Scot - you're right, you can save PPT as JPG etc, but that way you lose everything except the images. AVI etc will capture any animations and transitions you build in as well. S

Fantastic to hear someone can speak without a Mic. I work as a presentation skills trainer in the UK (http://www.curved-vision.co.uk) and the number of people who come to me wanting better Mic techniques is just plain silly! They seem to forget that the Mic can only - at best - amplify what you give it. If your voice doesn't have credability going into the Mic, it won't have credability coming out of the loudspeakers! Yes, obvious I know, but you'd not believe how many so-called professionals can't understand that! We spend a lot of time on our course teaching people to breathe and project, so that they can alos let people take their chairs outside! :)

Couldn't agree more - just be upfront and assertive *before* the session starts. Having said that, calling it anything to do with Blackberrys is just a gimmick! As a speaker you should alwasys be interesting/entertaining/informative not just when you've got the kind of audience who use PDAs! :) One of the things we cover on our presentation skills training (http://www.curved-vision.co.uk) is exactly how to be assertive in the right way - generally it's by clearly setting up the "rules of the game" in advance, so that people know what's expected of them: for example, it's in the T&C of our training courses themselves that people turn off mobile phones etc. Personally, I'll often do it by saying that the "house rules" are that you are welcome to leave mobiles phones switched on and the first person who gets theirs to ring buys a drink at the bar for everyone else at lunchtime...... That way, if all else fails, you've got the rest of your audience on your side! :)

All good stuff - but I think you missed one! They don't practice. The ones I've trained recently seemed to think that presenting wasn't a physical thing but an intellectual one. As such, they thought, it could be prepared for "in their head". How wrong they were!