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Open Thread: Your best tip on doing presentations
Merlin Mann | Nov 18 2005
As I mentioned yesterday, I'll be leading a discussion on Tinderbox and "the trusted system" tomorrow. Probably running a few Keynote slides, but mostly just casually chatting with a small group of enthusiastic Tinderbox fans. I'm not a seasoned public speaker by anyone's estimation, so I've made my share of rookie mistakes in the past (hint: avoid doing a rambling, overlong talk without slides at ETech; people get confused, hungry, and eventually want to defenestrate you). So, as I prep myself for tomorrow, I turn to you guys: What's your best presentation tip? What's the "never break it" rule for PowerPoint/Keynote decks? What's your favorite site, article, or link on great presentations? How do I get that Lessig-, Jobs-, or Veen-like fu that makes audiences so giddy? (Self-links are okay within reason here) I'll be over here imagining people in their underwear, but I'd love to hear your best advice on this stuff. Update 2005-11-19 21:37:26I've posted the slides from my talk today along with links to some of the posts and cool applications I mentioned. Summary: went well! Very enthusiastic group -- great questions and conversations. And no one threw rotten vegetables. Elin liked it, and that's good enough for me. :-) 79 Comments
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 As an aside, I'd love...Submitted by mkb (not verified) on November 18, 2005 - 7:12am.
As an aside, I'd love to see you write about Tinderbox or post some good links. I've made a couple of separate trips through their website and while Tinderbox looks interesting, I still can't figure out what it does. As for presentations, the job I held as a student mostly involved videotaping classes and presentations. One of the most widespread presentation topics was how to give a presentation. Quality of these varied widely. The best were in the Haas School of Business. The bedrock essential the Haas people stressed was knowing your material backwards and forwards. Stop thinking about how you stand, what your hands are doing, and even whether or not you say "um." Know your shit backwards and forwards-- not just the presentation itself, but the background. And get a good night's sleep. Edward Tufte's presentation advice is also most excellent. If you Google around you can find various versions of it. Here is one transcription: http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/presentations.html » POSTED IN:
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