How to Thank People in a Presentation

If you're running a meeting or a conference, you'll often have to devote a sizeable chunk of your opening talk to thanking all of the people who helped make it possible. But there's a better way to do that than just rushing through a boring list of names at the beginning of the talk. Instead, take a tip from Seth Godin, who suggests creating a loop of powerpoint thank-you slides to be played before you actually speak.

Here's how he explains it:

Prepare for the talk by taking pictures of each person. If they're shy, you can even do photographs in groups of two or three. Good photos, clever photos, funny photos... photos that are interesting are best.

Then, create a new presentation. Put each photo on its own slide, preferably with a well designed ID below it (it should be on a black box, with a nice sans serif font reversed out. Like you see on cable TV news.)

String one after the other. Build a dissolve transition between each one. Program it to put up a new slide every two seconds--don't go too slow!--and to loop the presentation.

Ten minutes before you're due to start, while everyone is finding their seats, run the presentation. It'll cycle 5 or 10 times before you start speaking. When you get up, start your presentation and just dive into the meaty stuff.