Not Being Sarkari

My presentation skills are not very good. And I work hard to improve them. I read a lot about them, try to deliver as many presentations as possible. In my search of excellence in giving keynotes or presentations, I have become a student of this subject. I also try to disect, review, critique the presentations which I get to hear occasionally.

Till now only a couple of times I have come across a presentation, which was jaw-dropping. Some of the others were decent. Some presentations were a passe. Most of them were pathetic.

I try to gauge presentations on the kind of slides the presenter is using, engagement levels (with audience) of the presenter, and communication skills.

Yesterday, I was in a CRM workshop and most of the presenters were bad. Slides were full of bullet points. Presenters were reading from slides and ignoring audience. Eye contact, engagement with audience was missing. In a nutshell, presentations were horrible and it was apparent that presenters had spent time only on putting text on slides and not on how to deliver that text.

As I was killed by boredom during the presentation, I started surfing internet. While surfing, I came across this article. Apparently presenters in front of me were not ill prepared to deliver presentation, organizations like Google also falter when it comes to presentation.

I absolutely agree with the article that the product presentations by Steve Jobs are amazing, entertaining and you will be awed by his showmanship.