Here’s the downside, people are following along while you are reading. You become the distraction when you should be the main act.

Here are a couple of tips on best practices for handouts:

 Make the handouts a bonus. The handouts should contain extra information, places to get more information or footnotes. If the handouts are simply a printout of your Powerpoint presentations then one of either the speaker or the handout isn’t needed.

 The handout should be stand alone. Giving a presentation and a handout are two different forms of communication and both should be approached differently to effectively get your message across. The test is whether you can give the handout to someone not familiar with the presentation and they understand the conclusions you’d want anyone who listened to the speech to come to.

 Give handouts at the end of the presentation. Remember you are the star attraction, a handout only distracts from the presentation. Most people are busy skipping through the presentation while you are talking. Better yet, have them collect the handout as they are leaving, it gives people the opening to ask questions one on one and gives you an opportunity to extend the conversation.

 What tips do you practice when giving out presentations?

1. Starting a Presentation. Not matter how nimble and rehearsed you are with starting a Powerpoint, it’s still a very clumsy, mouse drive activity. The easiest and fastest way to launch a powerpoint is to click the “F5” key.
2. Black your presentation out. While presentations are great, if you are in the middle of saying something the slide, at best, may not be applicable to what you are saying, at worst distracting. Remember you are the star of the presentation, not PowerPoint. Hitting “B” on the keyboard will turn the presentation black while you talk. Any button starts the presentation again at the current slide. To see the power of a blacking out a presentation to building drama, check out any Steve Jobs presentation in the last few years. Press “W” to turn it white.
3. Advancing your presentation. Seems like a no brainer, but you do not have to click on the mouse to advance a slide. There are a few buttons that do the same thing, the right arrow key, the “N”, right Arrow, Down Arrow, or PgDn. By far the easiest to find is the space bar. It’s a lot quicker then any other method and you can’t miss it.

Bonus hint: To view all the available keyboard shortcuts in Powerpoint, while the show is running click on F1.

Good luck and happy speaking.

The T-I-S Formula for Introductions
Like a well-prepared speech, an introduction should be natural, smooth and free of grammatical errors and oral stammers. An ideal method is the T-I-S formula taught by Dale Carnegie in his public speak classes: T-I-S stands for Topic, Importance, and Speaker. When making an introduction, remember to maintain eye contact with the audience, not the speaker.

• Topic. This is the title and purpose of the speech.
• Importance. This explains the relavance of the speech to the audience. It can specify what the audience will gain or learn from listening.
• Speaker. This tells the audience why the speaker is qualified to speak on the topic, but includes only qualifications pertinent to the topic and the audience.

To see how this works, let’s pretend we are going to introduce John Doe who will speak on automotive safety to a group of driver education students. Using the T-I-S method, an introduction might sound something like this:
“Good evening and welcome to tonight’s symposium, titled ‘Arrive Alive.’ We all need to know how to operate a motor vehicle safely, because statistically out of the 40 people here tonight, 10 of us will be involved in as serious accident during our life. By reducing the number of accidents we not only save lives, but we lower the cost of insurance premiums.

“Our speaker is the former director of the National Transportation Council. He designed and patented the first three-point safety belt and was instrumental in developing the airbag, now a mandatory requirement for all passenger cars. He has been a licensed driver since age 11 and has never been involved in an accident. Please help me welcome John Doe!”

Great suggestion and well worth remembering,

Show up early
Something good is bound to happen—if there’s no need to fix a mechanical problem or resolve a room conflict, you can always mingle with the audience.

How to start

• Clearly tell the audience: What the problem is, who cares, and what your solution is.
• Write out your own introduction.

Never apologize
Most people wouldn’t have noticed the issues for which you’re apologizing—and it just sounds lame.

For complex information use: Particular, General, Particular
Give a particular specific example, then a general overview, followed by a repeat of the particular to reinforce the point.

Always provide a handout
Text on paper can provide more information than verbal communication (e.g. it takes 22 minutes to read the top half of the New York Times aloud).

• This allows them to become engaged.
• Assures that each point is covered (even if you forget something).

Match your presentation to the level of The New York Times or Wall Street Journal
Audiences don’t suddenly become dumber when they sit down to hear you speak—no reason to
“dumb down” anything!

Audiences are precious: respect them
Be clear—not simpleminded.

Humor—make sure it’s on point, not nasty or gratuitous
It’s preferable to leave humor out if you risk alienating anyone—let alone the possibility of not being funny.

Do not use masculine pronouns—use plurals
Even though it may not always be grammatically correct, you should say “they” instead of “him or her”
and it will sound better—both because it’s shorter and because no one can be alienated. Why risk not communicating simply because someone may be sensitive?

Questions need to be treated very carefully

• People’s opinion may be based more on how you answer their question than on how you present. People are often really saying “What about me?” when they ask a question.
• Right after you call for questions, count to 10 before assuming no one will ask.
• To assure questions are asked, plant a person in the audience and give them a question. This also gets others motivated.

There must be a better way than using the overhead projector
Tufte refers to it as “a trapezoid strip show” because the shape of the projected image is distorted, and people often use the technique of revealing only one line of the image at a time. Two other problems are that you have to turn off the lights (some people will fall asleep) and overheads only provide a fraction of information that can fit on a handout.

Show your enthusiasm!
Don’t hide behind a lectern. Use gestures. Walk around, directly engaging the audience. (If you’re not enthusiastic, why are you presenting on that topic?)

Finish early
You never hear someone say “I really wish they had talked on and on for another 10 minutes.”

Work hard

• Prepare and practice for a critical audience.
• Practice in front of a video camera to spot flaws, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies.
• In addition to using notes for content, make “metanotes” reminding you to use techniques; like making eye contact, not to mumble, not to keep sipping the water.

Innovate
Don’t be trapped by the conventional forms of the presentation. Be creative: find ways to take the presentation beyond a linear presentation of facts, and instead make it become something like a dialogue with your colleagues.

Drink enormous amounts of water
If you’re flying to a presentation this is particularly important as air travel really dehydrates you. And never drink alcohol.

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