It’s everything.

How you present yourself to the world will almost always dictate how the world sees you.  It’s a fairly simple concept really, but one that a lot of people don’t really understand for awhile, if ever.

From the way you dress, to the way you talk, presentation has arguably the largest impact on whether someone will respect you, trust you, or hire you.

A part of this deals with actual presentations, such as powerpoint or keynote, or what have you.  I’ve been involved with somewhere in the area of 80 or 90 briefs over the years, being in the Navy and all, and honestly, most people just outright suck at giving presentations.

One reason for this is how easy it is for some joe schmoe to slap together a powerpoint presentation, with 400 words of text per slide, and read it off verbatim as if he/she is the subject matter expert on it.   I’ve always thought this was a horrible implementation, and make sure to let those who do this know what they’re doing wrong.

So i’ve thought up a few things to help everyone out, and this is by no means all-inclusive, but it should assist a little:

Presentation Tips:

1.  Know your material, don’t simply cut and paste something into slides, you’ll look like an idiot.

2.  Be able to bring things down to the layman level.  Have the ability to explain what’s going on in words a 4th grader can understand.

3.  Have some sort of personality, be able to present and keep people paying attention.  Monotone doesn’t cut it.  You’re alive, act like it.  Use varying tones, keep it fresh.

4.  Know when you’re out of your area of expertise.  Never make things up, always note things you are weak on, and if called on it, get back to the person offline.

5.  Properly cite references.  Never pull material and fail to reference.

These should help you get started, presenting anything is mostly about how people see YOU, and not the material.