You walk onto a stage and a holographic version of you introduces you to the audience. You clap your hands and your presentation slide comes alive in a 3D version around the room. You begin your presentation with a swipe of your hand to the right, all through motion detection.
If this sounds a bit crazy, it is not. All the technology for presenting like this exists in some form or the other today. It is just a matter of time before these tools are consolidated for the speaking industry.
Trends in future presentations
Holograms, the use of virtual reality and augmented reality is going to play a role in your future presentations. Instead of asking the audience to “picture a scene” you can ask them to put on their “goggles” to view a simulated version of your description.
Product demonstrations become more mainstream. This is where you can use your mobile device and stream your screen onto a projector to show the audience in real time what you want them to do.
Slides become more immersive and creative. Think 3D slides, with 3D graphics. There are already websites that enable you to create beautiful slides with animations, graphics and cinema graphics. The sites listed below are just some of the many options to consider to create impactful slides.
If you want to take slide creation even further, think of engaging HTML5 presentations. Sites that can assist you with this include:
Engage your audience with colour, typography and unusual font that is matched with bold pictures. Interact with your audience through polls – based on their response via a link on their mobile device, the graph with their response is populated onto the projector screen. Conduct live quizzes with your audience that becomes a discussion point with your audience dependent on their feedback from that quiz.
Storytelling becomes more personal and non-linear. Story-telling is no longer a history lesson, but an experience that your audience lives in the way that you share the story through dialogue, character enactment, and the use of body language, gestures and voice imitation.
What can you do today to prepare for this new presentation style?
- Be curious: Use the time of lockdown to reflect on your current style of presentations. Explore some of the sites suggested in this article to create your next presentation. Get comfortable with exploring the use of colour, graphics, 3D animation, slide templates, and photos to create engaging content.
- Be confident: Your message to the audience is still the most critical part of the presentation to deliver. Construct your presentation with the overall objective for the audience and then consider how to use some of the existing technology to engage, interact, and entertain the audience.
- Be catalytic: The sooner you can start to challenge yourself and what you think you are capable of achieving, the sooner you will be able to adapt to the new way of presenting and use of technology.
- Be collaborative: Learn from other people who have adopted technology to enhance their own presentations.
- Be credible: You are still the presenter and your message is still your ultimate power to impact people. Everything else are tools to help you deliver your message.