Over the years as a college professor, I have seen many presentations by professors and guest speakers who chose to use PowerPoint software to display their notes and illustrations. PowerPoint is a great tool which is easy to learn and use, and will serve as an instrument to greatly enhancement your presentation. But to make any presentation truly effective, considerable planning must be done in advance. Here are a couple of items that need to be determined as you begin preparing your presentation.
Purpose: Most presentations fit into two main categories. You are either trying to sell an idea, concept, product, or service or you are sharing information as in teaching or instruction. In either case, you need to be clear at the outset what your purpose is and this will dictate what you include in your PowerPoint slides and how they are displayed. If you are selling something, examples of your product or idea will help the audience visualize both what the product is and how it will impact their lives. You are attempting to persuade them to the advantages of your product or to convince them that your approach will bring them long term benefits. Information sharing is being factual and passing on what you know about a certain subject. This does not mean that information sharing is any less interesting. Always remember that you are the presenter of the information and never let the visuals become the presentation. They are there to support what you say but not to take your place. You are the main source of the information or the salesperson. One other sub-category to the persuasion grouping is that of motivation. There are times when you might need to direct staff or others to accomplish certain goals and objectives. This might actually turn out to be "selling the concept of selling". In any case, keep the purpose of your presentation in mind as you compose your presentation because it will help you with the tone and language of your presentation.
Your Audience: Knowing your audience is very valuable to you if you want your presentation to be really memorable. You need to know who they are as far in advance as possible. You might be addressing a town council regarding a new town bylaw they have drafted. Or what if you are called to speak to the board of directors of a local company looking for feedback on a new product launch or public service strategy? What if you are called to present to a group of gardeners from the local horticultural society about how they could reach out to new members. Or it could be a group of children interested to wildlife and nature. So you need to know their interests, the approximate age range of those in attendance, whether they have any special interests that you can tap into. You need to be aware of any terminology issues that they may need or avoid if they cannot understand certain jargon. Younger listeners will not be familiar with the same language as adults, and others will be expecting you to address them in levels of terminology from their realm of experience. This also means not making your content either too complex or too simple. Those you expect to be in attendance will assist you in developing your materials appropriately. And in the same way, certain cultural differences need to be considered. Certain words in certain cultures may be considered taboo and certain colours perceived as lucky or unlucky. What you include in your slides could affect the acceptance of your information in either positive or negative ways if you are not careful and aware of such things.
So take time to draft out your presentation. Concentrate on the content and its organization, remembering your purpose and your audience, and the expectations they have of you and your material. Done well, you will deliver a presentation that your audience will go away saying: "That was a great presentation; I learned so much and how I am ready to do something with it".
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