We all have used Microsoft PowerPoint from our childhood. I still remember first time I used.
Inserting the images and doing animations are really cool stuffs. That gave me a cloud-nine feeling. I felt like I have achieved some thing great after doing few animations with some sounds on it. I still cherish those days and I would love to work on the slides. Sometimes for no reason I remember playing with Microsoft PowerPoint all day along. As for 90’s kids that’s an achievement.
Years later, we grew up and we need to make few presentations during our college days. We liked doing it. Once in a while was okay!!
But when we start working, based on our role we might need to spend few hours a day with those presentations. Some might have already started to hate doing the slides/presentations. Few really get scared to deal with it!!
Of course, there are some who would love to make slides with perfection and they still love to do…
So for the people who are thinking or having hesitations to do the Presentation or slides, I want to say “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”.
I had quite a few good mentors who guided me through and helped me to make a better one. I am still learning…
So I just thought of discussing few mistakes we make frequently and how to correct it.
1.Too much information:
Providing too much information or too much text in your slides will make the audience to read it, and they might miss to listen what you are talking/explaining.
2. Too many images:
Just because we have many downloaded images, we cannot insert them all into our slides. Pick the relevant one and keep it tidy and neat.
3. Missing the “Agenda”:
Yes, this might look cliché. But it’s good to have an agenda, which will provide the insights to the audience about the session. If not formal one, you can explain in words about your talk/presentation.
4. Unordered Slides:
Based on your agenda/introduction the slides should have a flow. Make sure to order them correctly.
5. Incorrect “Title”:
Sometimes, we say that we are going to talk about a specific topic but we will cover different details inside the slides. So better be in-line with the Title of the presentation.
6. Lengthy “Title”:
Title can we with less than 150 characters. This is a good one to maintain.
7. Blank slides:
Sometimes we forget and leave the blank slides in-between. This might confuse the audience. Make sure to check this.
8. Being too technical:
It is good, I agree some sessions are meant to cover the technical details. But you can be innovative here, by adding a funny meme or telling a story that the audience could relate themselves. Yes, this depends on the audience too, so please be cautious here.
9. Spelling and Grammar mistakes:
We all do, just spend few extra minutes to cover up here 🙂
10. Inappropriate title for each slides:
Same as Title, even the headings matter. So please make sure to pick a relevant one for each slides.
11. About yourself:
Last but not the least, try to have a basic slide about you and your social medial handles/portfolio. I agree, in few places this is not applicable. But it’s no harm in having a small slide for you 🙂 You can treat yourself!!!
All of them are just based on my personal experience and these are some basic pointers to be taken care of. And these few etiquettes helped me in my journey.
Some extra tips here:
- Be confident and stay positive
- Smile when needed
- Maintain your pace and tone
- I used to try rehearsing with Coach option in Microsoft PowerPoint
This will help you a feedback for your session, including your pace , your content (this will check if you are reading out the slides, for some offensive content). To some extent this is really helpful I would say. If you haven’t tried this before please go ahead and give it a try. You can do a dry run for your talk/presentation using this along with the slides.
I wish you good luck with your next Presentation!
