids and separate handouts that are designed to be the most useful resources possible. A great handout isn't necessarily going to work well projected on a screen during a presentation, and vice versa.
Posted by: Lisa Junker | September 9, 2010 7:12 AM
I agree with minimal, highly visual slides and max info on a handout, preferably the whole thing in one package that is available to anyone on SlideShare.
Audiences shouldn't have to feel that they must be in frantic note-taking mode. My Takeaway final slide includes the critical preso bullets; people can relax and pay attention, knowing the details and links are available on SlideShare at any time.
Posted by: Sheila Scarborough | September 9, 2010 4:40 PM
I agree that slides and handouts are entirely different things. Slides should be visual aids for a live presentation, while handouts should have a lot more info, resources, and maybe blank templates (or "questions to take home" if there's some kind of exercise undertaken during the session. I never paid much attention to handouts when I first started speaking, but now I'm very conscious of making sure they contain a lot more "further reading" and resources, as opposed to being the printed version of slides.
Posted by: Maddie Grant | September 9, 2010 10:01 PM