what constitutes an outstanding presentation instead of an mediocore one

What constitutes an outstanding

presentation

instead of

a mediocre one

Presentations , are defined as the simplest collection of ideas that help persuade , inform or motivate people (Stevenson , 2002 ,

.3 . In the past , presentations were simply concerned with a monotonous display of bullet-point lists , to convey the speaker 's train of thoughts . Today technology has encouraged a broad variety of presentation mediums standalone presentations on the Web , loop presentations to show repeatedly at trade show booths , burning of CD 's of a presentation to distribute to a wide audience

, adding of sound , animation , and even video to the slides (Stevenson , 2002 ,

.3

The purpose of this is to outline what marks the difference between an outstanding , and a mediocre presentation , and to analyze the critical factors that go in the making of one . The term outstanding doesn 't really convey the right impression since the overall aim of effort applied in making a presentation , is to achieve some sort of desired result . For this , we shall use the term winning ' presentation for our remaining discussion . The desired result examples can be as follows (Stevenson , 2002 ,

.3 : 1 ) Outlining of timeline and deliverables of the product launch to the manufacturing team . 2 Teaching the sales force about the feature and benefit of the new product so that they can sell better . 3 ) To make a business case for the potential market for the new product to gain financing from investors 4 ) To introduce new products to customers

So , what makes a presentation mediocre ? Different communication experts have their own opinions drawn from personal experience . But , for the sake of all-inclusivity , we shall outline the most typical characteristics of mediocre presentations that not only fail to produce results , but are commonly labeled dull , dry and boring- no euphemism required for a situation where the audience is compelled to doze off because the presentation failed to capture their interest

ANR Communication Services at the University of California , have outlined Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint presentations (ANR , 2006

1 ) Length : It is not necessary to utilize the whole time allotted , in fact the winning presentation should always aim at delivering a message as fast as possible . The common refrain is that some speakers tend to warm-up ' with a windy introduction that noone bothers to pay attention to . It is always advisable to hit bottom-line directly , and come straight to the point . 2 ) Bad visuals : Bad visuals come in several categories , but their general definition lies in a sheer ignorance of aesthetics . E .g . using elaborate graphics which have no connection to the subject matter , and were included just in to cast an impression of technical know-how . Other examples are sandwiching too much information in very little space , and using illegible fonts against an atrocious background

Other sins are : 3 ) Not sticking to the main point : Too many speakers have a habit of digressing from the subject , and beating around the bush , an exercise that can be really testing on the...