So i've been a mechanical designer for 4 months and AIA charlotte wants me to give a presentation before them about some different types of mechanical systems and trouble shooting building enclosures ( poor enclosures make my pretty LEED designed mechanical systems look bad )

12/5/2006 2:01:06 PM

ditch powerpoint...buy the big post-its, markers and some sticky notes and make it more interactive. it will stand out because powerpoint gets ooooooooolllllld.

12/5/2006 2:02:50 PM

What's your question or what are you looking to find out?

12/5/2006 3:42:01 PM

post-its? wtf? Powerpoint is the only way to go with something that detailed. Hell, that would be TIME CONSUMING to do post-its....lol

12/5/2006 6:15:52 PM

theres ways to make powerpoint more interesting as well. in fact, just being a great speaker will make up for most visual deficiencies.

just know what you are talking about and seem comfortable.

12/5/2006 6:27:47 PM

What are you trying to do exactly with your presentation? Who is your audience? Do you feel you have good speaking skills?

12/5/2006 7:35:48 PM

you could try pounding your hands and yelling alot /dwight

12/5/2006 8:12:29 PM

my speaking skills are decent the audience is all the top architects in charlotte

i think it will be easy cause i'm passionate about the topic (or sick of getting blamed for poor moisture control)

[Edited on December 5, 2006 at 9:17 PM. Reason : .]

12/5/2006 9:17:13 PM

Quote :

"post-its? wtf? Powerpoint is the only way to go with something that detailed. Hell, that would be TIME CONSUMING to do post-its....lol"

you haven't seen a good presentation then. every great presentation/consultant that i've seen has only used powerpoint for some things, but the big post-its (or sticky spray across the entire wall) were used and some interaction was built in to incorporate everyone's ideas. most of those billed out at about $20,000 a day though...i guess you could be referring to a normal, run of the mill presentation that we see every single day in class or work...

ultimately though, it depends on the message you have to portray, your audience, and the size of your audience.

12/5/2006 10:14:33 PM

i have one in an hour, and another on friday

but thank god they are informal

12/6/2006 2:39:26 PM

I learned these rules at a few recent conferences:

1. no stupid clipart
2. write your presentation by hand first then use slides to just back it up
3. make slides easy to read (simple but you wouldnt believe how many people say "now, this one is kinda hard to see but...")
4. No moving text- distracts me from what person is saying
5. Use impact font at size 44
6. incorporate a video midsteam
7. You should only display 10-15 slides per presentation.

12/6/2006 3:44:28 PM

and for god sakes dont make them wordy and/or what you say verbatim.

12/6/2006 4:30:32 PM

Quote :

"you haven't seen a good presentation then. every great presentation/consultant that i've seen has only used powerpoint for some things, but the big post-its (or sticky spray across the entire wall) were used and some interaction was built in to incorporate everyone's ideas."

Moody, what were the circumstances surrounding that presentation? That (or a markerboard) seems like it's a good idea for certain situations, like a brainstorming session, but it might not be best for what sumfoo1 wants to do. I get the impression he wants more of an "I talk, you listen" deal.

[Edited on December 6, 2006 at 7:32 PM. Reason : .]

12/6/2006 7:25:29 PM

even for "I talk, you listen" presentations if you have an audience that could all view a white board or large post-its, that is always more effective. powerpoint can be used for some things, but when you get to the "bread and butter," i would try to work in some interaction and break away from the computer for a while after hitting the B key to blackout the screen. i've had tons (probably too much) of presentation classes and public speaking classes through the mba program and spending a summer at sas, but it's important to focus on your audience. that may limit the amount of interaction you can script in or the amount of reliance you must have on powerpoint.

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/ is one of the great resources you will find online.

if any of you are interested in improving your presentation skills, try to take a class with bart queen...that's who i've worked with a lot
-http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=%22bart+queen%22+public+speaking

12/6/2006 8:19:10 PM

I say use PowerPoint minimally, incorporate as many different types of "thinking" as you can (ie: a chart for visual people, written text for readers, and speak to your slides for those who are verbal in nature)

keep the powerpoint simple and clean, the focus isn't on the presentation, it's on the presenter (otherwise, why have you present)

if there are any super-technical things, perhaps sending out an outline of what will be covered and asking for questions that pop to mind BEFORE the presentation will be helpful, that way you can make sure you're covering the most pressing questions in your presentation, while leaving leeway to articulate the finer points and ask the more specific questions at the end.

break it up frequently, don't lecture to them for a half an hour, cover a topic, perhaps check for questions then and then move on - i'm assuming you'll be covering lots of different topics within this (diff types and trouble shooting) so perhaps explain the diff types and their feature sets/results, break for a q&a session then move onto the troubleshooting section of the presentation?

these are top architects so they'll (hopefully) know what they're talking about, leaving you room to not have to delve into the basic level stuff and really get to the meat of the presentation.

good luck

12/7/2006 2:05:25 PM

Erica at AIA is pretty hot

12/7/2006 2:35:43 PM

Use lots of visual fluff, and don't give out any practical information. You'll fit in with the architects perfectly. Seriously though, a lesson on calculating U-values for their walls and the effects of non-continuous insulation would be a good thing to touch on. Our architects can't seem to grasp that concept.

12/7/2006 9:10:13 PM

bttt

3/16/2007 9:42:47 AM

^^ Get better architects.

3/16/2007 9:51:01 AM

make sure your bullets are just snippets of ideas. i know i hate it when people put full ideas in their powerpoints and just read the slides.

3/16/2007 11:59:51 AM

Ohh man i rocked its world..

i got a few new jobs (for my firm) outta this it was awesome..

I made a hand out pretty much like a business card with some of the ideas from the presentation on it.
and i didn't even read the slides just pointed and talked.
it was sweet



[Edited on March 16, 2007 at 12:13 PM. Reason : .]

3/16/2007 12:11:58 PM

congrats

3/16/2007 2:24:26 PM

Excellent! Congrats on a great job.

3/16/2007 2:42:26 PM

When I took English for business, they said a ppt slide should have no more than 5 lines of text, with no more than 5 words per line.

Personally, I don't think great speakers are made by their ppt slides or giant post-its, I think it's largely dependent on how well the speaker engages the audience, regardless of the tools they use.

3/17/2007 6:21:37 PM

if you read anything during the presentation whether your slides or notes or whatever... i think you suck.

3/17/2007 7:13:58 PM

in class it is always good to go right behind a sucky group.....we had a end of semester project where we had to present a case study and our decision.......the group before us had like 10 slides that looked it it took 5 minutes to put together....it was terrible....then our group was called and we blew them out of the water(after all was said and done, i think there were 7 groups, we tied with the highest score). Our problem was keeping in the time frame(major points off if we went to far over or under). I was the last person in the group to speak(sum it all up, blah), I went so fast and skipped so much, we just barily made it within the grace period of over. I didnt have to worry after that about each member of the groups evaluation of me.

[Edited on March 18, 2007 at 3:27 PM. Reason : w]

3/18/2007 3:25:40 PM

did you really say "in class" in old school

3/18/2007 6:39:52 PM