If you're going to make a presentation to a group of people--educators, no less--then here are a few tips:
- If you know you're going to use a PowerPoint presentation, bring your own digital projector. Asking your host to provide one would be like David Copperfield asking the Luxor for a white rabbit . . . "Yes, I'd love to do some magic for you--do you have any tricks I could use?"
- If you're going to write on a easel pad, then (a) please bring your own (see above), and (b) do not write on white paper with a red pen on a dimly lit stage. Your audience will not see what you're writing and quickly cease to care. (Moreover, the solution to this problem is not to move the easel eight inches downstage.)
- Don't read the PowerPoint to us. We can do that.
- If you speak after the PowerPoint presentation is done, turn off the projector. Or shut off the computer. Or do SOMETHING that will end the slideshow. Your audience will not be able to concentrate on your story while the words "Thank You" roll up and down your tum-tum.
- If your co-presenter has the words "Thank You" rolling up and down his tum-tum don't wait twenty minutes to do something about it.
- Your host went to a lot of trouble to find you that black marker--don't just walk off with it.
