Presenters: Stop ignoring your slides – and annoying your audience! (5 ways to Maximize Audience Attention)

Here’s some news worth celebrating:  The number of presenters tediously reading every slide and bullet point to their audience appears to be on the decline.  But hold off on popping the champagne just yet.  The pendulum is swinging dangerously towards the other extreme – presenters are ignoring their slides altogether.
Here’s an example from a presentation I recently observed:
On the screen in front of me a slide with a statement in 60 point Arial Bold all but screamed at me.  Naturally I expected the salesperson to mention it.  He did not.  The next slide featured 5 bullet points.  The salesperson brushed them all aside with a quick “you’ve expressed a number of goals in this area” before jumping to the next slide, a short quote.  As I read the quote (I assumed that was what I was supposed to do), he started talking about something else.  I’m not sure what (I