Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:But my favorite quote is "we geeks ten to cram everything we know into a presentation. It's a huge mistake."
That is absolutely correct. I worked as a technical sales specialist for software/hardware where 50% of the time was field support and 50% was pre-sales. The best way to turn a crowd off (and not just business people, but anyone) is by going into too much detail. I found the best presentations to be sparse - lots of white space, and a 'script' that allowed only 30 seconds to a minute on a slide - too little time to get too detailed. The toughest tight-rope I had to learn to walk was how to answer a question without giving so much info people stop listening but not so little that they think I don't know or am blowing them off...