IDG Contributor Network: 7 things you should never, ever say when giving a presentation

A presentation does not begin in silence. It’s not drawn upon a blank slate.  A presentation is born into a world of noise. There’s ambient noise in the room. Most slides are visually noisy. The head of every member of the audience is filled with noise: afterthoughts from the last meeting; mental reviews of emails unsent; thinking ahead to what follows this meeting; and small crises on the home front. The task of a presenter is to reduce and cut through this noise. Fi