How to Develop Better Presentations in Less Time

Whether it's an intimate presentation to a small group or a TED-style extravaganza for hundreds, a ton of your time typically goes into creating presentations. Too often, it’s too much time.  You have other things to do in your crazy-busy life - so how can you speed up the content development process?

Oratorio recommends the following sequence:

1. Determine your topic.

2. Who is your audience, what do they already know and what do they need to know?

3. What is your goal? What is it that you want to achieve from delivering the presentation?

4. What is your desired impression? In other words, what are the adjectives you’d like your audience to use in describing you? 

5. Decide the three main points you must deliver, and then back up those points with compelling details, stats, and examples. 

6. Then come up with a powerful opening. Is there a story or an image or a quote that will immediately grab your audience’s attention? Start with that when you deliver the presentation, then deliver your three key messages as the “body” of your presentation. Finish on a strong note by “bookending” the presentation with a final reference to your opening, to drive home the point.

Coming up with new presentation ideas is never easy, but this approach can bring your material into focus faster and more easily.

Comms Directors: Set The Right On-Camera Example

The Zoom age hasn’t been a picnic for communications directors. It’s not always easy to tell that C-suite executive to lose the scruffy COVID beard, the t-shirt, the ponytail, the no-makeup, etc.  Sure, it was “freeing” for a while, but those days are gone.

With the business world (seemingly, God willing) inching toward the cusp of returning to something approaching normalcy, it’s time to go back to looking professional — and that goes for comms professionals themselves, as well as the senior execs. We’re not saying that you need to put on a tie or go to the salon, but please set a good example by getting out of your sweatshirt and wrinkled polo shirt. Think about your appearance: hair, clothes, make-up.

Also, be sure that you aren’t committing that cardinal sin of sitting in front of a window, with the light coming from behind making you look like a B-movie ghoul. Get a ring light or sit in front of the window with the light on your face. Get a proper lavalier microphone too, so we don’t hear the labradoodle barking next door. 

As a comms director, you’re telling the “talent” what to do — so do as you say.