Presentation skills are essential for communicating your ideas, engaging your audience, and achieving your goals. But presentation skills are not static; they evolve with changing technologies, preferences, and expectations. How do you apply the latest trends in presentation skills to your own presentations? Here are some tips to help you stay on top of the game.
One of the biggest trends in presentation skills is interactivity. Interactivity means involving your audience in your presentation, not just talking at them. You can use interactive tools such as polls, quizzes, surveys, games, or live chats to create a dialogue with your audience, get feedback, and increase engagement. Interactive tools can also help you tailor your presentation to your audience's needs, interests, and preferences.
Another trend in presentation skills is storytelling. Storytelling means using narratives, anecdotes, or examples to illustrate your points, connect with your audience, and make your presentation memorable. Storytelling can help you simplify complex concepts, evoke emotions, and inspire action. To adopt a storytelling approach, you need to structure your presentation like a story, with a clear beginning, middle, and end, a main character, a conflict, and a resolution.
When using storytelling to influence, educate or inspire others, be clear about what your message is before you begin. In Ted talk terms: What is my “idea worth sharing”? In storytelling language: What is the moral of my story? When you have identified your moral, you know what your story needs to prove. This immediately reduces the number of things you can appropriately and effectively say from infinite to some manageable, finite number. It becomes a marker on your storytelling map - a North Star, guiding all of your choices.
A third trend in presentation skills is the use of visuals and multimedia. Visuals and multimedia mean using images, videos, animations, graphs, charts, or other visual elements to support your message, enhance your presentation, and appeal to different learning styles. Visuals and multimedia can help you capture attention, clarify information, and create impact. To incorporate visuals and multimedia, you need to choose relevant, high-quality, and consistent visual elements that complement your verbal content.
A fourth trend in presentation skills is the application of design principles. Design principles mean following certain guidelines or best practices to create an effective and attractive presentation. Design principles can help you organize your content, improve your layout, and optimize your fonts, colors, and images. To apply design principles, you need to consider aspects such as contrast, alignment, repetition, proximity, hierarchy, and balance.
A fifth trend in presentation skills is the importance of practice and rehearsal. Practice and rehearsal mean preparing yourself for your presentation by reviewing your content, timing yourself, and practicing your delivery. Practice and rehearsal can help you improve your confidence, fluency, and accuracy, as well as identify and fix any issues or errors. To practice and rehearse, you need to use different methods such as recording yourself, getting feedback, or using online tools.
A sixth trend in presentation skills is the need for evaluation and improvement. Evaluation and improvement mean assessing your performance and identifying your strengths and weaknesses. Evaluation and improvement can help you learn from your experience, celebrate your achievements, and work on your areas of improvement. To evaluate and improve, you need to use different sources such as self-reflection, audience feedback, or online assessments.
Another fun way to evaluate one's presentation is to be open to platforms in which SMEs and eminent speakers with powerful storytelling skills and observe areas where the stories begin to seem real. The transitions which breaks open the genuineness of their talk. The purpose of their slide(s), a visual/audio aid and other anchors. Now compare those to the quality of transitions in your presentation with theirs. You'll get answers that elevates the purpose of your presentation. Let me know if this helps!