Presentations

[slatham]

Do you know any good openers to business presentations that really get the audiences attention whilst making a good point? I'm particularly interested in openers that would work in meetings where I have to present to an audience of 3-10 people.

[antiguru]

I guess what you�re after is an attention grabber.

The way I see it you have 2 choices: go for something to do with the presentation you�re making (i.e. if your presentation is about sales for the last month give the most exciting point of your findings first as a bullet point and say �but more about that later�) or alternatively go for an interesting but not remotely relevant fact (not a lot of people know this but �.).

An example would be: At least 40,000 extra lives could be saved every year if everyone with a high-risk condition for whom aspirin was appropriate actually received it.

There are come good sites to get these factoids from like:

http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/Factoids/
http://www.populationconnection.org/Factoids/
http://samvak.tripod.com/factoidsindex.html

Google factoids for more.

Hope this helps.

[Bev2007]

Music. Normally makes such a change to hear music in a business environment that people a) notice and b) get energy levels up.

[mormess]

When I presented to a conference and was waiting for everyone to shut up, I said "if you don't sit down now I'll have to tell my duck joke". Of course some one said "go on then" and I had to tell it. They laughed, I got their attention.

Also mention coffee, you don't have to serve it, but if you see them flagging, just mention coffee and watch their reaction.

Smile, don't say "I'm nervous/ doesn't technology suck", look them in the eye, move around if you can, use a cartoon or striking image in the first slide.

Good luck!