Did you know that PowerPoint can help you improve your presentation skills? 💡 If you rehearse with the PowerPoint Presenter Coach, you can get real-time feedback on things like your pace and language. If that’s too distracting (it is for me), you can choose to hide the real-time feedback and only view the detailed report at the end of your rehearsal.
The report shows you details about the total time spent, your pace and pitch over time, whether or not you are simply reading from your slides, as well as actionable feedback on your language. The feedback includes whether you are using too many filler words (like umm, actually, or you know), whether you are using too many repetitive words with alternatives you can use instead, whether you are using any words that can be offensive, and specific sentences that you can refine.
At DataGrillen 2019, I presented a session called Uhms and Bunny Hands: Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills. The wonderful Amanda Debler (@texmandie) was kind enough to record it, yay! 🥳
The session recording is now available on YouTube, and the slide deck is available on SlideShare.
Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills - Session Recording
(As this was an unplanned session recording, we didn’t have any microphones. The sound quality could be better, but I decided to share this video anyway. I hope it can still be useful for others!)
Two years ago I wrote about my experiences presenting a webinar for the first time. I learned a lot that day, and it helped me prepare for presenting remotely. But, a webinar is not the same as a remote presentation. And as much as you prepare and rehearse, you just won’t be prepared for every little thing that might happen until you’ve experienced them. Here are 3 of my mistakes you don’t want to make if you’re planning to start presenting remotely 😅
Presenting online is a completely different experience than presenting in-person. When you present online you lose the interaction with the audience, you are unable to read body language or facial expressions to see if they are interested or bored out of their minds, and you get absolutely no feedback on whether or not they understand what you are trying to explain. You have to trust yourself, talk to a screen for an hour, and hope that the technology does not suddenly decide to throw a tantrum and stop working for no reason.
I recently presented a webinar for the first time. It went quite well, but there are many things I want to do better next time. Writing down what I learned will help me improve my own presentation skills and slide decks, but I also hope it can help other new speakers prepare for their first webinar.
You’ve worked for days, weeks, maybe even months on your session. You’ve rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, triple-checked every single demo, memorized ZoomIt keyboard shortcuts and timed your presentation. You have all your programs open and ready, cleared all personal information from your start screen and turned off notifications. You’ve brought power, USB hub, adapters to HDMI and VGA, mouse, wireless presenter with laser pointer, tablet with stopwatch, water, swag for attendees and even notes on paper so you won’t forget the things you don’t have in your slides. The room is full of people staring at you. You’re all set and ready to present.
…and then your computer won’t connect to the projector.
Your computer does not want to connect to the project with your HDMI adapter. Your computer does not want to connect to the projector with your VGA adapter. Your computer does not want to allow remote connections even when you’ve told it to. Your computer is all “yes, I do in fact notice I’m connected to a second screen, but I’d prefer some personal time right now, thanks”.
HELP! PANIC!
What would you do? Have you been in the same kind of situation? What did you do?
