Every so often, after sitting through enough tedious conference presenters, I reach my rant point on bad presentations. This is one of those times.
Here’s my current rant on five things all presenters must stop doing right away:
Confident is great. Self-assured is important. Smug, however is simply off-putting. You KNOW the successful case study story you're telling wasn't as successful as you are portraying. We know we're getting the no-warts version. So ditch being smug and be a real human.
If a conference organizer decided to put you in front of an audience, you have a duty to be engaging. Okay, you have a duty to at least TRY to be engaging. There are obviously degrees of being engaging, and it's just not in the cards for everyone. But that doesn't give you the right to quit trying. If you're not going to try, then we have no obligation to make the painful effort to follow along.
If your corporate video is truly funny, go for it. But the humor better be obvious, well-done, and a little bit over the top for it to work. Trust me, corporate irony ISN'T funny. It's probably not funny to your own people (even though they won't tell you that), and it sure as hell isn't funny to all of us who just met you.
One video in a series to give us an idea of what you've been doing is okay. Three or four that are pretty much the same (at least to our uninterested eyes) are simply time fillers. If you need to stretch that much, either give some of your time back to keep the event on schedule or open yourself up to questions earlier.
I know how many people the organizer told you would be there. I know they told you it was going to be in the main ballroom. They DIDN’T tell you they were going to stick you in a crappy presentation slot on the last day when at most 25% of the big ballroom is filled and it feels like an empty airplane hangar. But you have a planned presentation that just doesn't work without enough people. Anticipate that you WON’T have the best speaking situation and be prepared to adjust what you're planning to suit the pile of crap speaking slot the conference organizer hands you.
What do you think? What things would do you want to see changed in conference presentations right away? - Mike Brown
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