Seminars are one of the perfect ways to interact and get your message across to your target audience. This has been a great method of getting the message across in an effective way. Public speakers are always in high demand and people follow them. This cult following is not easy to achieve. It comes only when one is a perfect speaker and a person who leaves an everlasting impact on the audience.
A good PowerPoint seminar contains efficient planning and flawless delivery. Efficient planning is required for an impressive presentation. A good presentation is a constitution of several elements. The different elements that make a good presentation are namely the content of the presentation, the layout of the PowerPoint slides, and the delivery style.
The content of the presentation
The topic: Before jumping into what the content of the presentation should be, it is important to come up with and stick to an interesting and engaging topic that is relevant to the audience. The speaker must give time value to the audience. He must emphasize that the audience must learn something by spending their time listening to him.
Research: Proper research is required even before framing a structure for the seminar. It gives the speaker control over the language and the confidence to deliver and answer questions that the audience might ask. It also helps the speaker to frame new ways of representing the information.
Scheme: An outline or structure gives a definite direction to the presentation, the presenter and the audience. Doing a proper outline saves a lot of time, while planning incorrectly at this step can be a burden later on, and the presenter has to realign and redo the entire layout. When he creates the structure, he can include it on the second slide after the title slide (which usually contains the topic, the presenter’s name, and the date). This helps provide the audience with a direction of what is to come next.
Introduction: This is a short introduction to the topic and you can start with quotes, any interesting facts or questions. Icebreaker techniques can be used here to engage the audience in the discussion.
Body: This is the longest part of the presentation and carries the theme. It is mainly recommended that the presentation does not have a lot of text and that it makes use of the important points in a clear way. Using high-resolution, relevant images can enhance the look of your slides.
Conclusion: The conclusion summarizes the entire presentation. It can be a quote, an interesting question that makes the audience think, a summary of what has been discussed, recommendations or suggestions, or some learning and action points.
Designing PowerPoint Slides
Microsoft PowerPoint is an excellent tool for making a powerful presentation. The easy features of Microsoft PowerPoint help even a novice to create their own presentation. The following are the points to keep in mind when designing a PowerPoint presentation.
Sources: Using fonts like Times New Roman and others that are already installed in Microsoft PowerPoint gives the presentation a monotonous look. Free and attractive fonts available on the internet can be easily downloaded and used to make a beautiful PowerPoint presentation.
Color: You can use color schemes to make your slides look attractive. Make sure you use a good color combination. Make sure the text is legible and the colors are not too harsh on the eyes.
Alignment: The alignment of images and text are equally important. It should look nice and not disconnected.
Text: If you use more text, the slides start to look clunky and unattractive. Therefore, it is recommended that only the main points be presented in bullet points and used on the slides. Another downside to this is that the audience loses focus on the speaker and starts reading the slides. If it is important to use the text, it should be divided into sections and smaller parts, and the appropriate paragraphs should be made.
Images, Graphs and Tables: Care must be taken not to use copyrighted images without proper approvals. Images should be of good quality when displayed on a large screen and therefore high resolution images are preferred. The source of graphs and tables that are taken from external sources must be cited.
Animation: A lot of text and images flying everywhere don’t give the presentation a clean look. This is a distracting factor as well. Therefore, one should be careful when using animation and should not overdo it.
Cohesion: This is a crucial factor in presentation design. Grouping similar topics and categories together helps. You can then set different font styles, background color, theme, font styles, and font colors for the groups to keep them looking consistent and similar, and to give the presentation a structured look. This will not cause the presentation to disconnect in different parts.
delivery style
Wear: The speaker is recommended to wear clean, formal clothing.
Body language: The speaker must be confident. He must use open hand gestures and must not be clumsy in his appearance or attitude. The speaker must take care of the volume, clarity and tone of it. He must make sure that it is clear and audible to the last person sitting in the back row of the room. Eye contact with everyone in the room is a sign of a good speaker. The use of the stage is immensely important. The presenter may choose to use the stage freely, but must be careful not to stand in front of the screen to obstruct the slides being projected.
Resources and the Configuration Phase: Resources are the tools, equipment, or any other material that the presenter needs. These include projector, clicker, flipchart or laser pointer. After arriving on stage, the presenter must make sure that everything is ready.
Connect with the audience: The audience must feel connected and must pay attention to what the speaker is saying. This can be achieved if the speaker engages with them and finds ways to make the session interactive, providing relevant examples that seem connected to their lives. Small activities, games, questions and quizzes help connect with the audience.
The do’s and don’ts discussed above can help even a novice speaker. The key to delivering a fantastic presentation, of course, comes with experience and practice, and the speaker must continually practice their research, design, and delivery skills to improve their overall presentation skills. It is obvious that making a good presentation is not a skill that is acquired overnight, but an art that must be learned, perfected and developed over time. With the help of the above pointers, a speaker can look to deliver a presentation that is relevant and interesting.