In several of these, I found that for the presenters who talk value would surely have created a presence in online education forums or tools. And usually they would have a presence in a well known online education platform or a well known blog.

1) When the presenter was promoting himself or his book. I’ve taken enough university courses from professors who did this so have zero tolerance.

2) When the presenter delivered a message without evidence of effectiveness.

3) If the presenter read the ppt. slides aloud like the unprepared actor who doesn’t know his lines.

This isn’t a penalty or an indicator of bad presentation practice. It means that, all things being equal, I’d rather go to a session that has nothing for me to glean online – no slides, no slide notes.

For example, I saw that the design axiom speaker had an enormous amount of session material online so I didn’t go. I’ll read it later and get maybe 50% of the experience, which is better than nothing.

Otherwise I’ll echo prior comments; if its a vendor talk in disguise I’m gone. If I haven’t learned anything new in the first 5 minutes I’m gone. If I’m still thinking about the last presentation after 5 minutes I’m gone (although I’ll probably go someplace to ponder the ramifications of whatever is still holding my interest).

For me, quality of the first few slides usually tells me what I need to know. Above points also apply to webinars, where leaving is so much easier…click!

I offer the slides online for others to use that have heard my talk and understand the context of the slide. As you’ve talked about before the stand alone deck is most often useless without the talk but if you’ve heard the talk, the slide deck can trigger ideas and may be reusable to others in telling stories.