Never Look Them in the Eyes

There are so many presentation mistakes that can happen. In my experience, I had the slides on an auto-timer somehow (flipping one slide to the next every 15 seconds), rendering my clicker thingy useless, and it felt like I was wrestling a bear on stage. My talk track and slides were out of sync the entire presentation. At one point, I even said, “This is just like my nightmare last night…(looked down)…except I have clothes on…so that’s good.” So believe me when I say this: if you present – know your content because you never know what can happen. Do not read your slides, and don’t make people read lengthy ones, either. If you need help, please pick up any book from Garr Reynolds or Nancy Duarte.

Learning: If you are assigned to present to others (and need a slide deck), know your slides and content well enough not to read off them.

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Does this resonate with you? Have you ever fallen asleep at a presentation (or wish you had)? If so, we’d love to hear from you.