Hello, can anyone give me a qucik fix run down on some essential presentation skills. Thank you

Good one, now can you give me any pearls of wisdom ? Thank you

Ian Smart, Communications Director at IOSH gave a very good presentation with tips on this subject at a branch meeting last week. Perhaps you could give him a call?

Have a trawl around this site. Loads of useful guidance. http://www.presentationm..._Presentation_skills.htm Good luck p48

Unlike Olivier et al, you must also be a good listener and have the skill to enable effective interaction and participation. Some decent resources at businessballs.com (search within the site)

Always start with setting out a simple explanation of what you want to achieve before anything else. If you fail to do that you may as well put a robot on the stage. Only then can you start to frame a presentation. Previous advice is then all great. You are most likely the main medium for the message. Use Powerpoint (if you feel you must) as a tool, never as a crutch and always create your own script, even if forced to use somebody else's slides. When writing your script, use words that you are comfortble saying. Written words can often become tongue twisters and what one person can articulate, others may struggle with. Finally, your audience wants you to do well and will forgive minor slips and stumbles; they will not be forgiving of factual errors nor blatant rubbish nor treating them as fools. They will also notice spelling errors in any slides you use. Be highly critical of your own performance and use that knowledge to improve or change if necessary. If possible take along a good friend as an honest critic.

I disagree with that. Having had experience on both sides of the fence (attending and delivering) i can remember listening to trainers/instructor's who could save the NHS a fortune on sleeping pills and others who knew when to break the information up and inject a bit of humour. Suppose it depends on the target audience to an extent. I also believe real life true stories give good value as well. That goes for the instructors and the delegates.

There's nothing wrong with using humour but if it is forced or scripted it probably won't work. Most importantly keep a good positive tone in your voice, and try to enjoy giving your presentation. Practice your presentation a couple of times before delivering it, this will help your presentation run smoothly and also you will be able to make eye contact with your audience rather than having to read from your notes the whole way through. Good luck

When i first said I'm learning hundreds of jokes to improve my safety training people laughed at me, well they don't laugh now do they....!

I strongly agree and disagree with all of the above comments.

The things to remember about a presentation are: 1. People remember the dance not the song, which means they remember how you came across rather that the detail of what you said. If they want detail they will either ask you or look it up in the notes you will be supplying- these need to be good; a lot of courses/presentations have been ruined by badly laid out notes or notes that don’t back up what was said in the presentation. 2. Don’t go over the top on the slide show. Too much emphasis is often placed on slides/PowerPoint and not enough on what is being said and how it is being said. 3. Make sure you come across in the correct professional style- it has to be YOUR professional style; how you want to come across. If you feel comfortable with being humorous and joking a bit, then use humour but be careful. Off colour jokes ( on one course the presenter made jokes about the recently deceased; not good) are likely to alienate your audience. 4. Know what you audience expects; a group of shop floor workers will almost certainly want a different talk from some managers/directors. 5. Practice the talk; you must come across as confident and knowing what you are talking about. You are selling yourself as well as the point you are trying to get across. 6. .Actually practice the talk aloud across a room. Ideally use the room you be using for the actual talk. Make sure you know, how the projector works, how the mike works if you need to use it and how to dim the lights. 7. Get your timing right- a 45 minute talk should take 45 minutes especially if you are at a conference where speakers have to take turns. Nothing worse when someone overruns and then people will ether leave early or have to miss lunch. You be remembered for all the wrong reasons. 8. Include time for questions. If it is a long talk as part of a course, there must be interaction between the presenter and the attendees. You need something to break up the session and get people involved. 9. If it is course, rather than a simple presentation , then be prepared to freewheel. the discussion may move off into other areas not directly related to the original presentation. I have had rarely good sessions with senior managers in this way, where we have ended up thrashing out serious issues then and there. The buy-in is more important that just getting the through your talk. 10. Finally relax and enjoy it. Most of the time the attendees are glad to be there and don’t want the talk to fail.

If you'd read my post I didn't say that presentations should be boring I just think very few people can pull it off by TRYING to be funny. Humour should be something that comes naturally and occurs sponatneously (as I said in my post). Humour always emerges (usually in training sessions rather than a formal presentation) but it occurs through banter and stories etc. I never ever tell jokes. I've also given up on icebreakers as I've had them fall flat repeatedly too. I think of my training sessions as conversations with a large group of people. Using real stories is a really good tool and one I use a lot but I also try and get them to tell their stories too (if it's training sessions as opposed to a 'presentation').

Here's another suggestion. From time to time over recent years the monthly meeting of the inimitable Public Services Section I mentioned yesterday has consisted of several mini-presentations by its own members, including newer members, who have knowledge and experience about relevant topics which are worth sharing with others. For those with limited experience of giving presentations this provides a "safe" practice environment where audience members tend to recognise and be supportive of less experienced presenters. On a related point, it's advisable for committee members of IOSH branches, districts and sections to remember to use the experience and knowledge of their members when planning future meetings and not just rely on external speakers. Some no doubt do this already but others may not. Also, it's inevitable that intended speakers (from within or outwith IOSH) for meetings have to cancel, sometimes at very short notice due to illness or travel problems. Therefore, it is highly prudent for committees to have a small pool of reserve speakers from within their membership with a full or mini-presentation they can give on suitable topics. p.s. Though 'inimitable' as used above seemed an appropriate word, I wasn't quite sure what it meant. Heeding my own comments in other forum topics about words and communications, I had a quick look in a dictionary and found that it generally means "surpassing excellence". Therefore, in my opinion - totally unbiased of course - it's a worthy adjective for the Public Services Section of the Manchester & North West Districts Branch! :-)

Here's a link back to my post on animations. After using them a while I have found recently that the Xtranormal version is a bit more tolerant http://forum.iosh.co.uk/...spx?g=posts&t=100775

Use "Car Park" - a sheet on your flip chart board or elsewhere to park queries form your audience that you may not be able to answer during session. Tell you audience at the start of session that you may not be able to answer all their questions satisfactorily. In case this happnes "park" the question in the car park for ansewring it later. If the answer is not readily available tell them that you'll get back as soon as possible. And then, do get back with the answer as best as you can.

There is no "quick fix". Be prepared, if you are not, be off sick that day and use the time to book a train the trainer course.

Put yourself in the shoes of the audience, and plan to give them something you'd be happy to sit through yourself. If it's a talk about safety, good luck! Safety isn't really a subject in its own right - it's just one element of an activity. And distilling the safety bit from the specific activity doesn't work, unless you're fully conversant with the whole task. If you're not, go sick, or get reading! And yes, as others have said, as few visuals as possible.

No need! "The human brain prevents us from drifting off when listening to boring people by “rewriting” monotonous speech to make it sound more interesting, scientists have found. " http://www.telegraph.co....ch-of-boring-people.html

Hi, I know you wanted a quick fix, but another method would be to join Toasmasters International, it does help with public speaking.

In my experience another aspect of delivering very similar presentations and training sessions on different days is that some audiences can be very receptive and positive while others are less receptive and/or in a few cases can be slightly disruptive, especially if they have been compelled to attend. Also, the responses from trainees on feedback forms about even the same training session can vary considerably. It seems that my colleagues have had similar experiences and conclude that the variations arise from a variety of factors which reflect the myriad characteristics and attitudes, etc of audience members/trainees rather than any shortcomings on our parts as presenters/trainers. For example, some trainees may dislike day-long training sessions on a Friday because they're increasingly tired towards the end of their working week and/or normally like to finish work earlier than on other days. Also, the trainees at some sessions somehow seem to 'gel' and co-ordinate with each other better than those at other sessions. p.s. Have also checked my copy of the book containing all the words of all the Monty Python sketches: my memory at #34 was correct - the barber who hated his work certainly was the character who wanted to become a lumberjack, though perhaps he hadn't considered the safety risk implications of his yearning to "leap from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia"! Will this reference now result in some of you hearing "The "Lumberjack Song" in your heads or even humming its tune?!! :-)