Revising Presentations

I have a number of presentations available right now.  Most of those presentations have the same basic theme, but I’m generally okay with that:  my slides aren’t flashy, but I want them to be informative and snappy over a service like WebEx or GoToMeeting.

There are a couple of changes that I’m going to look into making over the next couple of months.  The first one is extremely simple but didn’t click until I read a Brent Ozar post on how presentations should end:  every one of my slides needs a simple link to research I’ve done, as well as contact details (e-mail address and Twitter account).  I probably will need to go back over my research notes for most of these talks, but that’s good for me:  I get a chance to look back at my slides, think about how they read, and fix any problems I see.

The second fix is that I do want to introduce some graphics in meaningful locations.  I’m not very good with graphics, and so I tend to focus on words rather than pictures.  Mixing in a little of both should help improve my presentations and help people remember the points I’m making.

The third fix I want is to change how code blocks show up.  Right now, the box is pretty narrow and doesn’t show up well on most older projectors.  I want to expand it out and make it easier to read code snippets.

I think that with these three basic changes, I’ll be able to improve my slide decks considerably and help people retain more information.

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