As stressful and time consuming as presentations (and preparing them) can be, Aaron and I really enjoy giving them. They’re a great way to share what knowledge we have on a subject, and giving a presentation takes us out of our comfort zones. We’re learning, expressing ourselves, and expanding on our skills. But fun? Definitely!

Over the last while, fives of people have asked both Aaron and myself how we develop presentations. Here’s an introduction to that process. The process that Aaron and I use and our presentation style are influenced by Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen fame. Interestingly enough, Aaron and I were using variants of Reynolds’ method before we encountered his blog and his book.

Whenever you see we and our in the following paragraphs, I’m referring to Aaron and myself (it’s usually a team effort) and not the majestic plural.

Getting ideas

That’s the easy part. We’ve got so many presentation ideas and so little time. Sometimes those ideas bubble up from the dark recesses of our twisted imaginations. Sometimes from things we read, and sometimes from our reactions to trends in the industry. Often, though, Aaron and I base our presentations on things that we’re doing, technologies that we’re using, and ideas that catch our imagination.

We keep a list of these ideas in Google Docs so we have access to them no matter where we are and can add to the list without worrying about conflicting versions of a document.

Creating the proposal and outline

Having an idea is one thing. Developing that idea so 1) we can get a conference organizer interested in the idea, and 2) have a strong base from which to build on the presentation is a bit more difficult.

Generally, we come up with an aim and a bunch of bullet points that support that aim. From there, we whittle away at superfluous points and strengthen the ones we have — by editing and/or adding new information. Once that’s done, we meet either at one of our homes or at a cafe with wireless Internet access and create the proposal and the outline.

Once again, Google Docs is our tool of choice. It enables use to edit the document simultaneously. Here’s a sample of a completed proposal:

Once that’s sent off, and we get the OK to proceed, the real work begins.

Building the presentation

To start building the presentation, we use the analog method: pen and paper. We take our key argument, which was defined when we created the outline and proposal, then build out from there. Here’s sample (yes, I know that my handwriting isn’t the greatest):

This goes on for several pages, with copious notes and ideas/concepts scratched out. Doing this expands on our outline and helps us develop the main argument or point of the presentation, as well as the supporting points.

Of course, we’re doing research during this process. Articles, blog posts, books, podcasts, noting our own experience. Essentially, building a store of knowledge that we can use while creating and giving the presentation.

Once that’s done, we start writing the script. The script contains (more or less) what we want to say, and acts as the detailed notes for the presentation. Why? Well, use slides not as documents in their own right but as starting points for telling a story. Can you guess what we use to write the early drafts of the script? If you said Google Docs, move to the head of the class.

We’ll work on the script until it’s about 95% where we want it to be. The other 5% comes later on — last minute additions, edits, and whatnot. When the script is at that stage of development, one of us saves it as an OpenOffice.org Writer file and imports it into the template that we use. You can view samples of the completed scripts here and here.

The slides

For me, this is the most difficult part. I’m not the most visual person, and creating effective slides takes quite a lot of time and effort. Of course, there’s a lot of planning that goes on. Again, the analog method comes into play.

For years, I’ve carried a pair of Moleskine notebooks with me. I use the squared notebook to record notes on things that I want to write or general ideas. The storyboard notebook, which consists of two or four frames per page, is the one that I use to sketch out ideas for individual presentation slides. Here’s a sample (yes, I know it’s messy …):

The basis of the slides having been sketched, we go to Google Docs yet again to mock up the slides. The presentations component of Google Docs is easy to use, and allows us to insert speaker notes. And we can edit the slide show from anywhere.

The slides, of course, are mutable. We move them around, we insert and delete, we change the images and text. What appears in my notebook often doesn’t resemble the final product.

As for images for the slides, both Aaron and I spend a lot of time search for ones that fit in with what we’re talking about. Our preferred sources are stock.xchng, Stock Xpert, and Dreamstime. The images are inexpensive (free at stock.xchng), are generally high quality, and there’s a good selection. The latter can be a problem — it sometimes takes us quite a bit of searching to find the right image.

Once the slides are done, we save them as an OpenOffice.org Impress file and tweak them on the desktop. When they’re ready, we save the slides as PDFs and upload them either to our Web site or to SlideShare.

In the next part of this post, I’ll look at how Aaron and I get ready to give a presentation, how we actually deliver one, and what happens afterwards.

Related posts:

1. Building presentations, from the ground up – part 2
2. Freshening up your presentations
3. Working backwards