I mainly use powerpoint for pre-sales activities (tender responses, roadshows, etc) and for communicating ideas internally to staff.

Now that I've been reading up on different ways to present, I started to refine the technique. Simple statements (one line of 3 or 4 words at most) on each slide, more visual prompts and more communication verbally instead of using the slide to prompt me for what to say (or just reading the slide itself).

In fact I've only just started using the presentation notes feature. I don't think I ever used it before because I thought it was just for handouts, not realising that you can use it during the show as well. In playing around in the show options I saw the multi-monitor settings and "discovered" the presenters view where you see the presentation view, the next few slides coming up and your own notes about the current slide.

I'm sure this is well known to many people but I'd never used it before (mainly because my laptop wasn't set for multi-monitor) and the little light globe in my head went on and I finally could see how the techniques I'd been reading about can be done in a practical manner.

Anyway, I used it this week and the presentation flowed a lot better, the audience was more engaged and I was able to show that I actually knew what I was talking about instead of showing that I can read a slide out loud.

There's plenty more yet to do with the technique to keep things dynamic and moving, but it was a good start.