Make Yourself Presentable | Jason Santa Maria

I just started a job in local government, where I will be working with a lot of different stakeholders and audiences and giving presentations on the aims and objectives of the project. Jason Santa Maria has some interesting insights on this most difficult form of performance art.

My first time speaking professionally in public was back in 2005 at the first An Event Apart in Philadelphia. While not my first time speaking in front of a big audience, it was the first time I had to prepare a slide deck and use Keynote.

Before and after comparison of slides

Before and after view of a slide deck. On the left, you can see the bright red used to slides that need work, as well as black and grey for title slides, and blue for quotations.

A sample title slide

Two basic rules: simple and big

A sample image slide

When I use images, I almost always use them full screen and free of distraction.

A sample subsection slide

Keep your title slides to a few words, then speak through the rest of the story.

A sample quotation slide

A sample quotation slide.

Understandably, I was nervous, so beforehand, I had scribed lots of notes to guide me as I was speaking. On the big day, I used Keynote’s “presenter mode” which allows the presenter to see their notes while the audience sees the normal slides. A few slides in, I realized my grave mistake: I had entirely too many notes than would fit on my small screen, and no way to access the hidden ones. I was lost.

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Source: jasonsantamaria.com