Surely it’s obvious, right?  Duh, the people in the room??  Well, maybe.  And who will they be presenting to?  Think about it: the audience for your presentation of course includes the people you will have in the room, but if you want those people to act on your presentation then remember that they in turn have an audience. 

Thanks to my friend and NLP guru Andie Hemming for this one.  Make sure that all the words in your visuals (powerpoint, keynote, whatever software you use) can be read easily.  Now this might sound like common sense...but it isn’t common practice.  Andie and I heard – and struggled to see – some very clever people give presentations recently, and that was how I tested her assertion that you can really annoy people more than you think by using too small a type size.  Annoy them to the point where they won’t believe you, no matter how persuasive your (small) words are. Why?

Just in case some of you are thinking of brushing up your resumes, curriculum vitae, call it what you will.  Here’s a novel approach – and for those of you who’ve already seen Chris Doyle’s wonderful take on this, I make no apologies, as it still raises a smile.  And the piece got him a D&AD award.  Can’t be bad.  (And yes, I’ve got his permission to hook up to it here).  

As well as providing practical techniques to help everyone deliver great presentations, this is also a cracking read (even though we know the ending). Engaging, inspiring, brilliant and laugh-out-loud funny are just some of the praises to heap on Jon’s book. If more people adopt the approach he provides, we may be spared ‘death by Powerpoint’ and badly thought-through presentations.