Dr. Mehmet Oz, A Great Presenter

I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Dr. Mehmet Oz. For those not familiar with him, Dr. Oz is a heart surgeon, book author, proponent of preventative medicine, and a repeat guest of the Oprah show.

Aside from the medical information that I was hoping to get from his presentation, I was also keeping my eyes open and ears tuned for presentation tips and tricks. This, I thought, was a great opportunity to see how someone who presents a lot, but doesn't do it for a living, gets his message across to an audience.

The one thing that stands out with Dr. Oz's presentation is that he used video as opposed to standard static PowerPoint slides. While the video was playing, Dr. Oz described what we were seeing. This was a great effect as it made an otherwise theoretical discussion more enticing to an audience with little or no medical training.

And as with Jack Hidary's presentation, Dr. Oz injected humor throughout. Aside from eliciting a chuckle, Dr. Oz's humor also relieved tension inherent in a discussion about the myriad of things that can lead to an early death.

Finally, Dr. Oz had the ultimate technique for engaging the audience. After he was done with the formal part of his presentation, he invited everyone down to a table at the front of the auditorium where he had laid out various organs and body parts. Everyone was given a pair of gloves and then invited to feel cancers and plaques. He showed healthy organs and unhealthy ones bringing home the damage that can happen to your body if you don't take care of it. And what was the first thing that I talked about with a co-worker that didn't attend the presentation? You guessed it, the various body parts.