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Volume 2, Number 2
Summer 2004

Secrets for Giving Good Presentations
By Paul Ebel

Every morning at the speaker’s breakfast of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management in Orlando, Paul Ebel from BE Inc., a safeguards and training company in South Carolina, presented some secrets for giving good presentations.

Ebel started this series of short speaker training sessions at the 44th Annual Meeting and such positive results were seen from the effort that it was continued again at the 45th Annual Meeting.

The purpose of his presentations was to improve the professionalism and effectiveness of the more than 400 paper presentations made at the annual meetings. Last year the primary emphasis was on the “style” of presentations, and this year the emphasis (while still on style to some extent) was on “presentation material.” It was understood that the presentation slides could not be changed on the day of the presentation, but the hope of the INMM was that improvements in slides will be seen in the years to come.

Ebel said that he had been designing, conducting and consulting on training courses for more than 30 years, and the secrets that he presented this year were his nominees for the most important ways to improve the INMM presentations, and in particular for improving the visual aids.

If you were at the speakers’ breakfasts then you heard these secrets for better presentations, but if not, they are listed below for your information.

1. WHAT you say may not be clear
1. Practice your presentation, know your key points, and care about giving a good presentation.
2. Never redesign a presentation from the podium.
2. HOW you say it may not be clear
1. Speak slowly (100 wpm vs. 170 wpm), speak clearly, enunciate, project your voice and speak loudly.
3. Things you DO may interfere with communication
1. Be enthusiastic (which was emphasized last year)
2. Limit the use of a pointer. Remember that 95 percent of the things that you can do with a pointer are bad, which means that the odds are not with you.
3. Dress a little better than the audience.
4. Your SLIDES may not be clear
1. Use 12 lines or less on each slide. If more than this then slides are hard to read and hard to see from the back of the room. Remember that there are 10 fingers and 2 ears, which add up to 12!
2. Use simple phrases on slides. Do not use whole sentences. A slide should contain key words to keep the speaker on track and let the audience follow the outline of the talk, NOT to be everything that is said.
3. Make slides bright and clear. Use white backgrounds and large black letters. Use a bold sans serif font similar to Helvetica and make the letters taller than the spaces between the lines.
4. Consider the use of colors. Some colors are difficult to read (blue on green background) and some colors subconsciously affect the mood of people (red or orange tend to annoy people). The easiest to read is large black print on white slides.
5. Don’t fill up the slides with logos. Some slides have fully one-half of the area filled with logos and fancy artwork. The purpose of the slide is to present the outline of the presentation and present data for the audience to read as well as hear.
6. Do not use more than two layers of topics (main topics and one sub-layer). More than this makes the slides too complicated to read and follow.

Next year at the 46th Annual Meeting, we are hoping to have computer-driven projectors for every session. The opportunities for making really good slides from computer generated slides are great, along with the opportunities of making really bad slides. Too much animation, not using large print that is bright black on white, and a poor choice of colors and backgrounds is a real liability. Even when using computer generated slides, remember the suggestion of 12 lines per slide, and be aware that the urge to put most of the paper text on the slides will be very strong.

The INMM will give a similar presentation at the next year’s speakers’ breakfast, and your suggestions are important for the next year’s presentation. Paul Ebel would like to hear some of your nominations for the “don’t do” list for next year. Please e-mail these to him at paulebel@aol.com.