You don't have to get through every slide and talking faster is not the answer!

A few months back I attended a presentation where the speaker went through about 80-90 complicated slides in the first 45 minutes of a one hour session. At that point he said, "I'm going to have to speed up if I'm going to get through all these slides." He went on for another 20 minutes (overrunning his time) and there was no time for discussion or questions.

The audience will not remember all your slides no matter how well your presentation is constructed. You want the audience to ask questions! You want lively discussion! You want to get the audience interested in your work! These goals are more important than getting through every slide. Talking faster does nothing for the audience.

Before your presentation develop a plan for how you will proceed if the time is shortened by either a good discussion or other factors, like the Chairman showing up late. Figure out how you will verbally summarize the parts you're not going to get through and whether there are one or two slides in the omitted sections that really are essential. If you use the technique of "building up" a presentation rather than cutting it down, this task will be easy (see first the earliest tip on this blog).

Describe and label your graph axes purposefully

How many times have you seen presentations where the fonts on the graph axes are too small to read? Perhaps there are 5 or 6 graphs on the page, all with axes that are unreadable.

When you flip on a new slide the listener needs to flip their mental state to start comprehending the new slide. Taking time to explain the axes of your graph is the perfect way to introduce a new slide. Use your pointer and point to the Y axis and tell the audience what it represents. Then do the same for the X axis. Be deliberate!

Axes should be labeled in clear large font (24 bold, Helvetica is great, 18 bold is tolerable, less than that is invisible). Also don't be lazy and reproduce the vertical layout of text that pops out of Excel. Erase it and rewrite the Y axis label in the horizontal mode so the audience doesn't have to bend their necks.

Use the pointer properly

Most speakers don't have a clue what to do with the pointer. However it is an essential tool in an effective presentation.

A presentation is a visual and oral communication synergy. Slides should not stand on their own, or why are you up there talking? Your words are intended to amplify what is on the slide. A presentation is an attempt to achieve more powerful communication by combining the oral and visual.

The audience needs help relating the spoken words to the part of the slide that the words are explaining. If you are explaining the two axes of a graph, point to each axis as you explain it. If you are explaining 4 text bullet points, point to each item as you amplify its contents with your words. You need to help the audience connect the audio with the visual.

In general, a physical pointer is preferable to a laser pointer. The extension of your arm and the length of the pointer makes a physical line between your words and the part of the slide you want to discuss. A physical pointer is also easier to control and the speaker is unlikely to wave it around in a mindless set of circles.

Those presentations in a huge room with two widely separated screens can be a problem because a laser pointer only allows you to point at one screen at a time. Ask the tech people to close off one of the screens or at least tell the audience which screen they should look at.

Use the pointer with discipline! It is the key to connecting the audio and the visual.