Graettinger: Make Your Next Data Mining Presentation Twice As Good

Have you ever listened to a really poor data mining presentation? Have you ever given one? You are not alone. I've certainly been on both sides. Think back for a moment. What made it so poor? Was it a lifeless deck with slide after slide of bullet after bullet of statistic after statistic? Or was the presenter lifeless, literally just reading the slides.

Books like "Presentation Zen" and "slide:ology" have already received a lot of attention, and rightly so [f1]. In a world filled with mediocre presentations, they provide a different mindset and a different approach to designing a deck of slides. For this article, we will focus on delivery. By the time you finish reading, you will pick up five crucial delivery tools that will make your next presentation twice as good as your last.

Use the "B" button

Presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint has a dazzling array of features. You can animate your slides, add video clips, and do exotic transitions. For my money, though, one of the most valuable features is one of the simplest. But it is relatively unknown and unused by most presenters. It's the "B" button. When you're presenting in "slide show" mode, hitting the "B" button on the keyboard blanks the screen. Hitting it again brings back the current slide.

Using the "B" button allows you to change your audience's focus, either towards you or towards your slides. This automatically makes your presentation better and more memorable since you are not constantly competing for attention against your slides.

Rehearse - Out Loud

Ever attend a presentation where it felt like the presenter was seeing the slides for the first time, too? To me, rehearsal seems greatly undervalued by presenters. There are a lot of benefits to rehearsing - and that means out loud

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