This is an overall guide to making technical presentations to audiences that are non technical in nature. The points made though would apply to any presentation and any audience.

1. How to reach both technical and non technical people in your audience
EFFECTIVE TECHNICAL
PRESENTATIONS
By: Doug Norton

2. Presentation with punch!
 How to make your audience remember your
presentation, and recommend you!

3. First things first
 What is it that keeps most of us from making
an effective presenting?
Fear of looking foolish
Fear
Fear of criticism
Fear of speaking in public

4. Fear, the great paralyzer
 You audience is not afraid, why are you?
 Being nervous is normal
 Over time, and with practice
it fades and is replaced with
confidence!
 Practice in front of people.
 Start with friends and colleagues.
 Pay attention to the presentation
of others. You may learn
techniques that will serve you well.

5. Top fears that most face
 Public Speaking
 Flying
 Medical blunder
 Pain through accident
 Death
 What, people fear Public speaking more than
death?

6. How to get to the big
league? (or what to do about it?)
 No one was born a good doctor, lawyer,
engineer or public speaker.
 It takes training and practice.
 Take every opportunity
to speak that you can get.
 Get feedback on your
performance .
 Fix the flaws, one at a time.
Or Golfer either

7. Types of presentations!
Yes there are different kinds

8. Purpose of the presentation
 Teach
 Inform
 Persuade

9. Teaching
 The completion of a sale and you are telling
your customer how to operate the
equipment, maintenance and safely
protocols. This is an example of a pure
teaching presentation.

10. Informing
 In an informing presentation you may be
telling your colleagues the status of a project,
or reporting the status of a repair procedure.
 It is designed to convey important
information that is of a mix of technical and
status type information.

11. Persuasion
 Here is where the rubber really
meets the road. This is to
change a direction.
 Examples would be a sales
presentation against
competition, a repair that has
more than one solution or a
make or buy decision.

12. You are in an elevator
And you want the person that you are talking with
to remember you, what have you got?
Maybe 30 seconds?
That was 30 seconds by the way

13. Why is 30 seconds important?
 If you can get your audiences attention in the
first 30 seconds, you have them for your
presentation.
 If you don’t , you might as well pack up your
projector!

14. Punch the message first!
 In the first 30 seconds, deliver the
hook that will get there attention for
the rest of the presentation.
 Oh yeah, you must maintain interest
as well, you can still loose them you
know!
 But if you don’t get their attention at
the beginning your hill will be very
steep.

15. Example hook
 In this presentation you will learn
ways that you can impress your boss

16. or
 Factors that may save your plant from closing

17. The essence of the benefit
 The hook is the essence of the benefit of your
presentation. It should not be an
exaggeration nor a lie. It should fairly
represent the benefit in terms that are
emotional and interesting.
 It should also leave a feeling
of what happens next!

18. How do you know what your
audience will be like?
 Research, make sure you know to whom you
will be speaking, suits or coveralls!
 Technically savvy or non technical

19. Are you a subject expert?
 Chances are that you are an expert
 Who is your audience
 Peers, experts in their own rights?
 Newbies, have never seen what you are
presenting?
 Mixed crowed, some peers and some newbies?

20. Examples:
 The following few slides are from a subject
expert.
 It is obvious from the content that they know
what they are talking about
 Yet…

22. Visual Disagreement
 The text is simple
enough, but the
graph?
 What does it tell
you?
 What are the two
lines for?
 The text on the
 The data on the chart
chart, if you can read
does not reflect the
it, is in German. statement in the text!

23. Examples: Part Two
 Visual impact is also important

25. Examples: Part Two
 Visual impact is also important
 But not at the expense of clarity of the
message.
 The text must not be obscured by the
graphics, and the backgound for the text
must have sufficient contrast that the text is
not lost in the clutter.

26. And one more thing.
What does PV= 1/3 Energy Gain vs. Solarthermal mean?

27. Examples: Part Two
 You have to be sure that the message that you
are conveying is clear to all the readers
 Avoid ambiguous messages
 Avoid complex explinations
 Remember the 30 second rule?
 A slide should present the message in 5
seconds.
 The reader should not spend so much time
that they are not listening to the presenter.

28. As in all endings there is
another story that follows.
Call Doug Norton
905 409 8487 for the part
where your story comes in.

29. Contact Doug Norton at
647 295 2051
Or at
doug.norton@plcsystems.net