10 Minute How-to Presentation Topic Ideas

Here we have another articles in our Question and Answer series. This article covers some topics for ten minute presentations, whether they are technical ideas or creative ideas.

Ten minute training presentation  

Question by Candice Waters:

I am in a training class and asked to give a 10 minute how-to presentation, however I am drawing a complete blank. Any topic ideas would be great.

Answer thanks to Chris:

How about a presentation on interview tips. How to dress, body language, voice and gesture matching. I did one and got a great review. There is a lot of info out on the web to help. You can end the presentation by asking, ” Did I get the job?” It helps to dress like you are going on the interview, or even the fashion “don’t” can amuse a group.

Ten minute business presentation

Question by Nicolas Stone:

I have to do a 10-minute-business-related-presentation, but I do not have any idea about what to do. Have you any ideas for me??

Answer thanks to Doctor:

You have not said who your audience is. I presume that it is for a job interview?

If so the best topic would be something like “My most successful project” or something similar. Bring along a lot of the feedback etc. You can talk about the problems and how you were able to solve them. It should put you in a good light.

If it is for an academic presentation, you could try basing it on a TV show such as The Apprentice. Maybe the business career of Donald Trump or Alan Sugar.

There are a number of business topics that you could talk on:

Why did IBM miss out on the PC?
The telegraph – the 19th Century Internet
The rise of Microsoft
Perhaps try putting a new spin on a topic that you are interested in.

Creative 10 minute History Presentation

Question by Simon R:

I’m in a group of four people that needs to present a 10-minute presentation on the 1920s. We need to cover all relevant events and areas (ie economics, entertainment, politics, etc). While giving an informative presentation is easy, the information only counts as 1/3 of the grade! The other 66% is made up of the creativity and entertainment factor.

Ideas that have been used in the past include a news broadcast (acted in room), radio broadcast, skits, food from decade, etc. I can incorporate some of these ideas into my presentation, but I’d rather not just copy them completely! If you have any ideas for a really creative and entertaining way to present the information, please share!

Answer thanks to Jon Piece.

Something I’ve made work very well in the past, is a ‘life-sized’ board game.
We used four sheets of polythene 2 metres by 10 metres and marked them off with one metre squares: the people walked around the board using themselves as the counters.
We had the full whack of “recession: four squares back” and all that kind of thing as well as things like a large water pistol on a square and the instruction “Shoot the team behind” when there was small war… use your imagination.

Question from Amber:

I’m taking an “American Culture and Globalization” class and I’m supposed to give a presentation. All the topics like TV, food, film, and music are covered in class so I can’t make a presentation on those topics.

I chose “disabilities and special education” as a topic because I believe that the U.S. is the poineer of this field and is influencing the world by Globalization. however, the professor wants the presentations to be absolutely creative.
She gave us an example with the topic “poverty” and she said a creative way to present this topic may be a photo essay.(Taking pictures of what we think of poverty and then presenting them)
Can you give me any creative ideas on my topic presentation?

Answer thanks to Mic:

Heres a couple of tips,

1. Always keep things simple, never present a heap of words that would take people ages to read.
2. Always try to add graphics where applicable, as they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
3. Dark backgrounds, light text and vice versa.
4. It’s also a good idea to use bubbles or simple diagrams when explaining problems and issues…
5. Back up any essay with charts or numbered statistics to make it “REAL”.
6. Once in a while add a funny pic to the lot, but it has to be related to the topic.
7. My favorite move is to add the looney tunes ending to the last slide, with the “that’s all folks” phrase. This is very humorous and popular!

I think that you should add drama to it. Maybe talk about the president Franklin Roosevelt, as he was disabled due to polio, yet the White House maintained the illusion that he was not.

Answer thanks to Pamela:

I thought that you might think along the theme that you chose to perhaps talk about something like Tourette’s and how that impacts teaching /education. So to be creative, you could use images where a person has their hands taped to the desk or a piece of tape over their mouth representing the stuggles of a Tourettes sufferer.
There is also a documentary which you can buy at a good price from ebay or amazon called “John’s not mad” – its a documentary from the 80s filed by BBC about a boy with tourettes. There is increasing appearance of Tourette’s in the news,
You could talk about how the USA handles tourettes – for example there are centres for people with this condition and they boost confidence and exposure to the issues faced.