How to Royally Screw Up a PowerPoint Presentation

Posted: September 11, 2012

Presenting anything can be difficult for some people. Here are some tips on what not to do when presenting a PowerPoint.

In August 2012, I conducted a contest exclusively for Design Dispatch readers to find all the flubs made by Joe Fumbler during his presentation, and reader Robbie Kularski came up with eighteen mistakes! Thankfully, this presentation never really took place, but mistakes like these are perpetrated by bad presenters all the time.

Read on and see if you recognize any of these gaffes.

Transcript of Joe Fumbler’s Presentation

“Hi, welcome to my presentation. Let me just get these slides up…wait a minute…OK there. Whoops, now let me get out of Normal View here and just get into Slide Show mode. There we go! Now, could somebody hit the lights so we could get started? Great!”

Very unprofessional opening. These people are not your friends in a living room.
Presentation not cued
Not prepared with lighting. (Editor’s Note: Ideally, you want the room dim enough to clearly see your presentation while having enough light for attendees to take notes.)

“So, let me start by saying thank you very much for having me here. I know you’re really going to like what I have to say! Let’s take a look at the Agenda slide here on the screen and read with me a minute as I go over with you what I’m going to talk about during the presentation.”

Reading Agenda slide word for word

Read entire article How to Royally Screw Up a PowerPoint Presentation

Biz Tip provided by Tony Bynum