Presentation Skills That Will Take You to the Top (Collection), 2/e

27. You Can’t Use a Sentence As a Prompt!: Less Verbiage Is More Useful

A senior engineering manager at a large telecommunications equipment company was one of the participants in a Power Presentations program. True to her technical nature, she wanted to be as accurate in her presentation as in her work, so when she headed up to the front of the room to deliver the pitch she had prepared, she brought along her laptop, with her slides as speaker notes. Having diligently practiced, she started her pitch smoothly, but about a minute into it, she lost track of her content, a fate that befalls many people in front of live audiences. Her eyes darted down to the laptop for a cue, and she suddenly froze. A horrified look came across her face and she ...