Prevent Business-related Suicide

A very common and major cause of perspiration has proven to be presentations...Presentations seem to be something that people tend to get very nervous about. No matter who the audience and what the subject matter may be, people always get stressed out when they have to get up and talk to a lot of people.

To take away some of the pressure from themselves people choose to use tools to help them with their presentation and one of the very common ones has become "PowerPoint." A program designed to assist people with their presentations, but it can be the cause of your doom if not used effectively. This point and ways to avoid misusing PowerPoint have been discussed in "Stop Death by Powerpoint" By "Christian W Buss." I will be using this article as a base for the following summary.

A presentation is only successful if the audience makes it so. If the audience engages in discussion about the topic presented, this is a signal that the presentation served it's purpose. If the audience talks about other aspects of the presentation, such as the speaker and his/her gestures etc. it means that the point was not made properly. The only worse thing that can happen is that the audience does not show any reaction to the presentation whatsoever.
The article suggested 5 ways to avoid making a bad presentation and they are stated below:

1) PowerPoint leads to boredom
Most slides that make up a presentation consist of a title and points that follow below. The human mind is very used to this structure and will quickly get bored of it. The best way to tackle this obstacle is to break the monotony and keep the audience interested. According to the article you can do this by displaying supporting details on one slide and conclusions on the next. Switching between presenters is also a good idea.

2) Textbooks and reports are not the way to go.
This is because the audience can already read much faster than a presenter can present and so they draw in much more information when they read the same text, rather than if a presenter uses it as a presentation. The best way to go about using material is to use your presentation as a guide for the material in the written report.

3) What you already know is of no use.
Most of the time a presenter will talk endlessly about one slide, stating every little thing that they know. This of course would bore any person watching the presenter, a good idea is to move at a fairly quick pace through your presentation to maintain a good level of audience interest.

4) Don't read of your slide
Your slides should be used to add to your presentation and to shape your idea. If they are the same as what you are saying the audience can't draw much from the presentation. Your slides should lead into the next slide and support what you present along with them and before them.

5) Interact with your audience
Talking with your audience is key to a good presentation. You should engage in conversation with your audience even before your presentation starts, they may point out things that you'd like to mention in your presentation. Using a question and answer session between an audience member and yourself is also an effective technique to get your information to the audience. To use this well, you may want to ask a friend to sit in the audience and ask questions about points you'd like to discuss.

These are 5 things that the article recommends and will surely do wonders for your next presentation.