When you conduct presentations, do you conduct them like a pro?
Surely, there are many techniques to make effective and professional presentations and I have had a wonderful privilege of teaching them.
One such important and basic tip: never cast a shadow on your projected material. Never. Never ever.
This means:
- Never, cross the screen while the projector is flashing any material. Unless you are demonstrating how annoying it is when someone does that.
- Don’t approach the projected material to point to a particular idea or bullet point in our slides. Direct using your voice: “You will notice that on the first bullet, you will see…” Or, using open palms, point to the screen without casting a shadow. There is a 99.99999999% probability that your audience can read your point if you direct them to it.
- If you need to cross the screen, say, to go to your flip chart paper or go to another area of the room, you can either walk behind the projector instead of in front of it. Or a very simple PowerPoint trick: when you are in slide show mode, just press “B” on your keyboard to put the screen to black. Then you cross!
- If you don’t want to press “B” you can also use plain bond paper. Fold it in half, crosswise. Use it to cover your projector. You can use this when you need to make on-the-spot corrections on your slides. After all, you don’t want your audience to see what corrections you are making.
In order to present like a pro, it only takes one button. Press B. Try it out and see how much more professional your presentations can be.