OOoCon Presenting

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Category:OOoCon

Presenting at the OpenOffice.org Conference

A few simple tips for better presentations,
to help you get your message across and make your audience happy.

Introduction

• Not everyone feels comfortable speaking in front of an audience...
• ...or has much experience doing it...
• ...or is a native English speaker...
• so here are some simple tips that may help.

• Not every item might be equally relevant for every room, presentation.
• Presentations with extensive advice on this same subject are available all over the net; here we just aim to give basic tips.

Sound

• Before you start: check the microphone
  • Ask someone else: is the volume OK?
  • If the microphone is fixed, find the best place to stand
  • Microphone broken? Ask the organisers!
• Beginning your presentation
  • Ask the audience if they can hear you
• During the presentation
  • Mind volume and distance

Sight

• Where do you stand?
• Can people still see your slides?
• Can all the people see you?
• Can you see the audience?
• If the session is being recorded, can the camera see you?

Contact

• Try to speak in the direction of the audience
• Try to look at various parts of the hall/room/group of people
• If you do not want to look at people directly, you can look just over the heads

Slides – general

• Better is more slides with less info on a slide
• Do not read out your slides word for word - your audience can read too :-)
• Keep a printout of your slides in front of you so you know what is coming next
• Read this article from the BBC News magazine

Slides – technical presentations

• Little info/text often is no option
  • Exact information is useful
  • And needed for reading afterwards
• What can be done though:
  • enlarging or highlighting part of the text
  • add slides with highlights / summary
  • use the Notes pages for reference material

Answering questions

• Repeat the question, so that all attendees know what is asked
• Try to reply to the whole audience

Help from colleagues

• There are always colleagues around
• Ask one to help
• To bring the microphone to someone with a question
• ...

A little practice before the real session

• Run through your presentation a few times in private to check timing etc
• Ask a few friends or colleagues to watch a 15 mins. rehearsal of your presentation
  • They can give you their opinions and probably some useful tips.