Presenting Your Ideas ((tag: barcampid, presentation, tips)

The following is my presentation at Barcamp Indonesia on Saturday, December 12, 2009 at Wetiga. I used no slides.

Your presentation doesn’t have to be impressive, it just needs to get your points across. What needs to be impressive is your delivery, that is the actual work that you’re pitching or selling. First impression matters so get your audience’s attention early to keep them interested.  

You need to be the one who’s presenting, not your slides. Why are you there if they can simply read your slides?

If your audience expects a handout material, don’t give them your slides, give them an actual document that forms the basis of your presentation.

Just like news, presentation is often about 5W1H. Who, what, when, where, why, how. In essence, it’s also about getting your audience to understand what you’re trying to say. 

Most people don’t have 1 hour  to listen to your pitch. Many don’t have 30 minutes but everyone can spare 5 minutes.

This is what I’d like to call the 5 minute challenge. Some also call it the elevator pitch. This is compressing your ideas or your points into its most basic form so people can easily understand it. 

Everybody wants a shortcut whenever possible. Why take 60 minutes if you can do it in 5 or less?

Understand what you’re trying to say. Forget big words. If you can’t understand it yourself, how could anyone else? You need to be able to present without having your slides with you and if you can’t, you need to work on it.

Preparation is key. Preparation is not about time, it’s about finding and putting together the right resources that you need to convey your point. If you already know your stuff, preparation before each presentation is no longer necessary because you’re ready to go.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best is an old mantra. Prepare for 5 minutes but make sure you have enough material to extend it if you need to or if at the end they have follow up questions.  

Actually you better hope your audience have follow up questions because if they don’t, that means they’re not interested, confused, or they’re asleep. Or they think they already know.

Your presentation is the trailer to your movie. It’s much more difficult with movie trailers. You only have 30-90 seconds to hook the audience to a 90-120 minute movie. Often a trailer is so much better than the movie because it’s the bait.

How many times have you seen a really awesome movie trailer that make you not just want to watch the movie but actually buy a ticket and watch it and then you leave the theater thinking, "What the hell was that? I want my 2 hours back"?

Remember, audience understanding is more important than what’s on your slides.