TJ Walker shares one tip for presenters: use your own PowerPoint remote and practice with it beforehand. Unfamiliar remotes cause fumbling onstage. If you must use someone else's, arrive early to test it or advance slides manually from the keyboard.
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PowerPoint tip of the week. Use your own remote control. Use your own clicker, or don't use one at all. Every remote control for advancing the PowerPoint slides can be a little bit different. Countless times, I'm sure you've seen it too. Countless times I've been to a speech, a convention, a workshop. The person gets up, they take the remote control from the previous speaker and what do you know, they can't get it to advance the first image you have of the speaker, sort of looking down, fumbling. How does this newfangled technology work? What's wrong with this clicker? Does this have batteries in it? There's all this fumbling around with the technology and it may be that the remote works perfectly fine, but it's extraordinarily difficult to learn a new technology when you're standing up in front of people and they're staring at you. That's the worst possible time to learn anything new. That's why I'd recommend if you want to use a remote control, bring your own. They're small, they're portable, have one that fits in your hand the way you like and then the stick that goes into the computer it can't communicate with, and practice with it. Make sure it works on the computer. Make sure everything is syncing and it will be one less thing to worry about when you're giving a presentation. You can also just manually hit the space bar or the enter bar on a laptop and still walk around the room. There's nothing wrong with that. If you're going to use someone else's remote control, get there early. Practice with it. Do a whole dry run, preferably on video. Make sure you know how it works. For many years I traveled with my own remote that I had built just to my hand. I put it on a ring, had it attached to my finger, covered the remote with flesh colored hose so that way I could move my hands in a completely natural way and it was basically invisible to the audience. These days I find it easier just to manually go by and hit space. It's also a good discipline because since I know I should be walking around the room the whole time, I don't want to be near the computer more than once every five minutes. So it's a good way to space your movement around the room. Think about what you want to do, but have a plan for your remote. Don't just wait to the last minute and use what's handed to you.
