Last week I mentioned an online conference on presenting online conferences – well amazingly enough I actually attended it. I thought I’d pass on the highlights to you because I think they’re good reminders for presentation off and online. Here are the top 10 things I learned:

1. Dive into topic – skip long introductions
   
2. Follow process – storyboard the presentation first
   
3. Add poll or ask folks about what they want to learn to encourage interaction; direct content accordingly
   
4. Maximize PowerPoint – use animation
   
5. Take questions midway
   
6. Vary slide format – some charts, some quotes, some graphics
   
7. Team presenters – while one talks the other takes care of the technology
   
8. Brand your slides with colors, feel and style of graphics
   
9. Don’t simply read from slides – this often means practicing
   
10. As a rule of thumb, 1 slide takes 1-3 minutes to present (on average)

I have to admit that the conference was very good and I’m learning to prefer online presentations. No travel and lots of room for multi-tasking!

After last week’s Byte, Pam from St. Paul told me that her organization uses online conference providers, WISLine Web, which is through the University of Wisconsin. It’s only available for nonprofits, educational institutions, and government agencies and if you’re based in Wisconsin there’s a discount.