A question from a participant last week during a public presentation skills course was…”What happens when the presenter is too powerful”. Not quite sure what this meant I dug a little deeper to discover that they had an experience attending another training course where the presenter was so incredibly entertaining that all they could remember from the course was that it was great entertainment, but they could not actually remember any of the content. The participant also mentioned that others who attended got quite a lot out of the training session, and while this participant really enjoyed the training session, they did not actually learn anything.
As a group we concluded that this is a classic case of the presenter not appealing to the different learning styles of those in the room. They perhaps did not spend enough time appealing to the visual learners. Everyone learns differently, and whether you are delivering a presentation or running a training course, you must provide an environment where people can learn Visually, Auditorially, and Kinaesthetically (learn through doing).
In your presentations, give people the chance to participate and discuss, to ask questions, to touch and feel (if appropriate!), to observe, and the result will be a successful presentation!