The biggest mistake you can ever make when giving a presentation is to make the focus of the presentation on your slides instead of yourself. I think the incorrect mentality at work here is to create a glorious set of slides and then sneak off to the side somewhere to not be in the way of those glorious slides. This is the exact opposite of what you should do. Instead, make yourself the glorious center of attention with perhaps some simple slides off to the side to backup what you are saying. This will make your presentation more personal and your ideas will be more easily understood because we are human and need the personal interaction for effective communication. Listeners will remember you as much as they remember your talk, which will help you network and help you build your professional reputation. TED Talks are usually excellent examples of how to give an effective presentation. Watch some TED Talks with this advice in mind.
The second biggest mistake in a presentation is making your slides too busy or too complicated. The best slide is usually just a single, simple picture with no text at all. If you put text on a slide, you are telling the audience to read instead of listen. After they miss some of what you were saying because they were reading instead of listening, you are no longer communicating effectively. Study how to make your slides rapidly understandable so your audience can invest their mental energy listening instead of figuring out your slides. Only include the bare minimum on a slide to back up what you will be saying during the presentation. If you must include a complicated diagram, build that diagram over a sequence of slides that adds details a little bit at a time. If you feel inclined to create a busy slide, always ask yourself why. Maybe you are emotionally attached to some less-important information and just “really really” want to include it. Maybe you are afraid to get a question about that less-important information. Get over this and delete that information from your slides. If you must, create an appendix for the less-important information and use the appendix only if a question arises.
Credits: Raymond Rumpf, Director EM LAB, Texas Area
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