#5: Capturing your audience through the best presentation

Written by Claudio Laferla, MITA Knowledge Management Centre Executive

Everybody, at some point or another, had the opportunity to deliver a presentation to peers such as work colleagues, or to an audience, such as giving a business lecture. However, for obvious reasons, teachers at schools come to mind in vivid numbers. To these professionals, we can also add several lecturers at universities or any other institutions.

All this brings to the fore the importance of making a good impact on your audience, both in relation to the content presented and also for the delivery itself. However, we are now in an era where the 'presentation tool' can be a way of making a 'hit' on the audience as well. Thus, the 'tool' itself is also a way of selling oneself to the audience.

There are hundreds of available tools, and a few of them are a 'must know'. Tools have become ubiquitous with the everyday personal or industrial movements, whether on the job or for leisure. Tools offer a way of transmitting an idea or a programme to influence and affect other people, communities or companies. Using presentation tools helps you get the right visual-aids needed for your audience.

Given that lately it has been discovered that the attention span has been reduced to a mere 8 seconds (going down from 12 seconds in 2005), using the right presentation tools is a key skill to have. Powerful presentation tools allow for a number of features to be available and incorporated into the tool itself such as linking PDFs, images, videos and URLs. Some tools also allow you to insert speaker notes as part of the power of the tool itself. Others will allow you to record your voice to your presentation.

Through the presentation tool, one can hope to connect not only to the intellect but also to the emotional aspect of the person. This will help engage the audience, which in turn will remember most of what was delivered.

Furthermore, through the interoperability of the mobile applications and tools, there is no more need to be tied to a desktop or a laptop, or any other technological device. Using the 'cloud', it is possible to access your presentation everywhere and anywhere, the 'container' is not important any longer.

However, using the right presentation tool is necessary. Thus, a lot of material is out there, most are free and others can be available for a nominal yearly fee. Remember, (i) content, (ii) personality and the (iii) presentation tool are all necessary to capture your audience.