Hints for presenting at ESRI
August 3, 2006 5 Comments
I haven’t been part of a presentation at ESRI since probably 1998 so I’m not really full of any hints. My suggestion to those who have asked is bring lots of donuts.
I guess though there are better resources than that, but I can’t think of anything better than donuts to go with my morning coffee.
About James Fee
Donuts are indeed a good way to make friends, a joke to start, keeping it short, and having handouts is also a good idea. James, for a few good rules to follow check out Guy Kawasaki’s rules… they are indeed very useful (iron that I saw Guy at an Autodesk gig!) I love this one… Follow the 10/20/30 rule – the number of optimal power point slides in any presentation is 10; pitch your slides in less than 20 minutes; use 30 point font – see guy’s blog at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/
I’ll second GK’s blog as well. Another post I’ll recommend is “How to get a Standing Ovation”
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/how_to_get_a_st.html
Maybe overkill for the UC but hey, an entertaining presentation is always appreciated.
Garr Reynolds also has some great tips and tricks as well.
http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/slides.html
His blog ain’t too bad either.
http://www.presentationzen.blogs.com/
Guy Kawasaki was an Apple evangelist… I don’t know how many technial presentations he had to make with only 10 slides.
ESRI gives out the powerpoint presentations to attendees so they can always put slides in that are informative when read and skip them if they don’t have time.
Sure this might not make for an entertaining presentation, but does your boss want to hear that the ESRI user conference was entertaining or informative?
Anyhow, entertaining isn’t always the best thing to do. Remember Clint Brown’s “flopping” joke in the plenary session from a few years ago?
Well,
10 slides may not always work but you get the idea.. keep it brief and to the point. LArge font is a no brainer… as for entertaining.. sorry but a must do for me, particualrly if you want to keep me awake for 60 minutes. It doesn’t mean you have to have killer jokes but rather, informative, educational and innovative… ever been to a Lynn Allen (autodesk) session? It’s definitely entertaining and she’s always a big hit… my three cents!
Er, we have to show slides?
I’m at 8:30 also, I hate that.
No donuts, no code and lots of pretty graphics.
nm