How to create a presentation that everyone in your audience will hate (Bonus: You’ll hate giving the presentation more than the audience hates it!)

Basic Suggestions to Start Don’t prepare, just “wing-it”. Wait till the last minute Be unfamiliar with the material as possible Ask someone else to prepare the presentation – Or, if no one else falls for that, just borrow someone else’s presentation at the last possible moment! Put together the “look” of the presentation first – Concentrate on the details of which font to use in the handouts Never, ever practice.

Advanced suggestions Use your slides as a crutch Put so much text on each slide that no one actually needs to hear you speak. – By the time you’re done speaking, they’ll have long ago finished reading and started to daydream about something far more interesting. You should definitely use complete sentences with punctuation. Use an “agenda” slide. That’s always a great way to signal a great presentation is coming. Absolutely never find out who the audience will be and what their interests might be in the topic. – Bonus: Don’t be afraid to assume that the audience is either: totally ignorant, or knows nearly everything you do. Use multiple levels of bullets. – Because you can’t have enough They’re useful when you don’t know the material and they’ll keep the audience busier as they try to grasp all the indents.

Fonts and Colors are your friends It’s OK to use colors for the foreground and background that are similar in luminance (brightness). – This works well: Go ahead and ask, “Can you see this?” at least once during the presentation. – Bonus: Scrunch up your face when you ask the question. Use small fonts. Smaller than 18pt is exceptional as you can pack on a tremendous amount of text. Maybe by the time the viewers have finished reading, they’ll have forgotten you’re even standing up there anymore! Use more than 2 fonts on a slide – it will make it exciting! Routinely mix a serif and sans-serif font (like Times New Roman and Arial for example). Can you read me now?

Graphics & Animation

The final step: “Wowing” your audience Don’t make eye contact with anyone you don’t know. – Bonus: Better yet, don’t make eye contact at all, with anyone. Don’t act interested in the topic. – Bonus: Look like everyone else is wasting your valuable time. Dull topics should be presented as dull as possible. – If it’s a boring topic, make it boring! Continually look at the presentation screen to verify that no-one has sneakily switched slides on you without knowing. – Bonus: Flip back and forth through slides trying to get to the right place. – Double bonus: Act like you’ve never used presentation software before and be confused by the “up” and “down” arrows on the keyboard or mouse. Be shocked when the slide changes and you weren’t expecting that slide. Read the slides to the audience. Read everything just to be considerate. Someone might not be looking up at the slide at all times – so they’ll appreciate you reading them the material. Struggle to find the presentation to give