Five Cardinal Sins

In his book Presenting to Win, Jerry Weissman points out the five cardinal sins of a presentation. They are, in short, and in my words :

1. No clear point. You go through the entire presentation, without understanding what was it that the presenter was trying to state.
   
2. No audience benefit. You are treated with slide after slide about the features of a product or the achievements of a company, without being told how it all helps you.
   
3. No clear flow. At the end of the 75^th slide you wonder, 'how the hell did the presenter reach here?"
   
4. Too detailed. You are presented with so many detailed and irrelevant facts, including the name of the presenter's favourite cat and what he ate for breakfast, that you lose sight of the overall picture.
   
5. Too long. There are so many slides that you are bored to, if not death, then at least slumber.
   

I am sure you yourself may have actually fallen victim to one or a few of these sometime in your working life. So while giving a presentation, avoid inflicting them on your hapless audience whom you may have lured with the promise of a good lunch in the first place.

PS : And one more thing. Please avoid too many animation or transition effects. You need to impress people with presentation ideas, not presentation effects, as Weissman puts it.