I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in a creative thinking event run for the large international electronics and maintanence company Premier Farrell recently.
The person organising the event adopted a more presentation heavy approach than is usual in these sorts of things (normally for instance I keep ‘soaking-things-up’ time to 10 minutes at a time maximum). The event went well with a very positive vibe and some interesting outcomes for further development.
One noteworthy connection grew around the presentation approach, the (vibrant) Global Head of Marketing remarked that she once worked in a company where one could only give a presentation if you used some sort of prop. This seems an excellent idea. From this and building on the post, see OHP Massterclass it got me thinking about the props I have used or seen used in presentations.

The list includes:
Paper hat (me to a group of SMEs last December)
Magic wand
2m inflatable ball (by virtuoso motion graphic designer Paul Nicholas, Bait, who started the presention inside the ball)
Flame thrower (the highly eccentric Prof. Heinz Woolf)
Live Gold fish (on an Overhead Projector)
‘Lion feet’ trainers
Blackboard

The advantages of a good prop are that they break into reality (and out of ppt hell), not just for the audience but also in grounding the presenter in a physical space and so thinking of the audience more. Think about the real world and particularly the physical context of the presentation, so – for a while at least – my lecture motto is going to be ‘keeping it real’.