We are approaching Evaluation 2013 (Evaluation ’13).  This year October 16-19, with professional development sessions both before and after the conference.  One of the criteria that I use to determine a “good” conference is did I get three new ideas (three is an arbitrary number).  One way to get a good idea to use outside the conference, in your work, in your everyday activities is to experience a good presentation.  Fortunately, in the last 15 years much has been written on how to give a good presentation both verbally and with visual support.  This week’s AEA365 blog (by Susan Kistler) talks about presentations as she tells us again about the P2i initiative sponsored by AEA.

I’ve delivered posters the last few years (five or six) and P2i talks about posters in the downloadable handout called, Guidelines for Posters.  Under the tab called (appropriately enough) Posters, P2i also offers information on research posters and a review of other posters as well as the above mentioned Guidelines for Posters.  Although more and more folks are moving to posters (until AEA runs out of room, all posters are on the program), paper presentations with the accompanying power point are still deriguere, the custom of professional conferences.   What P2i has to say about presentations will help you A LOT!!  Read it.

Read it especially if presenting in public, whether to a large group of people or not.  It will help you.  There are some really valuable points that are reiterated in the AEA365 as well as other places.  Check out the following TED talks, look especially for Nancy Durate and Hans Rosling.  A quick internet search yielded the following: About 241,000,000 results (0.43 seconds).  I entered the phrase, “how to make a good presentation“.  Some of the sites speak to oral presentations; some address visual presentations.  What most people do is try to get too much information on a slide (typically using Power point).  Prezi gives you one slide with multiple images imbedded within it.  It is cool.  There are probably other approaches as well.  In today’s world, there is no reason to read your presentation–your audience can do that.  Tell them!  (You know, tell them what they will hear, tell them, tell them what they heard…or something like that.)  If you have to read, make sure what they see is what they hear–see hear compatibility is still important, regardless of the media used.

Make an interesting presentation!  Give your audience at least one good idea!