Being the opening act isn’t easy. The opening presenter at an event has two responsibilities:

1) Warm up the audience, and

2) Get through the logistical stuff that needs to be said before the person everyone is there to see takes the stage.

It can feel pretty grunt-level at times, but your role as an opening presenter is important and ought to be approached with the same passion you’d have if you were delivering the keynote address.

If there is one thing that is universal about presentations, it’s that a presentation without passion is a presentation without meaning. That’s why I am too often disappointed when I hear an opening presenter say something like this:

“Ok, so we’re about to get started! But first, I need to run through a list of thank you’s. It will only take a second.”

Run through a list of thank you’s? Tell me, what is the point of a thank-you when you run straight through it?

A thank you is meant to be something gracious. As much as people enjoy hearing their name read out loud, I don’t think hearing it quickly read from a list is going to give anyone the warm fuzzies inside.

A “running thank you” has no meaning and might as well be left out of your presentation.

The next time you’re an opening presenter and have people to thank on stage, take the time beforehand to understand why you are thanking each person. Slow your delivery down a notch and mean what you say. The audience will notice the difference, and I promise it will make your presentation better.

There is an old saying that says, “the reason we can see so far is because we stand upon the shoulders of giants.”

In other words, we owe so much of our knowledge and ideas to the countless teachers and gurus we learn from over the course of our lives.

It’d be impossible to write a blog about presentations without acknowledging one of the leading presentation experts in the world today, Garr Reynolds. If you are interested in presentation design theory and haven’t heard of Presentation Zen, it’s time you do.

Garr started writing the Presentation Zen blog back in 2005 as a way to regularly communicate his thoughts about presentations and design to the world. Today, it is one of the most popular and influential presentation resources out there.

Living in Osaka, Japan, Garr has an insightful take on presentation design and delivery that is strongly influenced by Japanese culture and the principles of zen philosophy. A few of my favorite Presentation Zen blog entries are: Gates, Jobs, and the Zen Aesthetic, Who says we need our logo on every slide?, Bill Gates and Visual Complexity, and Yoda vs Darth Vader.

Garr spent the past year consolidating several of the best ideas from his blog into the Presentation Zen book (available from Amazon or Barnes & Noble). Bearing no resemblance to your typical how-to manual for PowerPoint software, the Presentation Zen book is a much deeper exploration into the theory behind presentation design and delivery. As Garr describes it, it is “an approach”.

Garr really went the extra mile designing the book’s layout, so it as enjoyable to look at as it is to read. If you’re someone who ever gives presentations, you should definitely pick this one up.

These days the Presentation Zen blog is still going strong, with insightful new content being posted regularly. Check it out, I know you won’t be disappointed.

Below you can see a talk Garr recently gave at Google’s California headquarters. I think it’s an excellent presentation that gives a thorough overview of the Presentation Zen approach.

As you watch, pay particular attention to the way Garr keeps his audience involved throughout the entire presentation and utilizes his slides as backdrops to his conversational storytelling. Enjoy!

I recently attended a presentation that made me think back to a basic piece of marketing theory.

The purpose of the presentation was simple, it was to sell a product to an audience of prospects. Overall the delivery was good, but I was troubled by the way the presenter chose to differentiate her company’s product.

Instead of highlighting the benefits her company’s product offers, she spent the majority of her time criticizing each of her competitors and elaborating on the weaknesses of their products. This left a sour taste in my mouth and no doubt affected the impact her presentation had on the rest of the audience.

Only insecure companies need to spend so much time criticizing the competition, and they’re typically insecure for a reason.

If you can’t sell your product by highlighting the benefits it offers, chances are you don’t have a very good product. The same is true for the services you offer. The same is true for your company. The same is true for your life.

Be who you are, not who others aren’t.