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PresentationCamp London 1 is on 17 Jan 2010

What makes a good presentation? Have you ever seen a bad presentation and thought to yourself “I could do better than that”! That’s exactly what happened to me a few years ago!

I used to work for PriceWaterhouse Coopers. They are the world’s biggest firm of accountants and they have lots of meetings and training sessions. They also have lots of exceedingly amateur presenters. It took me years of thinking “I could do better than that” before I plucked up the courage and one day said to my boss “I could do better than that”!

And they ignored me!

A little while later (now working as an accountant at the British Medical Association) I was asked to write and present a one hour educational lecture. I was lined up to speak at training sessions across 7 hospitals in the North Thames Region of the NHS. It was both thrilling, in the way that the new and biggest roller coaster ride is thrilling (it’s safe, and you’re still sitting on something), and it was scary, in the way that your first parachute jump is scary (why do people jump out of perfectly serviceable aeroplanes?)

That was in 1997 and that was my moment of truth. I had often said “I could do better than that” and it was my turn to eat my words. Exclude my childhood adventures on stage as a magician, this was my first presentation in the corporate world! I had coped, I got to the end! I delivered all that I had planned to say, one or two jokes fell flat, but I got to the end without pregnant pauses, on message and on time.

But it could have been better! I had too many slides, and I had borrowed too much material from a colleague who had delivered that same sort of speech. That evening after the first of the seven lectures, I stayed up most of the night, and rewrote the whole speech. I cut the slides down from over 30 to just 14 and I made it my speech, rather than a rewrite of somebody else’s.

The other six deliveries were much better. I had learnt to be myself.

What can you learn about presenting? What can you tell us about presenting? That’s what PresentationCamps are for. They are a wonderful opportunity to learn and share experiences no matter what level you are at and no matter how much or how little experience you have.

On the PresentationCamp London team with me, are several more experienced speakers, and several novices. We all invite you to come along to January’s inaugural event which is definitely going to be a sell out! Because the tickets are free! So don’t miss out! Visit the PCL1 Blog for full details.

PCL1 is on 17 January 2010 at The Salmon Centre, near Tower Bridge