How to make boring information interesting

There is nothing worse than knowing you will probably put your audience to sleep with all the facts and figures you have to give. Yet is there anything else you can do when your material is complicated?

Yes, there is. Here are a few quick tips to help you jazz up and shorten what you have to say so the audience stays engaged.

1. Start with the audience not you. Too many presenters look at the information they have to share rather than looking at what the audience needs to be able to do BECAUSE of the information you are sharing. There is a big difference in these two goals.

a. If you start by looking at what the audience needs to do BECAUSE of the information you are sharing, it will be easier to weed out information and put it in the correct order.

b. If you look at sharing information with the audience you will have a tendency to put in everything just to make sure you have all of your bases covered.

Remember that a person doesn't have to be an expert in all aspects of baseball to be able to identify who the key players are and how good they can play. Similarly, the audience does not need to know all you did and why but rather, what should they learn from what you did?

2. Reduce the amount of writing you have on PowerPoint. If the information is on the screen then the audience assumes they should understand all of it. Therefore, they will ask you a lot of questions and may go in to areas you don't wish to go in to. Keep in mind that the more you read your slides the less intelligent you appear to your audience.

3. Reduce how much you put on graphs and charts. Put on less words and then click on key things as you talk and have the other information fade out so you don't overwhelm you audience.

4. Use a few key colors well placed. Many people try to jazz up their presentations by using a lot of animation or clip art. People are more impressed if you keep it simple, to the direct point, and make it relevant to them. A lot of color or graphics can distract from what you are saying.

Remember it is not about how intelligent the audience sees you, but rather how intelligent you make the audience feel.