Preparing Your Support Materials

For those missionaries with slides/videos, I thought the following pointers quite interesting.  Make sure your video presentation leaves a positive impact when finished. 

The key to preparing your actual presentation is to remember that less is more. If you want to share your information with people who couldn’t be there, try writing an article. Even detailed presentations have something missing. A few common, and good to know, guidelines to a good presentation:

• Keep text to a minimum. No more than 5 bullet points per slide and if you can keep them to one core idea—that’s better. People will tend to read this stuff and not pay attention to what you’re saying.
• Check the contrast and font size. Make sure that if you have text on the screen that people can read it.
• Use pictures to get your idea across. They’re easier to remember, less distracting and make more impact. Have stories ready and use imagery to set the backdrop.
• Avoid complicated charts and graphs, they’re hard for your audience to follow. Keep visual ideas very simple.
• Check the resolution of your presentation. Maybe go with 800×600 to be safe. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen slides that don’t fit on the screen. You never know for sure how it’s going to work out when you get things set up if you don’t have full control over the environment.
• Have simple to follow notes to go along with your slides and major talking points. They should serve as a reminder, not something for you to read from.
• Prepare more than you can speak to, but also be prepared to get cut short. Time flies up there.