Some laser pointer pointers

Andrew Klein, professional MC and presentation skills speaker and director of SPIKE Presentations, presents his front line observations on conferences in a regular feature in BEN.

HAPPY 2018. There are many big issues to cover this year but as we are all only just getting back into the swing of work, let’s start the year with a small issue about a small object.

They are one of the smallest parts of any conference or event and yet they play such a vital role. Every conference has one. Most presenters use one. They are often misplaced, left behind in pockets, on conference tables and chairs, tricky to find, usually black.

“They” are laser pointers or slide clickers. The small rectangular box used by presenters to forward their PowerPoint slides and occasionally to point (via a red laser beam) to sections of a PowerPoint slide.

And yet despite being a relatively simple, easy to operate device, they are so often misused or misplaced. I am guessing it wasn’t too long ago that you, dear reader, heard a presenter say “Now I am not sure how to use this thing!” or “I think this will make the next slide come up….. oops, sorry, I have gone backwards” and so on.

Most of these clickers have 2 buttons - a green button for “Forward” and a red button for “Backwards” – they should not be too hard to operate. Not much margin for error. Most AV technical operators actually take time out before the presentation, to “train” presenters in “Clicker Management” and yet you can be guaranteed a few issues at every conference or event.

By the way, you don’t need to point the clicker at the screen or your laptop to forward slides, they are wireless and operate at fairly long distances.

As for the red laser beam options which some clickers possess, my advice to presenters is to ditch that function altogether. If your slides are so busy with text or contain such a complex maze of graphs and charts that you need a laser beam to draw the audience’s attention to one specific part of the slide, then I would suggest you redo your PowerPoint slides – so that the font is giant and that there is only one point per slide. And many conferences these days have two screens on either side of stage, so pointing to one screen only helps half the audience, at best.

My advice to presenters is to try to remember to leave the clicker on the lectern or better still hand it over, relay race baton-style, to the MC or the next presenter. I shudder to think how much time is wasted over the course of a three day conference with the next presenter grappling around on stage looking for where the clicker is (actually I don’t shudder, as it’s not that frightening a prospect, but you get my point - no pun intended).

OK, small issue but I had to get it off my chest. Bigger conference issues will be covered as of next month. Click.