how to do a 15 minute presentation

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How to Create a Great Presentation in Just 15 Minutes

Did you know that the highest paid profession in America is professional speaking? Speakers can earn between $5,000 and $10,000 for a 20 minute keynote presentation.

It’s the reason why great entrepreneurs know how to get up and share their message .  They indirectly get “paid” by moving employees, partners and communities to engage with their business in a way that goes far beyond the financial upside.

Some of the best, like Mark Zuckerberg  (Founder/CEO of Facebook), go even further and learn other languages , so they can share in a more authentic way.

If you can master – or at least be mediocre – at speaking, it will open up the world to you. I’ve been paid to fly around the world sharing stories of lessons learned with amazing entrepreneurial communities.

What I’ve covered below is my approach to creating a great presentation in 15 minutes. Yes, that sounds ridiculous – but it’s true. I can sit down with a piece of paper, write out the structure outlined below and insert the missing elements to be able to get up and speak for 20-60 minutes without skipping a beat and feeling confident in delivering the value to my audience.

It’s taken me years of practice and training to get mediocre at best, but I felt my approach was something worth sharing as I often get asked to help others with their presentations. I would love nothing more than to see more entrepreneurs share their story and lessons learned with a global audience.

Overview of sections below:

Highlevel Outline: How I create my presentations following a system I’ve created and adapted over the years. It’s a simple way to ensure you don’t forget anything major and provides a framework to quickly create your next presentation.

Slide Creation: My approach to creating slides. I borrow a lot of the design sensibility from an old friend, Daniel Burka. 5 years ago, I watched him give a talk and I was so impressed with how visually stunning his slides were, but also in their simplicity.

Highlevel Outline

Here’s a quick overview of the framework I use, inspired by T. Harv Eker , to give a talk:

• Title of Talk
• Teaching(s)

1. Title of Talk

Creating a catchy title can feel overwhelming, but there’s a simple trick based on decades of research and it’s super scientific. Just use magazine covers. Search online for a magazine in your industry and put the words, “Magazine Cover” after it. (ex: Forbes Magazine Cover ). You’ll see 100’s of examples of article headlines designed to capture someones attention. Use them for inspiration and tweak for your own needs.

The best way to open is to state your name and the title of the talk. It’s simple and gets things rolling. If you want to be fancy, you can do a bunch of other things here, it’s your call.

Tell a Story: This is one of my favourite ways to open. If you have a funny story about the city, venue or organizers, tell it. Keep it short – but funny – and if possible, relevant to the topic.

Ask a Question: You’ve probably seen people do this. They ask, “How are you doing?” or “How many of you …?” – either approach is fine and it gets the audience interacting early in your talk to set the mood and to gain audience participation.

One of the perfect way to engage the audience is to thank them. Doing this will leave them feeling a sense of respect for you because you appreciated them. There are 2 groups you’ll want to thank, and in this order:

Attendees: Thank them for coming, for their time and participation over the allotted time.

Organizers: Get the name of the organizers and a few major sponsors. Thank them and then ask everyone to give em’ a big round of applause.

4. What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM)

No one goes to an event for the speaker, they go for themselves. Tell them what they’ll get out of your talk. This is referred to as “WIIFM,” or “What’s In It For Me?”, asked from the attendees point of view. If you don’t tell them, you may lose them.

5. Earn The Right (ETR)

Why are you on stage? Why should anyone listen to you? Be sure to share those reasons at the beginning of your talk or the audience will be sitting there wondering what makes you qualified to even be there. I NEVER assume anyone knows who I am, what I’ve accomplished or the reason I was asked to speak. Tell them.

Tell Your Own Bio: It’s the reason I don’t like having someone else read my bio before I get up.

Share Your Accomplishments: Inline with the topic of your talk, what have you accomplished? Brag a bit. Tell them.

Share Your “Why”: Why are you on stage? What’s your purpose in life? How is that coming along?

6. Teaching(s)

This is the meat of your talk. It can be as simple as a story, or a series of lessons learned. Regardless of how long you have to talk, each learning is a story and usually lasts about 10 minutes.

The optimum way to fill an hour talk is to break things up into 10 minute stories or 10 minute teachings. It makes approaching a big presentation so much more doable. If you follow the structure below with the opening, story and ending – then you can just toss out all the topic teachings (ie. topics) you want to cover up front.

For each teaching: decide on the best way to frame it, the story you feel demonstrates the lesson the best and how you want to end.

Here’s the format I use to accomplish this:

This is usually the point you want to talk about – the  lesson learned, trend or belief that you would like to teach. If you have any powerful statistics or examples to reinforce this, then lead with that. One of my favorite openings I’ve heard recently came from an HR startup at a pitch competition:

“People don’t quit their companies. They quit their boss.”

An excellent way to teach something is by telling a story. I personally like to share stories about my experiences that help reinforce the topic.

There’s been a lot written on the format of stories, but the key in my mind is this: The more vulnerable the story, the more universal the appeal.

Regardless of the topic, everyone likes a good story, so don’t bore your audience with facts & figures, instead, weave that information into a relevant story. Remember, “Facts tell… Stories sell.”

This is where many speakers mess up a great story. They don’t bring the story to a resolution, or explain how the lesson they learned helped them achieve or avoid a similar fate in the future.

I used to be horrible at this. I would always forget to “end” my story. You quickly learn this by the types of questions you’re asked after your talk. If you get the “What happened with the company afterwards?”, or “Did you ever figure out a way to avoid that…”, etc.. Then you’ll know you didn’t end or resolve the story properly. It only takes a few seconds, but it will help the audience stay engaged.

At the end of my talks, I always like to quickly go over the topics I covered, then end with either a “Call to Action” or a “Call to Purpose.”

Call To Action: This is some type of action I would like the audience to take. Most of the time I give them a URL to download links so I can collect their email and build a relationship. It’s also a great way to judge how well you did based on the % of the audience that were motivated to do so. The better your talk, the higher the conversion to email.

Call to Purpose:  If the purpose of my talk was more inspirational than teaching, I’ll end with a call to purpose. This is more of an “ask” to the audience to live their life with purpose. I’ve sometimes asked, “Will you make me a commitment to have no small plans?”, or borrowed from my friend Clay, “I have no doubt you’ll all be successful, but will you matter?”

Both questions are designed to summarize the essence of the talk and leave the audience with a question that will connect them through emotion to the topics covered. It’s like planting a trigger to help connect with the audience.

TIP: The First 7 Minutes: The best way to reduce the stress you might be having for an upcoming talk is to practice and perfect the first 7 minutes. That’s all you need.

If you’ve practiced the opening, all the other elements written above, and maybe the first topic, you’ll be fine. Remember, you’re human, you already know how to tell a story so the key is to remember how you begin and end. The middle will fill itself in.

Creating Your Slides

The best slides are no slides. If you’re an amazing story teller then you should be able to get away with no slides. I’m not there, yet. So in lieu of that, I continuously reduce the amount of information on a slide as well as the total number of slides in my presentation.

Currently, I have the following slides for my talks:

• Earn The Right
• Teaching #1

Title slide:  This is the first slide which has a strong image with the title of my talk, my Twitter handle and the hashtag for the talk or event.

Earn The Right (Your Story) : This is a slide with a picture that represents who I am and allows me to cover the Earn The Right (ETR) part of my talk.

Teaching(s): This slide has the topic I want to cover, relevant image and that’s it. I repeat this format for every 10 minute story I plan to share.

In the past, I would do 4 slides per teaching: teaching title, opener, story and closing. The format didn’t change though, typically a big image with or without a word.

Closing: Last slide is my thank you slide + some kind of call to action, or call to purpose. It usually includes my Twitter handle, the hashtag for the event and maybe a URL if I want them to visit a website and take action. It’s the slide I leave up when I’m doing Q&A with the audience.

When you get on stage and you teach from the heart everyone will notice – and then it has nothing to do with structure – because at a human level, we all just want to connect.

Share your stories. Share your passions. Teach others what you’ve learned. You’ll always get way more out of it than you put into it.

Have you ever been scared to give a talk? How did you overcome it? Was it as bad as you thought it would be? Leave a comment below as I’d love to learn more!

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The 15-Minute, 6-Step Solution for Delivering the Best Presentations

Some people are born with a natural stage presence..

Most aren’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn the skills necessary to be an awesome presenter .

Once you have these tools in your kit, you’ll be able to confidently speak to any group – no matter the size.

You’ll discover that each presentation you give should have a defined purpose , as well as the importance of effective beginnings and action-based endings.

Knowing how to breathe properly and the right way to practice are also vital skills for you to possess.

As you learn to read your audience and speak with confidence, you’ll be ready to tackle any presentation.

This guide to giving stellar speaking presentations will equip you with the tools you need. So let’s get started!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  Purposeful presentations

Know your audience

Prompt action, create a targeted goal.

2.  Keep your focus while presenting

Using your breath

Building confidence, practicing your presentation.

3.  Great presenters read the audience

4.  Be a presenter who speaks with confidence

Understanding action vs. information

Learning the power of bookends.

5.  Awesome presenters provide the optimal environment

How to control your presentation’s physical environment

6.  You’re ready to rock your presentations

1. Purposeful presentations

You never want to give a presentation without a purpose.

Even if your presentation is extremely entertaining, if you don’t have a purpose, the audience will walk away without applying the information.

And that’s really the key to a good presentation .

Figuring out who your audience is and why they’re in attendance are crucial elements upon which to base your actions and purpose.

• Who? Are you speaking to schoolchildren, executives, or senior citizens?
• Why? Is this audience there because they’re required to be or was attendance optional and they’re just excited to learn?

Understanding the audience mindset can help you achieve your purpose.

What do you want your audience to DO as a result of your presentation?

Think of your purpose as the “so what?” for the audience . Build your goals around this.

Ask yourself questions such as:

• What would you like to have happen?
• What change will happen as a result of you taking the time to talk to people?
• How will the actions of your audience be different when they walk out the door after your presentation?

Focus on driving them to take action.

Maybe you want to:

• Persuade a committee to raise your budget by 15% for the following quarter.
• Encourage a group of college students to exercise their opportunity to vote.
• Convince a client to start doing business with you as opposed to their current vendor.

Did you notice how specific and targeted each of these goals is?

When the purpose is tied to an outcome, it directs the content and flow of your presentation.

With purpose, you can be so convincing that your audience is moved to:

• Sign off on hiring more people for your project.
• Take on a new exercise regimen.
• Give you a raise.
• Stop littering and start recycling.

Whatever the goal (or purpose), you owe it to your audience to have a “so what?” moment.

How do you do that?

Just keep it simple.

Everything you talk about and all of your visuals should point to one clear purpose.

What you want them to DO .

If you can accomplish that goal, and remove the fluff that distracts, you’ll be a successful presenter.

2. Keep your focus while presenting

Now that we’ve discussed purpose, let’s cover three more important factors – breathing, having confidence, and practicing – that will help you focus on the goal.

You’ve probably heard at least one person brag about not getting nervous before giving  a presentation.

They’re either lying, or they’re a “presenting unicorn.”

Nearly everyone gets nervous about presenting, so stop thinking you shouldn’t be stressed out and focus on what to do about it.

One of the best weapons for dealing with nerves is….your breath.

Breath is an important tool for anyone speaking in front of a group. Actually, it’s the source of your power – if you know how to harness it.

This is how actors, dancers and athletes power through challenging performances, and you can use these techniques to drive yours.

Think about it: When you’re nervous, the first thing to go is your oxygen level. Your breath becomes rapid and shallow. You involuntarily hold your breath, and in some cases, maybe even pass out!

We’ve even seen a CEO faint under the pressure!

Breathing deeply is a great way to calm these physical reactions.

Breathing technique example

Here’s a technique you can use before presentations to harness the power of your breath (based on Dr. Andrew Weil’s breathing exercise called “4-7-8”).

After trying this exercise, people reported feeling focused, calm, and clear-headed.

Be sure to sit down the first time you try this:

• Breathe in through your nose while  counting to four.
• Hold that breath for a count of seven.
• Let the breath out slowly, releasing it through your mouth for a count of eight.
• Repeat four times.

Now, you can step onto the stage with poise.

The best presentations are not just about the information you want to relay.

Sure, your presentation should be hefty on relevant ideas or concepts, but if your delivery is missing one key component, confidence, it’ll detract from the value of your presentation .

Use body language to your advantage

There’s a way to instantly boost your confidence level. All you have to do is make  your body look confident .

This concept is similar to the “power pose.” Just by changing the power and confidence conveyed in your body language , you can change the way you feel inside.

And, amazingly enough, you change the perception of the audience. Even if you are shaking inside, if your body language exudes confidence, they will believe it.

Essentially, if you send a message to your body, it’ll eventually find its way to your brain

Try these poses on for size.

Strike a power pose.

• Stand up and take on a confident posture:  Push your chest out, put your hands on your hips or up in the air, and make sure your spine is erect.
• How do you feel?

Now, try a non-power pose.

• This time, take on a diminishing pose, maybe sitting with your arms and legs crossed and  your head down. Basically, this position is a protective one.

Before you take the stage or get up in front of a group of people, practice confidence-building:

• Take up space.
• Stand up straight.
• Look people in the eye.
• Keep your chin up.

Breathe deeply and let that breath relax your shoulders.

Notice a difference in your confidence?

As a matter of fact, these rules apply even for a sit-down meeting. Plant your feet on the ground,  sit up straight, and make eye contact around the table.

Keep rehearsing these body movements and incorporate them into your next presentation.

You’ve been duped.

The longstanding advice to rehearse your presentation in front of a mirror is the worst  advice we’ve ever heard!

Here’s our best piece of advice: Ditch the mirror .

Think about it: You stand in front of a mirror (your pretend audience), about a foot away, and practice watching yourself. You can’t speak to the audience member at the back of the room or off to the side this way.

Get in front of an audience after rehearsing in front of the mirror, and you’ll be ill-prepared to deliver a presentation that wows. You’ll be wondering how you look and will be thrown off by watching others.

No wonder so many presentations fall flat.

And toss the perfection aside, too, when you ditch that mirror. Audiences prefer real over perfect.

A better rehearsal strategy

Here’s how to start:

• Find a larger room to rehearse, like a conference room or your hotel room.
• Stand in the space and look around. Take your eyes to the back of the room and the sides, and then the front.
• Project your voice and energy to all of these spaces.
• If one is available, gather an audience of friends, family or colleagues, and watch their reactions. Make eye contact. Be energetic. Interact.

Practice. Practice. Practice. And you’ll improve! There’s no getting around it — only on-your-feet practice really makes you better.

Even low-key practice improves your skills

If you have your eye on presenting to larger audiences and moving on from small in-house  presentations, look for a low-risk opportunity .

When there’s not so much at stake, you can take chances.

You don’t even have to present in a professional setting to improve. Look for local groups where you can deliver a speech or a group that shares your common interest or hobby.

After practicing in these kinds of situations, you’ll have a better skillset to deliver bigger-impact presentations to a work committee or at an organizational meeting.

3. Great presenters read the audience

Once you’ve got a handle on who your audience is, why they’ve come to hear you speak, and your purpose is firm in your mind, you need to assess how the audience is responding to you.

Not sure what an engaged listener looks like?

Here are some hints:

• Are they maintaining eye contact with you?
• Are they nodding in agreement?
• Are they leaning forward?

These are signs that your audience is hooked!

But . And this is a pretty big but …

What if you look at your audience and see yawns, a lot of fidgeting and glazed-over expressions?

You have to change course. Improvise.

Remember – the needs of your audience come first.

Keeping your audience absorbed

If they’re not engaged, it’s up to you to shift your behavior in order to reconnect with your listeners.

If you find yourself in a tough situation, here are some things you can do to draw your audience back in.

Make them actively participate by asking them to raise their hands in answer to some questions.

For example:

• “How many of you are familiar with this particular research?”
• “We’ve just covered an important technique. Can someone from HR show us an example of the method in action?”
• “I have two more techniques to cover. Which would you like to hear about first?”

It really is that quick and easy to recreate a connection with your audience.

4. Be a presenter who speaks with confidence

Presentations aren’t just about the words you say and the interesting slides you show, but rather they’re all about what your body is communicating to the audience.

Your audience may not even be doing it consciously, but they’re watching what you do with your body and they’re picking up subtle clues that you’re giving off.

Here’s what you can do to become a confident speaker  –  aside from using your body.

If your main purpose is simply to relay information, you’re better off writing an email.

However, you have a bigger fish to fry when you’re in front of an audience.

Leverage that power to make your audience do something – such as considering a new idea or even getting angry!

The point is that you want to make an emotional connection with the audience that will cause them to follow through on your purpose for them.

Save the information transfer for the internet and use your presentation to motivate your audience to take action .

Maybe you haven’t given it much thought before, but the way you begin and end your presentations has significant implications for the strength of your presentation.

You can  think of your beginnings and endings as bookends .

Starting out with bang

It’s crucial that you grab your audience’s attention right away – as soon as you take the stage.

You have a short window of opportunity with which to pull them in and after that, you risk losing them.

Here are some ideas for getting your audience in the palm of your hand right away.

• Start with a startling tidbit of information in the form of a rhetorical question. For example, “Did you know Ben and Jerry learned how to make ice cream from a $5 Penn State correspondence course? I’m Cindy and I’m here to talk about entrepreneurship.”
• Engage your audience.  “Raise your hand  if you took a multivitamin today. My name is Marc, and I’m here to talk to you about the reasons you should be taking vitamins.”
• Take them by surprise.  If  you come into the room for the first time, singing at the top of your lungs, do you think your audience will remember it? Do you have another talent that you could share as you make your entrance?

Starting your presentation in an exciting way lets your audience know that they’re in for more than the same kind of boring talk they’ve experienced over and over again.

Ending on the right note

You always want to send your audience out with something that they can think about  long after they’ve left. And most importantly, take action upon!

Take a look at some ideas for ending your presentation well.

• Quickly summarize the information you went over. Repetition is key for getting information to stick!
• Conclude with a call to action.  It can be powerful to end your speech with a directive for your audience. Inspire them to take action.

When you begin and end your presentation the right way, you can be sure that your audience will walk away with real value.

5. Awesome presenters provide the optimal environment

As you’re honing your speaking techniques, don’t forget to give some serious thought to the location in which you’re delivering the speech.

You’ve probably been in a situation yourself in which you were too warm so you were nearly nodding off.

Or maybe you found it hard to pay attention because the acoustics in the room were off and you could only catch snippets of what was being said.

An uncomfortable audience is a distracted audience – the exact opposite of what you want!

It’s up to you to make sure the venue is up to your high standards and that your audience is going to have an excellent experience. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to ensure that the environment will enhance  –  not detract from  –  the presentation.

Is the room big enough for the amount of people you’re expecting?

If your audience is too cramped, they won’t be able to pay attention.

Feel free to ask to be moved to a new room if you’re not comfortable with the space-to-people ratio.

How is the temperature of the space?

When you get there, gauge the temperature of the space, keeping in mind that a room full of people will be much warmer than one that’s empty.

It’s a good idea to ask if you’ll be able to adjust it if needed.

What’s the seating arrangement?

You should be able to see the faces of the audience members and they definitely need to be able to see you.

One’s mind can easily wander if they’re stuck staring at the back of someone else’s head!

Where should you stand?

After you’re happy with the arrangement for your audience, think about where you’ll be standing.

That doesn’t mean you aren’t free to move around, of course, but you should have a sort of “home base” as you’re speaking.

Take the time to walk around on the stage and check out how it feels before people arrive.

Where are the cords located?

It may seem trivial, but tripping over cords is NOT what you want the audience to remember.

Ask that the cords be taped down to ensure safety.

What’s the noise situation?

The last thing you want to do while you’re giving an awesome presentation is compete with outside noise that will draw attention away from your message.

When you’re giving the space the once-over before your audience arrives, pay attention to any distracting noises that may be coming from outside the room.

If you notice anything, ask for your event to be moved to a different room or if there’s a way for the sounds to be quieted while you’re speaking.

What about helpers?

Setting up chairs and moving things around are difficult for you to do when you’re preparing to present.

Find out if the venue has someone who does these types of tasks. If they don’t, ask if it’s possible for them to provide someone.

Make sure you’re courteous enough to make this request far enough in advance that you’re not putting a strain on anyone.

It’s up to you

Remember that it’s up to you to make sure the space in which you’re presenting is free of distractions and is an optimum environment in which your message will be received, loud and clear!

6. You’re ready to rock your presentations

Having the tools you need to confidently make a presentation can make all the difference in the world as you prepare to take the stage.

Ensure your presentation has a purpose, keep your focus, and read your audience. Don’t forget that being aware of your body language will help keep your confidence up and the audience engaged and interested in everything that’s coming out of your mouth.

You know how to breathe, how to practice (NOT in front of the mirror!) and how to put your audience first , and take steps to control the environment to your advantage.

With these tips in hand, you can confidently step out and do your thing!

Contact us to talk about how to drive your employee’s career skills.

This article is 100% written by a human named Karen Hough. She is the Founder & CEO of ImprovEdge, in the top 4% of women-owned businesses in the US, a 3-time Amazon bestselling author, Yale grad, wife and mom of three.

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Creating a 10-15 Minute Scientific Presentation

In the course of your career as a scientist, you will be asked to give brief presentations -- to colleagues, lab groups, and in other venues. We have put together a series of short videos to help you organize and deliver a crisp 10-15 minute scientific presentation.

First is a two part set of videos that walks you through organizing a presentation.

Part 1 - Creating an Introduction for a 10-15 Minute Scientfic Presentation

Part 2 - Creating the Body of a 10-15 Minute Presentation: Design/Methods; Data Results, Conclusions

Two additional videos should prove useful:

Designing PowerPoint Slides for a Scientific Presentation walks you through the key principles in designing powerful, easy to read slides.

Delivering a Presentation provides tips and approaches to help you put your best foot forward when you stand up in front of a group.

Other resources include:

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How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

By Krystle Wong , Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

How to make a great presentation

Stressed about an upcoming presentation? These talks are full of helpful tips on how to get up in front of an audience and make a lasting impression.

The secret structure of great talks

The beauty of data visualization

TED's secret to great public speaking

How to speak so that people want to listen

How great leaders inspire action

Making a short presentation based on your research: 11 tips

Markus goldstein, david evans.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve both spent a fair amount of time at conferences. Given that many conferences ask researchers to summarize their work in 15 to 20 minutes, we thought we’d reflect on some ideas for how to do this, and – more importantly – how to do it well.

• You have 15 minutes. That’s not enough time to use the slides you used for that recent 90-minute academic seminar. One recent presentation one of us saw had 52 slides for 15 minutes.    No amount of speed talking will get you through this in anything resembling coherence. (And quit speed talking, anyway. This isn’t a FedEx commercial !) There is no magic number of slides since the content you’ll have and how you talk will vary. But if you have more than 15 slides, then #2 is doubly important.
• Practice. This is the great thing about a 15-minute talk: You can actually afford to run through it, out loud. Running through it once in advance can reveal to you – wow! – that it’s actually a 25-minute talk and you need to cut a bunch. Of course, the first time through the presentation it may take a bit longer than you will when you present, but if you have any doubts, practice again (bringing your prep time to a whopping 30 minutes plus a little bit).
• You need a (short) narrative. What is the main story you are trying to tell with this paper? Fifteen minutes works better for communicating a narrative then for taking an audience through every twist and turn of your econometric grandeur. Deciding on your narrative will help with the discipline in the points that follow.
• A model or results? Even if your audience is all academics, you don’t have academic seminar time. So the first thing to do is to figure out which is more important to get across – your model or your empirical results. Then trim the other one down to one slide, max. If the results are your focus (usually the case for us), give the audience a sense of how the model is set up, and what the main implications are as they pertain to the results you will show. Conversely, if it’s the model that’s more important, the empirical results will come later and you can just give the very brief highlights that bolster the key points.
• The literature. Really, really minimal. If you do it at all, choose only the papers that you are either going to build on in a major way or contradict. For some types of discussants, it may help to include them, even if they don’t meet the other criteria. Marc Bellemare takes an even stronger stance: “Never, ever have a literature review in your slides. If literature reviews are boring to read in papers, they are insanely boring to listen to during presentations.”
• Program details. Here it’s a bit of a balance. The audience needs a flavor for the program, they need to understand what it did and how it’s different from other things (particularly other things with some kinds of evidence). But only in exceptional cases (as in, it’s a really different program for theoretical reasons, or you don’t have more than process results yet) do you want this to eat up a lot of your time.
• You don’t have time to go through the nitty gritty of the data.   We get that every detail about the survey was fascinating (we spend a lot of our lives thinking about this).   But if it’s not key to the story, save it for a longer presentation (or another paper). And if you’re doing a primarily theoretical paper, this is a bullet on one slide.
• Balance and summary stats. Key summary stats that tell the audience who the people are might make the cut, but 3 slides of every variable that you’ll use are going to be slides you either rip through (telling the audience nothing) or waste most of your time on. Summarize the summary stats. On balance tests: you are either balanced or not.  If you are, this gets a bullet at most (you can also just say that). If you’re not, tell us what’s up and why we should or should not worry.  
• Pre-analysis plan. If you had it, mention it (quickly). If not, don’t. It’s not critical here.
• A picture may be worth 1,000 numbers. Sometimes, taking that really packed table which is currently in 12 point font and turning it into a graph is going to help you with self-control and help your audience with comprehension. Put the significant results in a bar chart, and use asterisks to tell folks which are significant.  
• A special warning about presenting your job market paper. When I (Markus) submitted my job market paper to a journal, the referee report came back noting that this was surely a job market paper since it had 40(!) tables. Key example of how everything matters when you just spent four years of your life collecting each observation. Discipline. You have (or will have) an elevator pitch from the job market – use this to trim your presentation. 
• Marc Bellemare has a great series of “22 tips for conference and seminar presentations,” many of which apply to short presentations: “Always provide a preview of your results. This isn’t a murder mystery: it’s only when people know where you’re taking them that they can enjoy the scenery along the way.”
• Jeff Leek has a great guide to giving presentations of different lengths, and what your goal should be: “As a scientist, it is hard to accept that the primary purpose of a talk is advertising, not science.” This is doubly true for a 15-minute talk.
• The AEA Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession has a top 10 list. “Never cut and paste a table from your paper onto a slide. These tables are never easy to read and only irritate your audience. Instead, choose a few results that you want to highlight and present them on a slide in no smaller than 28 font.” We’ve pretty much all done this. It’s bad practice. (“I’m sorry you can’t read this table.” “Oh really, then why did you cut and paste that giant table from your paper into the presentation?!”)
• I (Dave) go back and re-read Jesse Shapiro’s guide on “ How to Give an Applied Micro Talk ” from time to time. It’s more geared toward a full-length seminar, but the advice is so good I can’t resist plugging it here.

Lead Economist, Africa Gender Innovation Lab and Chief Economists Office

Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

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8 Ways to Deliver a Great Presentation (Even If You’re Super Anxious About It)

• Joel Schwartzberg

Know your point, always.

Feeling anxious about a presentation? It’s likely about a fear of public humiliation rather than of public speaking.

• Shift the spotlight from yourself to what you have to say.
• Reject the voice in your head trying to destroy your confidence.
• Knowing what matters – and what doesn’t – will help you succeed.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

I recently worked closely with a 24-year-old client — let’s call him Martin — who was tapped to deliver a five-minute presentation at his company’s annual town hall meeting. Martin had never given a public speech in his professional life, but his accomplishments impressed his supervisors, and they wanted Martin to share his success with the rest of the organization.

• JS Joel Schwartzberg oversees executive communications for a major national nonprofit, is a professional presentation coach, and is the author of Get to the Point! Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter and The Language of Leadership: How to Engage and Inspire Your Team . You can find him on LinkedIn and X. TheJoelTruth

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10-Minute presentations: How to Write, Design & Deliver (Complete Guide)

Hrideep barot.

• Presentation , Public Speaking

Presentations are an interesting way to introduce a new topic, perspective, or study to your audience. 10-minute presentations serve the same purpose but they come with a specified restriction on time.

When we see the word presentation, we instantly think of PPTs and while PPTs are used in many cases, some presentations are completely oral as well.

The number of speakers is another variable while presenting. It can be done individually like in the case of a job interview presentation or in a group setting like in the case of a college assignment. 

How long should a 10-minute presentation be?

Ideally, for 10-minute presentations, you should focus on adding 5-10 effective, crisp slides. And a speech of about 1000-2000 words should be enough to complete the presentation within 10 minutes.

However, there are no set rules while making a presentation which means that you are free to increase or decrease the number of slides in your presentation depending upon your pace of presenting.

Now when we talk about the pace of presenting, we mean the number of words you can speak in an understandable manner per minute. So, if you can speak 100-120 words per minute (adding the usual pauses), then a 1000–1200-word speech would be enough for your 10-minute presentation.

While we cannot point out an exact word count specifically catered for you in this blog, we can surely suggest you take up any piece of long article and go on reading it out loud while taking necessary pauses and timing it. It might give you an idea of your speed which in turn would help you gauge the perfect word count for your presentation.

Another factor that would define the way you present your topic is whether you are presenting it individually or in a group.

Individual Presentations

In Individual presentations, you are the one to shoulder your entire presentation’s responsibility. You can make use of effective PowerPoint presentation skills or use props to keep the audience engaged and interested in your presentation.

Further, it becomes extremely important for you to have sufficient knowledge about your topic, as in case of any doubts you are the only one to be questioned by the audience members.

Group Presentations

On the other hand, in group presentations, the responsibility to carry out an effective and good presentation falls on all group members. This calls for a lot of coordination which would require a ton of practice.

In groups, you can make use of skits to explain a certain phenomenon. Or maybe the use of coordinated props per speaker can also make your presentations more eye-catchy.

Further, involving your entire group to present rather than just 2 people doing it with beautifully placed content, will easily stand out to the audience.

The placement of your content could be in a para format wherein one person speaks a para followed by another one. Or one person can explain one subtopic followed by another; whatever suits best for your group.

A beautiful example of group presentations is the one by The minimalists .

It is a beautiful presentation because we see that while one person is speaking, the other enacts what is being said, thus making it an interesting presentation involving both speakers.

Tips for your 10-minute presentations

1. avoid information overload.

While it can be very tempting to add all the relevant information in your presentation, limiting it will turn out to be one of the best decisions taken by any presenter.

The reason is very simple, every individual has a very limited attention span and capacity to take in new information . 10-minute presentations exceed the average duration of attention span among humans which is 7 minutes.

If you bombard them with tons of information, chances are that they might feel exhausted and detached from your topic and presentation altogether.

2. Avoid reading from your slides

We know you might have heard this a gazillion times but here we are to say it again because it is very important. Avoid reading from your slides. As it might indicate your lack of understanding of the topic . It can also end up being a little boring for the audience to listen to something present in front of them that they can easily read themselves.

3. Give your audience an incentive to listen to you

It is always better to assume that your audience is not innately motivated to listen to your presentation and hence to give them a reason why listening to your presentation would be worth it.

Are you planning on discussing a new perspective on a widely-spoken topic? Are you trying to introduce new findings? Is your presentation trying to motivate the audience?

Whatever goal you wish to achieve through your presentation, make it known to the audience.

4. Try to offer something new

The very essence of presentations is to offer some new idea, perspective, or study to your audience. This holds especially true when your presentation is on a generic or widely-spoken topic like climate change.

5. Avoid exceeding the time limit

This goes without saying, avoid exceeding your time limit. If you know you have been given 10 minutes, either finish it by the time it hits the limit or better yet, finish it before time.

Everyone would appreciate you for finishing your presentation before time for sure.

6. Make it easy to understand

Another point that goes without saying is to make your content very easy for everyone in the audience to understand.

Try to tweak your presentation in a manner that is convenient for the youngest and the least experienced member to understand easily.  For if your presentation doesn’t reach your audience, it might not fulfill its very purpose.

Structuring 10-minute presentations

Just like we structure any speech, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, structuring your presentation follows a similar pattern.

In the initial few minutes or even seconds of your presentation, the audience might have decided whether they should listen to your presentation or will it be more fruitful to dive deep into their thoughts.

This is the reason why starting 10-minute presentations on a strong foot is emphasized so much. But again, there is no need to stress out about it.

Here are a few tips on how you can start your presentation:

1. Provocative statements

Provocative statements are the ones that try to shake some strongly held views of the audience. Reggie Rivers make use of a provocative statement in his TED talk that might help you understand its use better.

He begins by saying

If you want to achieve your goals, don’t focus on them.

The statement clearly goes against a belief we have grown up with; the idea that we should chase and focus on our goals in order to achieve them.

2. Hypothetical scenario

Starting with a hypothetical scenario includes the use of words like “Imagine” or “what if.” It gives your audience a chance to put themselves in a situation that you are about to address in your presentation.

An example of the same is given below.

Imagine you are going out for a drive with your friends. It is a little late and the roads are wet from the heavy shower that had surrendered only a few minutes ago. You are all singing and laughing. But then you look to your left only to realize two giant lights come close to you at lightning speed and you know at that moment you are going to die. That you are going to die in that crash. Then you hear a screech and *pause* the truck halts 5 cm from your car. That is exactly what someone with anxiety feels but unlike you, it doesn’t end within a few minutes; it persists for hours or even days.

3. Hard-hitting questions

While questions are one of the most widely used ways to open any speech or presentation, the task here is to open with a hard-hitting question.

A question that your audience probably doesn’t have an answer to, which you plan on providing them through your presentation.

Some examples of these would be:

• Is there anyone here who can give me the exact amount of microplastics they consumed during this week?
• Did you know that with the advancement in technology, there is a possibility that the organ transplanted to you in 20 years would not be from another human but from an animal?

Starting your presentation with props is the easiest and most creative way to start a presentation. The reason why it is creative is that you can use absolutely anything as a prop. Be it a plastic bottle, a jar full of waste, or even some hula hoops.

Once you have introduced yourself and your topic, you can go on to the next step: the main content of your presentation.

However, it isn’t just about presenting your points but how you present them that we will take a look into.  Presenting your topic in a more structured manner makes it easier for your audience to stay in tune with your presentation.

One of the formatting ways is the 3-pointer format . The idea behind using a 3-pointer structure is to divide your main content into 3 huge chunks or points. And while you are free to add more points, having 3 points makes it a tad bit easier to recall the information and to maintain a flow among the listeners.  

An example of using a three-pointer structure is this 5 slide presentation by Ashley Stahl where she talks about 3 key questions to unlock your authentic careers.

• What are you good at?
• What do people tell me I am good at?
• What is holding you back?

The closing remarks like the opening lines are quite important.

There are several ways in which you can close your presentation. But it takes more than a mere thank you to make it an effective closing remark for your presentation.

A few ways in which you can close 10-minute presentations are:

1. Fitting remark

A fitting remark or in simple terms a summary is where you revise what you just spoke in a couple of lines. It is better to keep it as short as possible as 10-minute presentations don’t give you enough tie to elaborate.

2. Calling for action

You can end your speech by instilling a sense of action and purpose among the audience members to make a difference. An amazing example of this is the speech by Leonardo DiCaprio. While it is a speech, you can observe his way of delivering the last couple of lines and inculcate the same in your presentation.

For more ways in which you can close your presentation check out our video on 5 Powerful Speech Closing Remarks for your next Presentation.

Designing 10-minute presentations

Designing your PowerPoint is as important as presenting your topic confidently and effectively.

A few dos and don’ts of designing your PPTs are:

Some amazing websites that will help you in making effective and aesthetically pleasing presentations are canva , Prezi , and more.

Best PowerPoint presentations on TED 

Some of the most innovative PowerPoint presentations we came across on Ted were the ones given by Tim Burton and Adam Grant.

1. Tim Burton

I can not emphasize how absolutely wonderful the Presentation by Tim is. A mix of information with tons of humor coupled with very entertaining visuals.

His confidence makes the presentation quite engaging and interesting to watch.

2. Adam Grant

Adam Grant like Tim Burton has made use of animated cartoons to make the statistical data quite entertaining. However, the way he presents his topic is a little different.

His presentation is filled with images and cartoons . When he states quantitative data, the font size and color are something that must be taken a look into. Further, the language that he includes in his PPT is very candid and informal.

Delivering 10-minute presentations

While you are trying to make your content crisp, 10 minutes may seem way too little; But when it comes to presenting it and speaking, 10 minutes is not that short of a time.

There are a few things that you can do so as to deliver your presentation in its most effective way.

1. Practice your presentation in chunks.

Chunks are the division of your main content into small parts. 5-to-9 chunks are easy to remember.

We are not encouraging you to memorize or rote learn your presentation. However, it is important to remember the flow in which you are supposed to be presenting. And for this dividing, your presentation into chunks to practice can help navigate you through your entire presentation.

This also raises the question that,

How Long Should You Practice for a Presentation?

It is advisable to practice your presentation at least 3 times and a maximum of 10-12 times . But as the old saying goes “Practice makes a man perfect,” you can practice as long as you feel you have perfected your presentation.

If you are looking for a specific time duration for which you should practice then, for a 10-minute presentation, 30 minutes to about An hour and a half should suffice.

For some amazing tips on how you can rehearse your presentations, check out 13 Tips For Rehearsing A Presentation .

2. Add a story or share a personal experience

Stories are a very binding way to let your point across. It adds a personal touch, especially if you are sharing your personal experience. It also gives the audience a chance to understand where you come from and maybe even relate to you.

The TED by Jarret J. Krosoczka is a wonderful presentation where he illustrates his story while talking about it to the audience.

The creative bend makes it a presentation worth remembering, don’t you think?

3. Engage the audience.

While it isn’t mandatory for you to add elements that would ensure that the audience stays engaged, adding it will only help in enhancing your and your audience’s experience (if time permits).

You can add a quiz , or a small game like spot a difference between the two pictures. you can also ask a question and take a poll by asking the audience members who agree to raise their hands.

4. Add humor to your presentations

Humor can be your friend or your enemy while presenting a topic. If you get it right, it can make your presentation an unforgettable one. At the same time, if you end up making jokes that the audience might not find funny or worst even derogatory, It may land you in some trouble.

One of the funniest and most energy-filled presentations I have come across was the one by Alexis Nikole Nelson and her take on Veganism. The way in which she makes use of the prop is another thing you must take a look into.

Add elements of credibility

Elements of credibility include stating facts and figures . You can also quote some renowned personalities . All these things would build the confidence of the audience in your presentation. It also works best to give a reality check. How do you ask?

Simple, when you state figures, you give them a clear picture of the situation.

An example of this is the use of statistics used by Randy Palisoc in his Ted talk “Math isn’t hard, it’s a language.”

26%..Thats is the percentage of US 12 graders who are proficient in math

Find the full video of the same below.

Famous 10-Minute Presentations

1. bill gates.

We might have all heard about Bill Gates and his talks or speeches on Climate Change. But this presentation was a little different.

Here, Bill Gates goes on to explain how teachers have not been receiving sufficient feedback which could’ve led to drastic changes in their teaching patterns.

He explains the wide disparity in feedback given to teachers through charts , thus providing a way to easily compare and evaluate one’s country’s performance to that of others.

His bidding statement ends on a positive note as it is filled with optimism. He says,

I am excited about the opportunity to give all our teachers the support they want and deserve. I hope you are too.

2. Vishaan Chakrabarti

Renowned Architect Vishaan Chakrabarti gives an insight into the need for sustainable housing to provide a roof over the head of additional 3 billion people who are expected to be born by 2100.

The presentation is particularly interesting for the way in which he has used the visuals and animations . The language is kept simple which makes it easy to understand even if you have no degree in architecture.

Topics for 10-minute presentations

Presentation topics for college students.

• Population explosion
• The increasing gap between Rich and Poor
• Virtual money as the next evolution in monetary exchange
• Diversification and blending of cultures
• Change in seeking entertainment post-pandemic
• Data is the new oil
• Are we prepared for the next pandemic?
• Electric Vehicles: Future of Transportation
• E-learning and the shift in the education system
• Veganism and sustainability
• Evolution of the fashion industry in the metaverse
• Legalization of cryptocurrencies
• Need for immediate action toward climate change
• Do your degrees define your success in life?
• Evolution in careers across the years

Presentation Topics for Interviews

• Overcoming fears can lead to success
• Diversification in the workplace and its impact on better decision making
• Right to work is a fundamental right
• Can a few jobs permanently start working from home?
• Women as leaders
• The rise in startup culture
• The increasing threat of data breach
• Influencer marketing and its advantages
• Employee motivation and its relation to monetary rewards
• Should employees be paid for working overtime
• Paternal leave and its benefits
• Building skills is more important than degrees
• The efficiency of a 4 day work week
• Benefits of going paperless to the organizations

Funny 10-minute presentation topics

• 11 ways to order a pizza
• Why you don’t need success
• Why be excellent when you can be mediocre?
• World’s worst Disaster: Crocs Heels
• Evolution of Dance: from Bellydance to TikTok dance
• Being an Adult: The Most challenging task
• Struggles of Being a Planned Child
• Alcohol fixes relationships
• How autocorrect ruins your life
• LOL: Only Socially Acceptable way to Avoid laughing
• If only I had the life I do on My Instagram
• 5 easy ways to make it out of the friendzone
• 3 Totally useless professions
• 6 ways to do absolutely nothing
• The Rise of Family Whatsapp Groups

You can also find more speech topics depending on the type of your speech. Check out Demonstrative Speech Topics , Informative Speech Topics , and Persuasive Speech Topics on our website to get some inspiration for your speech.

10-Minute presentation sample

Presentation on Sustainable Fashion

I want you to imagine the amount of water you drink in a day. Now imagine and tell me if you can do the math, how much water would you have consumed in 3 years?

Let me help you.

2720 liters of water.

Now how would you feel if I tell you that this also equal to the amount of water that went into making the t-shirt you quite stunningly adorn right now?

*Imitates mind being blown*

With a 4-fold increase in the production of clothes over the last 20 years, we cannot even imagine the extent to which it has penetrated the pollution index across the world. Every year, fast fashion brands release several micro collections against the ideal 2. So if you ever wondered how the store has a very different collection every time you step into H&M or Zara, you know now. In fact, In the US per person, approximately 35 kgs of textile waste are generated every year.

If this wasn’t enough, the extent of water pollution caused by Fast fashion is beyond imaginable. 22,000 toxic waste is released into rivers by tanneries in Bangladesh,

Every. Single. Day.

So, what is the most immediate action that you can take to switch to more sustainable styling?

I am going to introduce a mantra that has worked wonders for me when I felt overwhelmed about switching to sustainable fashion. The 4 Rs and No it isn’t Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The 4 Rs for sustainable fashion are

Reduce your consumption of clothes. Has it ever happened that you end up buying a shirt only to realize you don’t a perfect pair of pants to wear with it? Or bought something that you found super cute but never touched once you got home? It’s okay! Don’t feel guilty, I have done that too.

But that can be avoided. A simple method is to ask yourself “Do I need this Now?” and “Will I be able to use it in the long run?” The answer to the second question will immediately direct you away from fast fashion brands that offer cheap quality clothing at a very affordable rate.

If the clothes you own can be repaired in any way, it is better to do that than jump on to buy a new one. There were many times when I repaired or redesigned my outfits. For example. this one time when I slipped in my yard and tore my jeans a little from the knee area. Guess the ground was desperate for me to own another pair of ripped jeans and so I did exactly that. The other time a friend of mine, an amazing artist got some splashes of paint on her pants, Any guess what we did with those pants?

Exactly! Splashed more paint over it. Now I know it may sound bizarre but that was a time when that was in trend.

The third option is to Resell your stuff or give it to someone else.

This is where our popular thrift stores come into the picture. You’ve got a piece of clothing that you are never going to wear? Why let it take up the space in your closet when you can easily make money out of it and get rid of it at the same time. But if you are more altruistic, you can even consider donating your not-so-frequently used clothes to those who need them. And I know for a fact that every brown person sitting here is a pro at both lending and receiving hand-me-downs.

Lastly and the most important of all is, to rethink your consumption of fashion. It is 2022. Some brands have dedicated their entire efforts to providing you with sustainable alternatives. You can choose to buy consciously.

For instance, Adidas’s future craft loop edition shoes are one such example of big brands trying to do their part in this battle of saving our planet from our species. Further, there are brands like Baggit that use vegan leather for all their products.

Then there are completely sustainable brands like Eco India that use the clothes thrown into landfills to make fashion statements that are both iconic as well as sustainable.

While I can talk about this for as long as my voice doesn’t give in, I guess I should cut it short.

Reduce, Repair, Resell and Rethink what you can do to make the change towards a healthier fashion choice. After all the industry thrives upon you and your impulsiveness, try not to give in to it.

So the idea is simple. Maintain your style but not at the cost of the planet.

Final Thoughts

Presentations are an effective mode of presenting your topic with creativity.

10-minute presentations however come with a restriction on time which makes it important to focus on crunching the information you plan to add and thus keeping it short.

The use of visuals can be effective in carrying out successful presentations, be it PPTs or props.

Sharing personal experiences, humor, or any other element that makes your presentation stand out would enhance your presentation and make it easier for the audience to recall the information shared by you.

Lastly, there is no right or wrong way of presenting.

The only way we know is to enjoy your presentation just as much as you would want the audience to enjoy listening to it.

If you feel like you need more personalized guidance on carrying out your presentation in a more effective and confident manner, Check out Frantically Speaking .

We will be more than happy to help you!

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Table of Contents

15 minute training session ideas.

New hire orientation often consists of a rapid-fire series of lectures by various departments.  But how much do you remember from any of your own new hire orientation experiences?  There are ways to make even short presentations memorable, meaningful, and engaging.

I’ve led several presentation skills workshops recently with people who have been invited to speak in hospitals for 15-20 minutes as part of a new nurse orientation program. 

The Challenges of a 15 Minute Training Workshop

The challenges raised by my workshop participants included:

• “We only have 15-20 minutes – maximum – to speak.”
• “Often we get the slot right before lunch, right after lunch or at the end of the day when they new nurses are mentally done with the day.”
•  “Though this is ‘new nurse orientation’, there are times when experienced nurses are in attendance because they have transferred to this hospital from a different hospital. And they’re already familiar with the basic content we have to present in these 15 minutes.”

After spending half a day walking through some various concepts from adult learning theory and dialogue education , my workshop participants felt that all of this information made sense… in theory. 

How can a 15 minute training session be implemented?

The best way I knew how to answer this question was by allowing them to experiment with these ideas of adult learning theory.  Workshop participants were given a little over an hour to work in small groups and design a 15-minute presentation that wasn’t lecture -based. 

When they delivered their practice 15-minute presentation, they were evaluated by their peers as well as the lead facilitators using this training observation form .

15 minute Training Session Ideas for Novice Trainers

Here are some of the ways that novice trainers who were newly exposed to adult learning theory designed short, interactive, and meaningful new hire orientation sessions after only an hour of preparation time:

• One group distributed a set of post-it notes and asked participants to put various steps to a specific process in order. 
• One group listed a set of seemingly random numbers on a flip chart and asked their participants to see if they could decipher the meaning of those numbers over the course of the presentation. 
• One group asked newer nurses to simulate a conversation with a patient’s family while they asked more experienced nurses to play the role of patients’ family members (since they’ve had experience in these types of situations before, they could offer realistic patient family responses) – engaging both new and experienced nurses in a meaningful way over the course of 15 minutes. 

Every group came up with creative 15-minute training session ideas and allowed a dialogue to happen.  Not a single group felt the strategy of just telling the audience what they need to know and then to be done with it was a constructive use of their time or their audience’s time.  And the #1 ah-ha moment for attendees that was captured in the post-training feedback form : even short presentations can be engaging, meaningful and memorable.

To see a ton of great ideas ranging from 15-minute training sessions to full days, try a demo or a trial of Soapbox.

Brian Washburn

Brian has over 25 years of experience in Learning & Development including the last 7 as CEO of Endurance Learning.

Brian is always available to chat about learning & development and to talk about whether Endurance Learning can be your training team’s “extra set of hands”.

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Like what you're reading?

Need a good presentation topic? Here are hundreds of them.

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Anete Ezera November 04, 2022

If you’re looking for good topics for presentations, you’ve landed on the right page. In this article, you’ll find plenty of good presentation topics, tips on choosing the most suitable topic for you, and essential design elements to make your presentation a success. 

Many factors go into an excellent presentation. You need to have confident body language and engage your audience to hold their attention. You also need eye-catching visual aids like images, data visualizations, GIFs, and others (all of which you can find in Prezi ), not to mention a great opening to grab attention and a strong closing line to stay memorable. However, the most essential aspect of your presentation is the topic. It’s the core of your presentation, so it has to be strong, insightful, attention-grabbing, and appealing to yourself and your audience in order to evolve into a successful presentation everyone will love. 

How to choose a good presentation topic

There are millions of topics you could create a presentation on, but what defines a good topic? If you’re struggling to either come up with a good topic for a presentation or you can’t decide between multiple ones, here are a few questions you should ask yourself before choosing a topic. 

What’s the goal of your presentation? 

When you’re choosing a topic, consider the meaning behind it. Ask yourself what the purpose of talking about this topic is, and what you want to say about it. Whatever topic you choose to present, the conclusion needs to provide a takeaway or lesson you want to communicate to your audience. A meaningful goal will make your presentation more memorable.  

Are you interested in the topic?

If you’re not interested in the topic, others won’t be curious either. Interest, enthusiasm, and passion enrich your presentation and are noticeable when presenting. Interest shines through and inspires others to find the topic as fascinating as you do. Think about the last time you saw someone sharing something they were passionate about – their excitement drew people in to pay closer attention to what they were saying. 

When choosing a topic, you need to find it or a particular angle of it interesting for yourself. For example, perhaps you’re not a pop music enthusiast, but you’re passionate about studying cultural phenomena. In this case, you can talk about pop music’s influence on early 2000s youth culture. 

Will your audience find this topic relatable? 

While you have to find the topic you’re presenting interesting, you also have to think about your audience. When choosing a subject, consider your audience’s background in terms of demographics, interests, culture, and knowledge level about the topic. Think about what others will find fascinating and relevant, so they’re not bored or confused during your presentation.

Do you have prior experience or knowledge about this topic?

Personal experiences are always great to share in a presentation, providing your unique perspective for anyone listening. While you can easily prepare your presentation based on a quick Google search, it won’t make the same lasting impact on your audience. Choose a topic you have some prior knowledge about, or have an interesting opinion you can share with others. It’ll make your presentation more engaging and memorable.

Ideas for good presentation topics

It’s not easy to come up with a good presentation topic from scratch. It’s much easier to get inspired from other good presentation topics to build your topic on. Whether you’re looking for presentation ideas for work, about me presentation ideas, unique or easy presentation topics, you’ll find them all here.

Without further ado, here are some good presentation topics to choose from or get inspired by.

Presentation topics about social media

• The role of social media in portraying gender stereotypes
• How social media impacts our body image
• How social media shaped Gen Z 
• The most significant differences between the Facebook and TikTok generations
• The negative effects of social media
• The positive impacts of social media 
• The effects of social media on behavior 
• How social media impacts our physical (or mental) health
• How social media has shaped our understanding of mass media
• Should we teach about social media in schools?
• The rise of social media influencers
• How AR Instagram filters impact our self-image
• How to go viral on social media?
• The origins of social media echo chambers
• Social media as a news outlet

Author: Ish Verduzco

Presentation topics about movies

• How movies influence our understanding of good and evil
• Beauty standards represented in movies
• How female characters are depicted in Hollywood movies
• How horror movies and global fears have developed through time
• The adverse effects of romance movies
• How movies have changed our understanding of the Western culture
• Charlie Chaplin and the silent movie era
• The globalization of culture: Hollywood vs. Bollywood
• The psychology behind the music in films
• The ethics of using animals in movies
• Social media’s influence on the film industry
• The history of filmmaking
• The role of color in movies
• The cultural impact of romance movies
• How are gender stereotypes depicted in Hollywood movies?

Author: Cinto Marti

Presentation topics about music

• The impact of pop music on beauty standards
• Should digital music be free for everyone?
• The psychology behind the music in advertisements 
• The effectiveness of sound therapy
• Can music inspire criminal behavior?
• The psychological effects of metal music
• The origins of K-pop
• How does music influence our understanding of the world?
• Can music help in the learning process?
• The positive effects of classical music
• The history of hip hop
• Why is music education essential in schools?
• The psychological benefits of playing piano
• Can anyone become a famous musician?
• The role of music in fashion

Author: Prezi Editorial

Presentation topics about health

• The link between food and mental health
• Inequality in the healthcare system
• Myths about healthy practices
• Simple practices that help you stay healthy
• Health education in schools: Should it change?  
• Toxic positivity and mental health
• The impact of superfoods on our health
• The psychology behind unhealthy eating habits
• Sex education in schools: Why should we have it?
• How to trick yourself into getting better: The placebo effect
• How to strengthen your immune system
• How to tell if someone is depressed
• The health benefits of regular exercise
• The impact of junk food on mental health
• Stress-caused diseases

Author: Prezi Education Team

Presentation topics about human psychology

• What is social depression?
• What triggers panic attacks?
• The impact of testosterone on aggressive behavior
• How to overcome social anxiety
• Differences in the functioning of the brain of a child and adult
• The impact of violent video games on children’s brain development
• How does the use of social media influence our attention span?
• How to overcome childhood trauma
• The influence of marijuana on the human brain
• How does behavioral therapy work
• The psychology behind fame
• The causes of personality disorders
• The differences in brain functioning between men and women
• What happens in therapy sessions?
• The psychology of substance abuse 

Presentation topics about self-development

• The impact of exercise on productivity
• How to deal with stress
• How to deal with procrastination
• The positive effects of meditation
• Why new–year’s resolutions don’t work
• How to overcome bad habits
• The impact of negative thoughts
• The negative effects of self-criticism
• The role of creativity in self-development
• Benefits of journaling
• How to learn something fast
• How to be mindful
• The importance of curiosity 
• How to become more self-aware
• Why it’s essential to spend time with yourself

Author: Nir Eyal

Presentation topics about education

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of online education?
• The positive effects of a gap year
• Should university education be free?
• Inequality in education access
• How language learning benefits brain development
• Emerging gender issues in education
• The importance of socialization in school
• School bullying and student development
• The benefits of reading 
• Is the education system broken?
• What you don’t learn in college
• The link between education and brain development
• The history of schools
• The gender gap in STEM
• The connection between equality in education and economic growth

Presentation topics about culture

• Is graffiti a form of art or street vandalism? 
• Cultural diversity in the workplace
• The impact of culture on gender roles
• The issue with orientalism
• Are humans the only species that has culture?
• How do different cultures view death? 
• The ethical issues of pop culture
• The impact of culture on personal development
• Sexism in different cultures
• The impact of globalization on local cultures
• The viral spread of the #metoo movement
• The history of subcultures
• The problem with romanticizing toxic relationships in movies
• 90s pop-culture influence on fashion trends
• The evolution of cultural psychology 

Author: Devin Banerjee

Presentation ideas for work

• What it’s like to be a digital nomad?
• How to deal with workplace conflicts
• The secret to a productive day
• How to set achievable goals
• The importance of diversity in a workplace
• The positive effects of creative thinking at work
• How to give constructive feedback
• The characteristics of a valuable team member
• Inequality and the glass ceiling
• Racial discrimination in the workplace
• Work habits of different cultures
• How is work perceived in various countries?
• Technological development and the future of work
• The importance of a healthy work/life balance
• The rise of health problems in office work

Author: Charles Huang

Presentation topics about hybrid work

• The positive effects of hybrid work on work/life balance
• Is hybrid work the future work model? 
• How to stay connected in a hybrid work model
• The challenges of hybrid work nobody talks about
• How to stay productive when working from home
• The social effects of hybrid work
• The economic impacts of hybrid work
• Case study: Hybrid work model in [company]
• What causes Zoom fatigue?
• The problem with online meetings
• Is hybrid work better than remote work?
• How to develop a close relationship with colleagues in a hybrid work model
• What kind of company culture is best for a hybrid work model?
• Is hybrid work sustainable?
• Cybersecurity consideration for hybrid working

Author: Barbie Brewer

Presentation topics about public speaking

• The importance of body language in public speeches
• How to appear confident when you’re not
• How to become a better orator
• The use of eye contact in public speaking
• Breathing exercises that will calm you down before public speaking
• The benefits of public speaking
• Ways to improve public speaking skills
• How to leave a great first impression on stage
• How to engage your audience during a public speech
• How to best structure your public speech
• How to end your presentation speech
• Can anyone learn to be good at public speaking?
• How to prepare for a public speech
• What not to do right before a public speech
• How to address a controversial topic in a public speech  

Author: Prezi Team

Presentation topics about entrepreneurship and leadership

• The main principles of a good leader
• The impact of leadership skills on professional performance
• The mistake every entrepreneur makes
• How to successfully lead a cross-cultural team
• How to celebrate inclusivity in a diverse team
• What are the common personality traits of a successful entrepreneur?
• The impact of entrepreneurship on the global economy
• The characteristics of a leader
• The most common challenges of entrepreneurship
• Can anyone learn to become a successful leader? 
• What affects new venture growth?
• The psychology of leadership
• What is crowdsourcing? 
• The benefits of being an entrepreneur
• Common mistakes leaders make

Author: Jill Sinclair

Presentation topics about technology

• The rise of technological development
• Is technology addictive?
• Should we use drones for military and non-military purposes?
• The sustainability of electric cars
• What are deepfakes?
• Limitations of AI machines
• The future of programming
• Ethical issues of AI
• The future of AR in business
• How VR can be used in the medical field

Author: David Vandegrift

Sales presentation topics

• How to make a cold email intro
• What is sales enablement?
• How to build better relationships with customers
• The best way to improve pipeline management
• Coaching via verbal and written role-play
• How to plan cold calls
• What’s a deal-breaker for most customers? 
• All about personalized coaching
• How to manage objections
• How to close more deals
• How to keep your prospects engaged
• Effective sales communication strategies
• How to conduct a competitor analysis
• The most valuable sales skills
• What soft skills do you need to become a successful sales rep?

Author: Cindy McGovern

Easy presentation topics

• Benefits of daily exercise and how to incorporate it into your routine
• Simple and nutritious meal recipes
• Tips for improving time management and productivity
• The importance of recycling
• The history of a local landmark or festival
• Ways to reduce stress
• Exploring different types of renewable energy sources and their impact on the environment
• The basics of budgeting and saving money for future goals
• The benefits of social media for professional use
• Tips for overcoming stage fright
• How to start a meditation practice
• The impact of technology on modern society
• The basics of personal finance
• The health benefits of a plant-based diet
• The history of Earth Day

Good how to presentation topics

• How to create a successful social media marketing strategy
• How to give a persuasive presentation
• How to create effective and engaging content for your blog
• How to discover your strengths and weaknesses
• How to use project management tools to increase productivity
• How to make the most out of boring meetings
• How to build a personal brand
• How to conduct effective market research
• How to use data analytics to improve decision-making
• How to improve your decision-making process
• How to write a winning proposal
• How to create a visually stunning presentation
• How to manage stressful situations at work
• How to make friends as an adult
• How to network at work events

About me presentation ideas

• My journey to becoming who I am today
• My passion for [insert topic or activity]
• My career aspirations and goals
• My travels and adventures around the world
• My hobbies and interests outside of work/school
• My role models and influences
• My strengths and weaknesses
• My favorite books, movies, and TV shows
• My proudest achievements and accomplishments
• My favorite childhood memories
• My family and friends
• My education and academic background
• My volunteer and community service experience
• My personality traits and values
• My vision for the future and how I plan to achieve it

Author: Adam Grant

Student presentation ideas

• The history and evolution of video games
• The history and cultural impact of tattoos
• The impact of social media on body image and self-esteem
• The effects of globalization on local cultures and economies
• The role of education in promoting social justice and equity
• The ethical implications of autonomous weapons in warfare
• The impact of mass media on society and culture
• The causes and effects of deforestation on biodiversity and climate change
• The history and cultural significance of dance in different parts of the world
• The psychology of addiction and recovery
• The impact of the gig economy on labor rights and job security
• The history and impact of feminism on gender equality
• The benefits and drawbacks of renewable energy sources
• The impact of colonialism on indigenous cultures and identities
• The role of technology in promoting global connectivity and intercultural understanding

Author: Edward Quinn

How to create a good presentation 

If you know what you want to present on, it’s time to create an impactful presentation that grabs everyone’s attention. Presentation design plays a crucial role in how your presentation is received and remembered. To stand out and leave a memorable impact on your audience, create a Prezi presentation. Instead of a linear, slide-based presentation, offer an engaging and dynamic storytelling experience to your audience. Breathe life into your presentation with motion, zoom, and spatial relationships. When creating your presentation, consider the following three essential elements: 

Visuals play a significant part in presentation design. They evoke emotions, make a memorable impact, and give more context to the story. Not to mention, 65% of people are visual learners , so visual aids are helpful when explaining a complex topic. 

In your presentation, include different types of visuals, such as images, videos, GIFs, and stickers, all of which you can find in Prezi’s content library. When selecting your visuals, consider what’s relevant and brings additional value to the story. Only add what’s meaningful and necessary. A video or image at the right place and time will enrich the viewing experience and make your presentation more memorable. 

The layout of your presentation is the structure of your story. It’ll help you introduce the topic, intrigue your audience, and unfold the layers of your topic one by one until you disclose your main arguments and summarize the presentation. A good presentation layout has a hierarchical, chronological, or logical flow that leads the viewer from start to finish. 

If you’re creating a Prezi presentation, you can create a dynamic storytelling experience by experimenting with your layout. Instead of going from slide to slide, you can zoom in and out of topics and experiment with different shapes, animations, and effects that draw the viewer into your story world. Here’s an example of a Prezi presentation with a great storytelling layout:

Author: Lydia Antonatos

Data visualizations can elevate your presentation from being a good one to a great one. By providing data behind your arguments, you’ll appear more trustworthy and confident in your audience’s eyes. 

Add charts, graphs, interactive maps, and more to your presentations with Prezi Design. You can choose from a wide selection of charts and maps to illustrate your data. With interactive elements, you’ll be able to engage your audience and make a memorable impact. 

Engaging visuals, a well-structured layout, and relevant data visualizations will provide a great starting base to create a memorable presentation. Discover other tips and tricks that make your presentation effective and capture people’s attention. 

Choosing a topic for a presentation isn’t easy. When selecting a topic, think about the goal of your presentation, your interest and knowledge about the topic, and whether or not your audience will find it relevant and interesting for them. Also, get inspired by other topics that’ll help you figure out what you want to talk about. Lastly, when creating your presentation, consider the impact of visuals, layout, and data visualizations. To simplify the creation process, follow the step-by-step process of making a presentation with helpful tips and resources.

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How to Plan a Presentation

Last Updated: October 8, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 228,968 times.

Presentation planning is a useful and necessary skill in the professional world as well as school. Whether you need to sell a product, or get a passing grade in your class, planning a presentation takes time and dedication. You will want to figure out the best way to construct your material, considering your audience and your presentation's message. From there, work on building your slides and materials. Assemble information in a logical order that best illustrates your point. Practice your presentation regularly before delivering it. This can help you figure out any information that should be cut or restructured.

Assembling Your Best Material

• Write down your most important points. See if you notice a key point emerging. If your audience were to take away one thing from this presentation, what would it be?
• Don't just bombard your audience with facts. Think about what these facts do for your audience. What's the point you're trying to make with the information?

• Are you trying to sell them a product, introduce them to a new idea, alter their way of thinking?
• Think about the kind of people in your audience. Do you have a tougher crowd, or do you have a group of enthusiastic people excited about what you're going to say?

• For example, if you're talking to a company about recycling program, you might discuss how corporate pollution contributes to global warming and how recycling can help the company save money. You wouldn't discuss the melting ice caps as a key point.
• Melting ice caps are a valid concern, but they are a fact or a supporting point.

• Add clarity to your argument by explaining anything the audience may not understand. For example: a brief overview of pollution's effect on climate change.
• Add authority by making connections with existing research, studies, and information. For example, you could mention the consensus in the scientific community that global warming is manmade and cite a few studies.
• Add color to your argument through visuals, like pictures and videos. For instance, you could show a chart of the amount of waste an average corporation produces in one month.

Finding a Trajectory for the Presentation

• Include the basics of introducing yourself. You can say something like, "I'm Clara Thompson from Clean Water Action, and I would like to address your company today."
• Get your audience's attention with a question or a fact. For example, you could ask: "Have you ever passed a body of water covered in green sludge and wondered how this happened? The answer may surprise you."
• You don’t have to write your presentation in chronological order. If you want to work on your main points first and save the introduction for last, you can.

• For example, you're trying to get the corporation to alter their recycling program. Start by overviewing the vast amount of corporate pollution in the world.
• Explain the consequences of this. Show how pollution contributes to climate change, then show what the corporation can do through changes in their policies.

• Common linking statements include things like, "Another important issue...," "Based on this data, you can now see..." and, "This brings me to my main point..."
• For example, "Now that I've shown you the effects of corporate pollution, this brings me to my main point. What can you do to stop it?"

• If you have any graphs or diagrams that will help illustrate your point, use them. Physically seeing information can help make your point more clear.
• You should also see if there are any videos you can include. A brief video of someone succinctly explaining an issue can shake things up a bit.
• Pictures are also nice. Each slide should have a picture related to the topic at hand.
• Make sure not to overuse graphics or visuals. Too many could be overwhelming or distracting for your audience.

• You only need one slide. Recap what your point was. Begin with something like, "As you can see..." and then briefly repeat your main point.
• A visual can help as well. Try adding one last visual aid that sums up your point. A graph or diagram would work well here.

Practicing Your Presentation

• If you're taking longer, cut some information out. You do not want to talk fast to include all information, as this can make you difficult to understand.
• For accuracy, talk in your regular voice. Do not speak too fast or too slow. You want to make sure you can fit in all information talking at a normal rate.

• Are any facts extraneous? It's great to illustrate the effects of global warming, but do you really need five examples of environmental decay? Try to cut it down to two or three.

• You should sound enthusiastic when presenting. Talk without hesitance, and don't use filler words, like "um" or "uh."
• Don't jump between topics. Use your linking sentences, and say things like, "And this brings me to the following..."
• Watch the time. Make sure your presentation isn't going on for too long.
• Watch yourself give the presentation in a mirror so you can correct any distracting movements or gestures.

• Don’t read the information off of your visuals since it could affect your engagement between yourself and the audience.

How Should You End a Presentation?

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.ncsl.org/legislators-staff/legislative-staff/legislative-staff-coordinating-committee/tips-for-making-effective-powerpoint-presentations.aspx
• ↑ https://www.comm.pitt.edu/oral-comm-lab/audience-analysis
• ↑ https://columbiacollege-ca.libguides.com/presentations/planning
• ↑ https://extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/documents/10551/partsofapresentation.pdf
• ↑ https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/sites/default/files/Oral_presentations_signalling_2014_Accessible.pdf
• ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-conclude-a-presentation
• ↑ https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/studyingeffectively/preparing/presentations/delivering.aspx
• ↑ https://www.gvsu.edu/ours/oral-presentation-tips-30.htm

About This Article

To plan your presentation, start by spending 5 to 10% of your time summarizing your research and linking it to a main point. A good way to start is with a key question or fact. Then, follow this summary with your research and work, which should take up 60 to 70% of the presentation. This is the body of your presentation, and should be made up of 3 key ideas which lead to your main point. Keep reading for our reviewer’s tips on how to organize the body of your presentation! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Create an Engaging 5-Minute Presentation

Published: September 15, 2023

A 5-minute speech can feel both incredibly short and infinitely long.

While this short format encourages audiences to pay more attention, presenters often struggle to fit everything into five minutes even as they navigate nervousness that seems to stretch out each second.

As a result, preparation is key for 5-minute speech success.

But how can you ensure your presentation accomplishes everything it needs to within just five short minutes? We’ve put together an (appropriately condensed) guide on five-minute presentations to help you get started.

How many words are in a 5-minute presentation?

A five-minute presentation is approximately 700 words long. The average person speaks 120 to 160 words a minute, which means the average five-minute presentation is 600 to 800 words.

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To calculate your own personal speaking speed (words per minute, or WPM):

• Make an audio recording of yourself speaking for one minute.
• Use a free transcription service to generate a text version of your speech.
• The number of words you spoke in that minute is your personal WPM.

When constructing a longer presentation, you might be more concerned about transitions and keeping the audience engaged with more extensive narrative elements.

In a short presentation, everything you say should directly tie back to your central premise and further advance your main point.

Keeping a tight scope and using your words carefully ensures your time isn't wasted and the audience leaves with a clear, singular takeaway.

How many slides are in a 5-minute presentation?

Five or six slides, or about one per minute, is a good baseline for a 5-minute presentation. Depending on your subject matter, however, you might use up to 20 slides and spend about 10 or 15 seconds on each.

More important than your slide count is what each slide contains. It‘s a good rule of thumb to keep your slides simple and focused on visuals instead of text for a presentation of any length.

This becomes especially important when you’re dealing with a condensed presentation window.

Trying to cram in as much information as possible within a short time frame can be tempting. Resist the urge. Instead, focus on simple, clean visuals that all tie back to your central premise.

You can also use these free presentation templates to arrange your slides in a way that makes the most sense for your delivery and the content of your presentation.

Don't forget to share this post!

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The Fastest Way to Create an Ignite Presentation

by Olivia Mitchell | 31 comments

I set myself the challenge of preparing my first Ignite presentation as fast as possible.

The Ignite presentation format is a 5 minutes long presentation with 20 slides and with the slides advancing automatically every 15 seconds. It’s the presentation equivalent of a haiku or sonnet . It’s a very challenging format which can take forever to prepare.

Here’s the way that I did it:

1. Sketched the outline using my Presentation Planner

I used my normal presentation planner which I teach to all my clients. Here’s a picture of my planner – as you can see neatness was not important. I just wanted to get my key message and sequence of ideas down on paper.

Click on the image to see a larger view.

Time: 10 minutes

2. Converted planner to 20 slides

I typed what I wanted to say into the format of 20 slides:

Time: 1 hour

3. Packaged into 15 second blocks

I then used the “rehearse timings” button and delivered the presentation:

The Slide Sorter view (above) showed me how long I spent talking on each slide.

My aim was for each slide to take 13 to 15 seconds. The reason for this is that I think it’s better to have to wait a beat for a slide, than to be running out of time and constantly playing catch up.

When I first tried this out I was all over the place, some slides taking 7 seconds and some 34 seconds. I spent time rearranging, deleting and massaging. In the screen shot above you can see that I had got most of the slides close to 15 seconds, but I still had some work to do to shorten some.

Time: 2 hours

4. Created visual slides

I only started creating visual slides once I had my storyline packaged into 20 neat slices of 15 seconds each. Here’s what my visual slides looked like:

5. Printed out my notes

Ignite is one type of presentation format when preparing a script is virtually essential during the preparation phase. Working from a script allows you to massage your sentences to  fit the 15 second time blocks. A slight change in sentence structure can make a significant change in the time it takes to say something. So this is one occasion where you should plan to say it the same way every time (not normally something I recommend).

I printed out my verbal slides (shown in point 2. above) as handouts – 2 to a page:

Time: 5 minutes

5. Rehearsed

This step took the longest as I fine-tuned my pace to get my timing just right. For example, I wanted my dead parrot slide to appear just as I said “dead parrot”!

Time: 3 hours

6. Delivered

I used notes for the actual presentation as well. I could have spent extra time memorizing it, but I didn’t see a sufficient pay-off for that extra time. I had rehearsed enough that I did spend most of the time connecting with the audience.

Time: 5 minutes!

My presentation was videoed but unfortunately the audio didn’t work, so instead I’ve produced a Slidecast using Slideshare:

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31 Comments

Fantastic post. This is useful not only for creating an Ignite presentation, but any presentation. Few people dissect the process of creation, especially the work BEFORE you even open your computer and AFTER you’ve finished designing. Bravo.

Great thoughts. This is helpful for anyone creating a presentation (which is the most common thing that everyone has to do nowadays). Thank you for sharing your thoughts and methods.

Brilliant – I can’t believe that I haven’t read something like this before. Thanks, Olivia!

Really great stuff, Olivia! Congratulations. I tell the people in my courses that an excellent presentation is like an iceberg: What we see (the presentation) is very small compared to what lies beneath the surface (the preparation). Your post demonstrates, succinctly and eloquently, that what comes out is in direct proportion to what goes in.

Jon, Craig and John, Thank you for the lovely comments.

A tweeter pointed out that I still spent 8 hours preparing for a 5 minute presentation. It’s a long time. But from other people I know who’ve done Ignite presentations and from blog posts I’ve read it can take a heck of a lot longer.

8 hours is a breeze – i can’t wait to try it your way! I usually log about 30 for a high-stakes preso. Granted, I’m a bit slow…

If it’s not an Ignite presentation, then:

1. You’ll need to put more work (read: time) into developing the overall structure of the presentation and crafting engaging content. 2. You won’t need to spend anytime on dividing your presentation into discrete 15 second blocks!

For a step by step guide to using my planner, download the Guide “How to make an effective PowerPoint Presentation.”

All the best with your next presentation Olivia

Olivia, this is brilliant – thanks for sharing.

It’s good to let Ignite presenters know up-front they need to spend some serious time preparing, and your method is very sensible.

The 5 minute presentation which took 8 hours of preparation could easily be re-used as a longer presentation, now that all the hard work has been done.

Thanks Stephen. That’s very true that having prepared a 5 minute presentation you can easily scale it to a longer timeframe. The discipline of creating the 5 minute presentation first is likely to lead to a better 50 minute presentation too! Olivia

Love the post, esp the audio Slidecast. It’s mind opening to hear alternative perspective about the learning style theory.

I have a question though about the concept behind Ignite Presentation: why on earth do we need to spend so much time to rehearse so that the slides will correlate with what we say? Why not just use a clicker and click when it’s time to show the next slide?

There’s no good reason for doing it in a “normal” presentation, but it’s a major part of the fun of Ignite.

The idea is to make presentations enjoyable again, as an antidote to all the boring, death-by-powerpoint sessions we’re used to. Making the slides auto-advance adds an extra challenge and an element of danger to the presentations – once they start, there’s no going back.

Check out an Ignite in your local town, and you’ll see what all the fuss is about. Or check out the best videos at http://igniteshow.com

I agree with what Stephen has said. I don’t regard an Ignite presentation as a regular presentation, but rather as an art form. The constraints of the form lead to more creativity. In particular, the constraints of the form make it almost impossible to produce a series of boring bullet-points slides.

And it’s really fun for the audience!

However, I’m in two minds about lecturers at tertiary institutions asking students to deliver Ignite presentations (I’ve heard of this a number of times). I think for students who are novices at public speaking, the constraints of Ignite lead to another level of difficulty – kind of asking people to run before they can walk. If the aim is to avoid boring bullet-point presentations it would be better to simply say “Your presentation should be between 4 minutes 45 seconds and 5 minutes, 15 seconds. You can have as many slides or as few slides as you like, but no bullet-points!”

I’m asking my students to try Ignite! talks this semester. It’s the first time I’ve done them, as a bit of an experiment, so we’ll see how it goes. It’s not the only talk they’re giving, though, so the Ignite! talks are “low stakes,” as it were.

And for what it’s worth, I gave my students this link, and have already heard that they found it very helpful! So well done, you!

i am the tom!

That is great, Olivia!

I’ve learned quite a bit and admire the effort you put into this production and appreciate you sharing it.

Wonderful!!!! Many thanks!!!

great tipz, Olivia. thankz a lot. Keep the mood, ok? Z.

While I wholeheartedly disagree with your Ignite speech thesis about learning styles, I appreciate this post on how to prepare an Ignite speech. I have assigned my students the task of creating their own Ignite speech (it requires demonstration of all of the things we’ve been practicing since the start of the semester) and referred them to this post. Great job!

Love this blog post!

Here’s an infographic that I put together for the folks I coach on the Ignite style. Maybe helpful to your readers as well? http://wp.me/p1Hrlz-3Q

This is awesome!

the ignite presentation on learning styles is superb

Hello there! I could have sworn I’ve been to your blog before but after looking at many of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Anyhow, I’m definitely happy I discovered it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back frequently!

Thank you so much for this manual! I have to give an Ignite presentation on a research project I’ve done and I had no idea how to start this. It helped me out a lot!

These are really great ideas in about blogging. You have touched some fastidious factors here. Any way keep up wrinting.

Helpful info. Fortunate me I discovered your site accidentally, and I’m surprised why this coincidence didn’t came about earlier! I bookmarked it.

Pretty cool idea, it’s always better to do it in a team of people of course whenever you got the chance to work with others. Brainstorming ideas and then making the presentation itself is way faster that way.

Thanks for posting your process (and also how long each step took, which is extremely helpful).

If you’re interested, I just posted a self-critique of my own Ignite talk. (It includes tips on things like having an effective opening line, using humour, and holding a microphone…)

Great work on the ways to prepare presentations. It is an essential part of any business activity.

Wow! Your article on the fastest way to craft an Ignite presentation is a treasure trove of practical advice. I appreciate the focus on brevity and impactful content. Your tips are sure to save a lot of time while ensuring a powerful presentation.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!

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Presentations

Communication, facilitation, ​powerspeaking blog: tips and strategies for crafting presentations, 15 tips: how to prepare for a last minute presentation.

by PowerSpeaking, Inc.     Oct 24, 2013 10:46:00 AM

Did you just find out that you need to give a presentation in 90 minutes? Here are a few easy and effective tips to help organize and present that next mission-critical presentation.

  Organizing Your Content

Develop a short, clear one sentence main message, i.e. "I have a dream."

An analogy, metaphor or memorable phrase for the main message increases retention, i.e. Informix's " The database with the future built in."

Repeat your main message a number of times during the presentation. Use the exact wording each time.

Stories and personal experience create longer retention. Illustrate points with stories, i.e. "Last week when I called on Bob Johnson, the CEO of Acme Jeans in Seattle, he said, 'You know John, using your customer service strategy has doubled our market share.' Then he said..."

PowerPoint Is Not The Talk...You Are!

Build your talk first, then add visuals as you need them. Do not let PowerPoint templates determine your content.

Use fewer visuals, not more. People are persuaded by you and respond to you, not slides.

Begin and end your presentation without visuals. People remember longer what they hear at the beginning and at the end. Your main message will have more impact without slides.

Design the talk so that every, say, seven to ten minutes you can turn off the projector and just talk to people. In PowerPoint you can just hit the "B" button to make your screen go blank. Hit it again to make the slides come back.

When referring to a slide, stand at the screen, facing the audience and use a pointer to highlight the key words or images.

Drive It Home With Style

The way to build style is to practice your presentation in real rehearsal. That is, standing up, moving around, speaking out loud.

In rehearsal, exaggerate everything. Talk louder, use longer pauses, wave your arms around, move from point to point and look 'em in the eye. Strong "in your face" style feels unnatural and phony, yet looks confident to the audience.

This is no time for the soft-spoken, self-effacing, humble approach. Throw back your shoulders and let 'er rip. You almost can't overdo the style, as contrived as it feels.

After asking for questions, wait a few moments. It may take people awhile to think of any. If no ones asks a question, ask your own: "You know, a question that often comes up when I give these talks is..."

Repeat questions for clarity. Answer to the whole group so everyone feels included.

If you don't know the answer, agree to find out and get back to them.

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Related Blog Posts: Six Strategies For How To Control Timing , "A Shining City On The Hill" How A Metaphor Can Touch Your Audience , Five Game Changing Principles of Presenting Slides

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Scott Berkun

How to present well without slides.

If you were having an important conversation with a friend at a restaurant, would you pull out a projector and put your slides on the wall? They’d think you were crazy as would the people at other tables. Rather that look into your eyes or give full attention to your words, your friend would have their minds divided between you and the images you were showing simultaneously.

Which raises the question: why use presentation slides at all? Most important conversations you will have in your lifetime happen without slides. And ask anyone who works in media: if the power went out and they could only show your slides or broadcast your voice, they’d go with your voice. Your voice, what you say and how you say it, is the most important thing. If you listen to This American Life or The Moth , it’s clear how powerful a speaker can be with their voice alone.

Look at any list of the best speeches of all time  and you won’t find a single use of slides or other props. Of course slides and presentation software hadn’t been invented then so it’s unfair to make a direct comparison (For fun  see The Gettysburg Address as a bad Powerpoint deck ). Yet the question is easy to ask: would these speeches have been better if they were narrated over slides?

In many cases, no. You’d have to listen carefully to figure out when ideas would be better presented visually rather than with words alone, which is the secret for thinking about your own presentations: when do you truly need a visual image to express an idea? And when would it be better simply letting your voices tell the story?

Speaking without slides seems more challenging because:

• You feel naked without the familiar crutch of slides behind you
• It may require a different way to prepare
• It demands more thinking and refinement of your ideas

Speaking without slides is often better because:

• Audiences grant you more attention and authority over the room
• You have no fear of slide or A/V malfunctions
• You can never become a slave to your slides
• It forces you to clarify and improve your ideas, making you a better speaker

But slides do have some advantages, including:

• Some concepts are best expressed visually
• They can serve as a handout (but true handouts work better than slideuments )

When is it best to speak without slides?

If I’m asked to speak for 20 minutes or less I often go without slides. More than 20 minutes and the dynamics of attention are more complex and I typically use slides, though less than many speakers do. I give the same advice to others: the shorter the talk, the simpler your presentation should be.

How to prepare a slide-free presentation

In Chapter 5 of Confessions of a Public Speaker (“Do Not Eat The Microphone”) I provide a simple, well-tested method for preparing talks of any kind.  In short it looks like this:

• Take a strong position in the title
• Think carefully about your specific audience (why are they here? what do they already know?)
• Make your 4 or 5 major points concisely (from a draft outline of 10 or 12 points)
• Practice making your points without a single slide.
• Revise #3 and repeat #4 until done.

This approach works with or without slides, but in all cases it forces you to develop your ideas into a solid outline and practice delivering it before you’d even consider making a slide . If you want to go entirely without slides, you’re already prepared for that. And if you decide as you revise that you need slides to best make your points, then add them, but only after you’ve proven their necessity by trying to present without them.

If you want your ideas to take center stage, the slides should come late in the process so that they are used only to support what you’re saying, rather than the other way around. Even if you are a visual thinker and need something to look at to develop your ideas, develop your ideas and rehearse assuming the slide deck is scaffolding you will remove . Don’t fall into the trap of polishing your slides and tweaking fonts when you should be revising your thoughts and practicing how you’re going to express them.

Given a choice between a great talk with lousy slides, and a lousy talk with great slides, what do you think most audiences would choose? Prepare accordingly.

What do you put on the screen if presenting at a slide-dominant event?

I simply put together a slide with my name, the title of the talk and the basic contact information I want to provide. There’s an argument that only having a single slide does far more to make you accessible to an audience interested in your work as the way to contact you is visible the entire time you’re speaking, instead of just at the end. Here are two examples from two different events:

How do you get over the fear of forgetting something?

Many speakers use slides to mitigate fear. Slides used for this reason often come at the audience’s expense. It’s common to see speakers reading their own slides, or facing their slides as they present, clear signs they made their slides first, rather than constructing the presentation first and using slides to support their thoughts. Slides should be for the audience, not for you.

If you work hard to have clear points, and you practice it’s unlikely you’ll forget anything important. Even if you did forget something, only you will know. Since there are no slides, as the speaker only you know what you planned to say. You could skip an entire point or express it in a completely different way than you intended and no one will know but you.  Slides can lock you in and if you are a true expert on the subject you’re speaking about you may find advantages in flexibility.

The notecard

When I speak without slides I usually have one small piece of paper listing my 5 main points. For my recent keynote at Warm Gun 2013 on The Dangers of Faith in Data , here’s what I brought with me on stage:

This notecard is short and simple. Since I’ve thought hard about this topic and have practiced the talk, all that I need the notecard to do is remind me of the next point, and the overall structure. I cheated on #5 as it has sub-bullets, but I simply found while practicing I couldn’t recall all three, so I wrote them down. Churchill and some other famous speakers used similar lightweight systems for their speeches.

You can see the notecard on the conveniently transparent lectern:

What about the handout problem?

If I prepare my talk as described above, it’s easy to write up a blog post with the same structure.

Here’s the blog post, titled The Dangers of Faith In Data , which I wrote in less than an hour while the ideas were still fresh in my mind.

Watch the actual talk based on the above

Now that you know how I prepared and practiced, you can watch the actual talk and judge for yourself. You’ll see me look down at the notecard,  but it’s typically while I’m silent and trying to let the audience digest what I just said, while I collect myself to lead into the next thought.

Free Checklist For Great Talks (with or without slides)

You can download a handy, comprehensive, printable checklist for giving great presentations here  (PDF) based on the bestseller  Confessions of a Public Speaker .

13 Responses to “How to present well without slides”

In the case of scientific seminar talks given to expert audiences, the slides are used to show actual data. So we have no choice but to use slides and make them the focus of the presentation. Although there is a special form of slideless presentation called a “chalk talk”, which entails explaining scientific shit using only a chalkboard, and usually with intensive audience participation: ongoing chiming in with questions, comments, and criticisms. The idea is that a chalk talk reveals whether someone can think on their feet without the crutch of slides, and they are used as an interviewing tool.

I love this! I’ve been doing this for years successfully. Even won an award. I’m glad I’m not alone!

For longer talks (more than 15 minutes) I like to have LOTS of notes when I speak, mostly to keep from getting ahead of myself; I also like to have those notes large enough to read from 10 feet away, so I can move around. “Presenter mode” with the notes section just doesn’t cut it, so I carry two laptops and write two sets of slides. One set is my speaking notes: very dense, lots of words, 100% inappropriate for showing to anyone but myself. The other set is what I show the audience: pictures, graphs, or just a few words to reinforce my point; often these slides will be repeated multiple times in a row so even though I’m clicking through them at a pretty fast clip, the audience sees a new slide only every 1-3 minutes.

The “secret” is to have exactly the same number of slides in each deck, and to have two receivers listening to a single “clicker.” I get as many notes as I want, in nice big fonts with plenty of color; the audience gets a very different “show”; everyone is happy.

Thanks for sharing your method – I hadn’t heard of anyone who makes two sets of slides before.

I’ve found that from speaking so often and experimenting that the less materials I depend on while I’m speaking, the more comfortable I am, not less. But everyone is different of course.

Yes, absolutely. Back when I was doing full-time technical training I practically knew the material by heart. These days, however, I give maybe five presentations a year, only two of which are usually the same talk. Some I’ve done before but often as long as a year ago (and by then I’ve usually updated the material), but the rest are new “this time” and will likely never be given again. Also, most of my “presentations” are actually half-day tutorials, which means about three hours worth of material; I simply can’t remember that much unless I’m teaching it several times per month.

My formal presentations always include slides because I’m talking about a visual subject, but it is ALL visual: no text, and certainly no bullet points (my personal pet peeve). It’s nice to know that I can give a presentation without them too, because any day I can literally be stopped in the hallway and told that there’s a tour group coming through and I need to give a talk *now*. It took me a while to get to that place, but knowing your subject inside and out and having a crazy passion about it helps.

I have to give props to Toastmasters too. I used to have a deathly fear of public speaking, but that environment really helped. Plus, it was all talk, no slides!

Makes sense to me. There are certainly plenty of situations where slides are essential. An artist talking about their work is one of many.

[…] E început de an, deci probabil toți discutăm o strategie, un buget sau planuri pentru 2014. Ce facem când trebuie să prezentăm ceva fără ajutorul unui suport grafic? Scott Berkun, autorul Confesiunile unui vorbitor public ne oferă câteva sfaturi pentru prezentări memorabile. […]

[…] How To Present Well Without Slides […]

[…] Interesting post by Scott Berkun on not using a presentation tool. […]

[…] Secret: Presentation expert Scott Berkun writes out his 3-5 main points on an index card and keeps it in his back pocket when he speaks. […]

[…] How to present well without slides (by Scott Berkun) […]

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