How to Give a Great Presentation: Timeless Advice from a Legendary Adman, 1981 by Maria Popova

                                “No speech was ever too short.”

Take, for instance, the art of a great presentation. Roman and Raphaelson offer a concise, precise plan:

How to Organize a Presentation

Organizing a presentation is a combination of clear thinking (the pyramid principle, for example) and clear communications (points that follow here).

The setting is most likely a conference room. It’s a business environment. Everything you say, everything you show, every device you use, must move you toward your objectives in a businesslike fashion.

1. Keep things simple — keep them on target
   Start with specific, written objectives — and a strategy. You need a theme to give your presentation unity and direction, and to fix your purpose in your audience’s mind. Make it a simple theme, easy to remember, and open with it, using a headline to state it.
   Tie every element in your presentation to the theme. If you’re using charts, put your theme all by itself on one chart and place it where it will be visible throughout the presentation. This keeps the people in your audience — sometimes sleepy, often distracted, always with lots on their minds — focused on your theme (and message).
2. Tell your audience where you’re going
   Show an agenda that lists the points you are going to cover. Describe the structure of your presentation, and say how long it will take. Estimate time conservatively — err on the long side rather than the short side. A presentation that is promised for twenty minutes and goes twenty-five seems like an eternity. The same thing promised for thirty minutes seems short in twenty-five, crisp and businesslike. 

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1. Throughout the meeting, refer to the agenda to keep your audience on track. Prepare a presentation book the audience can keep, and tell them at the start that you’ll give them copies after the meeting. This will relieve them from taking voluminous notes (instead of listening), so you’ll get their full attention. Do everything that’s been asked — and a little more. Be precise and complete in covering what was requested. If you cannot cover some point or other, say so and say why.
2. Think headlines, not labels
   Presenters often have impressive data on their charts, but fail to extract what the data shows, so the audience doesn’t understand what the numbers prove. What does your data say? Headings on charts should tell the audience how to think about the numbers. … Use headings to establish your main points. Guide the audience by numbering them on charts or slides, telling people how many you have. 

1. Involve the audience
   Look for interesting visual devices to present dry, routine materials. A little creativity goes a long way. New computer programs make it easy to do colorful things with pie charts and bar charts. Newsmagazines hire top artists to make their charts interesting and clear. USA Today is particularly adept at charts, and runs at least one every day in the lower left-hand corner of the front page. Study the techniques of these publications — and borrow from them.
   Think of ways to involve your audience. Play games with them. Invite people to guess the answers to questions, or to predict the results of research — before you reveal them.
   Try to add something extra, something unexpected. It demonstrates more than routine interest. You might play tape recordings of customers describing your audience’s product, or quote a relevant passage from a speech your audience’s chief executive made years ago, or show an excerpt from yesterday’s TV news that illuminates or reinforces an important point.
2. Finish strong
   ‘Oh, give me something to remember you by’ goes the song. As soon as you’ve gone, your audience is likely to turn its attention to other things — perhaps to presentations competitive to yours. Leave something to remember you by.
   Don’t let a meeting drift off into trivia. Close with a summary and a strong restatement of your proposition or recommendation. For major presentations, look for a memorable, dramatic close — something visual, perhaps a small gift that symbolizes your main point.
   Keep your promise about how much time you’ll take. Running longer than you said you would at the outset shows a lack of discipline.
   Presenters often sprout wings and fly when confronted with an audience. They expand, tell anecdotes — and hate to sit down. If what you’ve written is exactly on time in rehearsal, you’ll probably run over in performance. If you’ve been allotted twenty minutes, write for fifteen.

An additional section explores “speeches that make a point” with several tips:

1. Frame the subject with a point of view
   Some cynics maintain that the subliminal title of every speech is ‘How to Be More Like Me.’ While your audience might not look forward to a speech that actually had such a title, good speeches nearly always express a strongly held personal point of view.
   […]
   Ideas that you believe in make good speeches. Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence, advises not to accept any topic that you don’t feel strongly about: ‘Stick to topics you care deeply about, and don’t keep your passion buttoned inside your vest. An audience’s biggest turn-on is the speaker’s obvious enthusiasm.’

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1. Start fast
   It may be ‘an honor and a privilege’ to have been invited to speak, but that is not what people came to hear. Plunge into what you want to say. The occasion may require some pro forma opening courtesies, but keep them as short as possible.
   […]
   Start with that single point you want your audience to take away, then conclude with a memorable way for them to do so. Don’t just repeat it (‘As I said at the beginning of this talk …’) but find a vivid image to register the point.
2. Write your speech to be spoken
   Don’t think of it as an oration. Think of it as a conversation with a friend.
   […]
   Read aloud the draft of your speech, and edit it until it sounds like you talking naturally. Ghostwriters can help, but your speech must ultimately reflect you. Never deliver a speech drafted by someone else before you have revised it to sound like you.
3. Leave them thinking
   A great speech is one that inspires the audience to think about a subject from a fresh perspective. It helps a lot if you have the credibility, if the audience perceives that you are speaking from personal knowledge.
4. No speech was ever too short
   On your way out after a speech, do you remember ever thinking it was good — but a little too short? Most good talks take less than twenty minutes. Consider what you have so often had to sit through, and how much better it could have been said in few words.

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The Sunday Times 25 Best Companies - by Dominic O'Connell

 This is the 14th annual ranking of the cream of Britain's motivated workforces, and its appearance each year is now a highly anticipated event in the business calendar. It is widely acknowledged as the most searching and extensive research into employee engagement carried out in this country. All the scores and ratings that are assessed to compile the lists are based on employee opinions.

A total of 897 businesses and organisations registered to take part in our four surveys. The leading 325 are recognised in four lists.

The first lists we publish across our digital platforms are the 100 Best Companies to Work For in the 250-4,999 employee range, plus the 25 Best Big Companies to Work For, with 5,000-plus in the workforce.

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SMEs (up to 250 staff) are assessed in The Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies to Work For. We also recognise public sector bodies, charities and housing associations in 100 Best Not-for-Profit Organisations to Work For.

All these lists will be available to view at any time at http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/best100companies and in the week of publication on our digital editions for tablets and phones. So today you can read all about the best mid-size and big companies to work for; the small companies list will appear on Sunday March 9 and the not-for-profits on Sunday March 16.

Congratulations to all the organisations in this year's lists. From a wide range of sectors, what they have in common is enlightened and forward-looking leaders investing the well being and motivation of their most valuable assets: their employees.

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	2014 rank	2013 rank	Company	Business description	UK headquarters	Staff	Revenue (£m)
	1	1	UKRD Group	Commercial radio	Redruth	283	16.6
	2	NEW	The Brookwood Partnership	Contract catering	Walton-on-Thames	809	25.1
	3	NEW	Peninsula Business Services	Employment law consultancy	Manchester	759	69.7
	4	4	ao.com	Online retailer	Bolton	688	260.3
	5	2	Save Britain Money Group	Saving services	Swansea	488	51.0
	6	NEW	Skyscanner	Travel comparison website	Edinburgh	279	65.8
	7	NEW	Lexington Catering	Contract catering	London	560	33.0
	8	26	Red Carnation Hotel Collection	Hotels	London	851	n/a
	9	14	Connect Catering	Contract catering	Wallingford	329	n/a
	10	19	Holiday Extras	Travel support services	Folkestone	411	153.2
	11	18	Markerstudy Group	Motor insurer	Bessels Green	1773	382.9
	12	10	W L Gore & Associates (UK)	Creative technologies	Dundee	397	112.0
	13	NEW	Amigo Loans	Financial services	Bournemouth	268	73.7
	14	13	Bravissimo	Lingerie retailer	Leamington Spa	680	46.5
	15	6	Lindum Group	Construction	Lincoln	486	92.0
	16	8	Childbase Partnership	Children's nurseries	Newport Pagnell	1546	38.4
	17	NEW	Janssen	Pharmaceuticals	High Wycombe	387	349.1
	18	NEW	PHD Media	Media agency	London	258	28.4
	19	NEW	Bard Pharmaceuticals	Pharmaceuticals	Cambridge	453	107.4
	20	12	Mishcon de Reya	Legal firm	London	529	83.4
	21	5	Hawksmoor	Restaurants	London	398	26.0
	22	15	Beaverbrooks the Jewellers	Jewellery retailer	St Annes-on-Sea	843	93.7
	23	35	Attenda	IT services	Staines	256	40.8
	24	40	Hilti (Great Britain)	Tools, fixings & fastenings	Manchester	588	n/a
	25	46	Baker & McKenzie	Legal firm	London	703	129.1

HOW TO DELIVER EFFECTIVE PRESENTATIONS -

Edited by Kare Anderson, Webster, Chris Hadley, Kene and 29 others

"O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters..."
William Shakespeare: Hamlet - Act 3, Scene 2

Giving presentations to audiences, large or small, can be a daunting and anxiety-ridden task. You’re going to be in front of a group of people, some you may know, some may be total strangers. You’re on stage, all eyes are on you, the audience has high expectations or they wouldn’t be there. Every word, every nuance, your appearance, the tone of your voice, not to mention the content of your presentation, will be scrutinized in every way. You know what you want to say – you know the material – but there’s that nagging feeling that you’ll say the wrong thing or you’ll have a spot on your suit or there will be some errant distraction.

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Business presentations take many forms. Some are extremely formal with highly detailed information… how do you make sure the audience doesn’t get lost in the detail and lose focus on the overall message? Some are informal and the difficulty is controlling the cross-talk. What about the technical aspects? What will you do if the projector goes out; do you have a backup plan? The outcome you want is that when the audience leaves, they will remember the information and be impressed with the overall presentation. These steps offer some guidelines on how to accomplish that purpose.

Steps

1. 
   1
   Know your audience and understand its perspective. Whether your goal is persuasion, or simply to inform, you need to understand your audience, its level of expertise and how your message will resonate. Crafting a presentation for a group of high school interns would be very different compared to an executive report to management, pitching a sales idea, or addressing a hostile audience about why the company needs to cut benefits.
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3. 
   2
   Research thoroughly. You absolutely must be an expert on the subject. Okay, you don’t have to be the world’s leading authority, but you have to know the critical facts as well as much of the little-known information. Just talking about things everybody already knows is a recipe for boredom. It’s not at all unusual to spend weeks, or months, getting the facts, alternate opinions and comments from reputable sources as well as what the general community may think.
4. 
   3
   Document your sources. Where you get your information is as important as the information itself. Without solid, peer-reviewed data, you’re just a person with an opinion. The audience, in this exercise, is expecting facts and projections. Your personal opinion may very well be important but it must not be the only thing you present. You won’t be listing the sources ad nauseum (you will bore them silly) but you do want to be able to give citations when asked.
5. 
   4
   Write your speech. Off-the-cuff talks are fine if you’re on a soap box in a park. In a large room with hundreds of attendees, you just can’t afford that. You might not exactly "read" the speech, but that’s certainly not uncommon, especially if you’re going to be using a teleprompter. Print the speech in large print so you can easily see it at a glance without appearing to read from it. You want to give the appearance of talking to the audience instead of reading to them, but you also want the words and phrases to be precise and predetermined.
6. 
   5
   Prepare the slide show. If you're going to use a slide show, the visuals you will show to the audience need to be designed to support what you’re saying. Avoid showing a slide that has an inordinate amount of detail – the visuals are for impact. A spreadsheet with dozens of rows and columns will be basically meaningless. Titles on the slide should reflect the content of the slide and support what you’re saying. Do not read the slide!Assume the audience can read. The visuals should support your words, not duplicate them. There are very few things you can do that will have a worse impact than reading what the audience can read on their own. If all you’re going to do is put up slides and repeat what’s on them, then they don’t need you.
   • PowerPoint slides, overhead projectors, blackboards, and whiteboards are "visual aids" and should be treated as such. First, they should be visual, focusing on graphics, illustrations and plots rather than text. If your slides contain large blocks of text--or even a few sentences in bullet points--your audience will spend their time reading instead of focusing on you and the points you want to draw attention to. Second, they should be aids--don't rely on the slides to make the presentation for you. Your speech should have more content than the slides.
   • Don't pack slides too densely. If you put too much information up at once, the audience will lose focus. Have your bullet points have around ten words or less. This is a PowerPoint, not a PowerEssay.
   • Don't use too many flashy graphics and animations. They distract attention from the information content of the slides--and they will distract attention away from you, the speaker, and what you are saying.
   • Time your presentation to fit the information. If there is a time limit, be sure you stick to it including time for questions, if that is planned. It is better to pare down the material rather than to rush through it more quickly. Time your visuals to coincide with your speech. Avoid unnecessary or redundant slides such as outlines that describe the presentation to follow.
   • If you have more material than you can fit in the time limit, push that material onto "extra" slides after the end of your presentation. Those slides might come in handy if, during Q&A, someone asks you for more detail. Then, you will look extra-well-prepared!
   • Make sure the color schemes of slides are appropriate for the presentation venue. In some situations, dark text on a light background looks best, while sometimes light text on a dark background is easier to read. You might even prepare a version of your presentation in both formats just in case.
7. 
   6
   Rehearse alone. Do this repeatedly. Read your speech and watch your presentation dozens of times. This needs to be so familiar to you that you know what slide is next; what you’re going to say about each one, how you will segue between slides… this must be second nature to you. When you begin to get completely bored with doing this and you know it by rote, then you’re ready for the next step.
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9. 
   7
   Do a dress rehearsal. Enlist some people that you trust to give honest opinions. These should be people that are reasonably representative of your expected audience. Give them the whole presentation. Have them make notes during the rehearsal – where are you confusing; what is particularly good? Have them also concentrate on you: Are you moving around too much; too little? You don’t want to appear "hyper" but you also don’t want to come across as a monotone statue.
10. 8
    Tweak the presentation. Take what you learned in the dress rehearsal and make modifications. Try to put yourself in the audience when you do this. What will they hear when the slides are on the screen?
11. 
    9
    Prepare yourself. So far, the steps have all been about preparing your presentation. Now, it’s time to think about you. Unless you do this for a living, you’re going to be nervous. Do some visual imagery of yourself in front of the crowd; doing a perfect job; getting applause, oohs and aahs. Find a quiet spot, close your eyes, and go over the presentation, imagine yourself being completely in control without any stumbling. This is a very, very important step. Professional athletes use this virtually every time before they go out to perform. It’s a proven technique.^[1] Use it. You should also be doing this immediately before you go on stage.
12. 
    10
    Introduce the presentation. You’ve done a great job preparing, you know the material, you’ve rehearsed, you’ve visualized perfection – in short, you’re ready. One of the very important things to which you must pay close attention is your physical demeanor. You don't want to look too stiff, and you don't want to look too casual. You should have already gotten the right stance and movement in your dress rehearsal.
13. 
    11
    Present the material. Obviously, this is the meat of the subject. Remember you are the expert. Also remember… you will be nervous. How to avoid "stage fright" varies from person to person (you have heard the "imagine them in their underwear") but one serious tip is to use eye contact. Present to one person – then another – then another. Don’t think of it as a large crowd… you’re talking to one person at a time. Remember that YOU are the presentation.
14. 
    12
    Question and answer. This is optional, but can be an important way to clarify key points and be certain that your audience received your message. How to do a Q&A session is worthy of an article in itself but there are a few things you should consider.
    • You must be in control. Some questions will undoubtedly be less than friendly. When you get those, answer them factually and move on. Just don’t call on that person again.
    • You also might get "soft" questions that don’t really ask anything new – be careful with those. They’re easy and don’t deserve a lot of time. Don’t dismiss them or brush them off, but don’t spend too much time rehashing what you’ve already said. Answer factually, bring in some new information, then move on.
    • Open the QA with, "before I close, are there any questions". This allows for a strong close and not a presentation that withers away with poor audience participation.
    • When you get a question, first repeat the question to the audience so everyone can hear it, then proceed to answer.
    • Take a few seconds to formulate a clear answer before replying to a question. Failing to do so can lead to wandering or vague responses that do not reflect well on you as a speaker.
15. 
    13
    Exit the stage. Thank everyone for their attention, tell them the presentation is available in printed form. If you will be available for personal consultation, make sure you mention that. Don’t spend a lot of time in the exit; you’re finished – exit graciously.

The previous steps are oriented primarily towards more formal presentations. In a less formal setting, consider the following:

• Remember adults are self-directed. You are a facilitator and not a grade school teacher.

• Ask your audience to share their experiences with the group; adults need to connect learning to their knowledge base.

• Help your audience see the importance of your topic to their work. Adults are goal-oriented and will appreciate an educational program that is organized and has clearly defined elements.

• Remember to show your audience respect. They bring a wealth of experiential knowledge to your presentation and will, if allowed, contribute richly to it.

• Control the cross-talk. In these environments you can lose control of the presentation if you do not maintain the focus of the audience. This does not mean adopting Draconian-style dictatorship, but do make sure everyone is aware that you are the presenter and keep control of the other participants.