How to present in English

Throughout this blog, and in most of the books written about presenting, there is a lot of advice about ‘following the rules’ of presenting. Recently, I have found myself asking “are there any rules for presenting?” The answer I have come up with is: no. There are no rules for presenting.

The purpose of doing a presentation is to communicate a message to a group of people. If we begin with this in mind, then how we communicate that message is irrelevant as long as we achieve the goal of communicating the message. Do we need to make a fifty slide PowerPoint presentation? No. Do we have to stand up in front of the audience wearing our best suit? No. Do we have to avoid using bullet points? No. None of these things matter – what really matters is that we communicate our message is the most effective way possible.

When we present to a small audience of six to ten people, do we really need to use PowerPoint of Keynote? Why not use a white board or a flip chart? Using a whiteboard or flip chart can give you a chance to get your audience involved, you can ask them to write ideas on the board, you can demonstrate your amazing artistic abilities (if you have them) and you can give your presentation a real live feeling.

Most presentations are done standing up, and while this is probably a good adea when you are presenting in front of hundreds of people, do you really need to stand up when you are presenting to say ten or twelve people? When you stand up to speak you create an air of formality, when you sit down you become ‘one of them’ – by becoming ‘one of them’ you become more approachable, more informal and relaxed.

If you take a look at Hollywood, the movies that are always remembered are the ones that did something different, the movies that were created in a different way, movies like Toy Story, The Blair Witch Project, Star Wars (the original ones) and Pulp Fiction – all these movies are memorable, not just because of the story lines, but because they were different from the ‘standard’ format.

Presentations are all about communication, sadly, we get taught in our universities and in our ‘top down’ managed companies that when we present we must use PowerPoint. This is simply not true, and the future for presenting is for us, the people, to create our own unique styles, to think carefully about how best to communicate our message and throw these old ideas about presenting away.