A few tips for your public presentations

If you are presenting at a conference - or any other public presentation for that matter - there a a few thing that can increase the value for the listeners which you might not consider.

• First thing is putting the content of your slides on the top! In many conference rooms the listener cannot see the lower part of the screen with you slides show due to the head of the dude(tte) in front of them. The listener will be stretching to see the slide and losing some focus on the presentation. If you show code put the code in focus on the top.

• Second thing is having your slides (or whatever presentation media you use) online already at the presentation. If you have made some good presentation material the listeners will want to go and look at that specific point you made in that specific slide very soon after the presentation. I think having the presentation slides online and having a link to them in the end slide is a good solution. I also recommend tweeting the link after the presentation.

• Third thing: Put your twitter handle in top of every slide you have. If you say something funny/important/valuable I (as the listener) want to be able to tweet that with a reference to you right then. I don’t want to have to look up your twitter handle when I am busy writing down the awesomeness you just said (while at the same time following your next point). If you speak at a conference where a twitter hashtag is used you broaden the audience of your presentation and you simply look like a better presenter in the twitterverse.