Train the Trainer! A Collection of 50 Posts For You!

A few months ago we got a chance to train and mentor a group of 20+ future IT trainers as part of a Train the Trainer course at the Software University in Bulgaria. Back then we decided to write down the mistakes we see and then blog about them thus creating a small library of useful knowledge that can help everyone who is or wants to be a trainer at some point in his career.

50 posts later, we are happy to write the summary blog post that you can use as a reference to all the articles from the series! Accept this as a small present from us to you and we hope you will enjoy them because we guarantee that they will make you a better trainer and speaker!

Enjoy reading and in case you want us to come and train you or your team, here is our library of trainings. You know how to reach us!

Don’t forget that we have the best presentation related monthly newsletter that you can subscribe to for free. Just look at the top right corner 😉

Mistake 1: Phones Ringing
Mistake 2: The Dying Battery
Mistake 3: Not Using Your Own Machine
Mistake 4: Not Using a Presenter(Pointer)
Mistake 5: The Screensaver
Mistake 6: The Notifications
Mistake 7: Busy Demos
Mistake 8: Equipment Problems
Mistake 9: Projector Problems
Mistake 10: IDEs Not Demo Ready
Mistake 11: Your Name, Please
Mistake 12: EXCUSES
Mistake 13: Weak Start
Mistake 14: 0 Experience!?
Mistake 15: Reading From Your Slides
Mistake 16: The Watch
Mistake 17: Notes In Your Hand!?
Mistake 18: Timing Issues
Mistake 19: Skipping Slides
Mistake 20: Too Much Stuff
Mistake 21: Acronyms
Mistake 22: “As You Know”
Mistake 23: Foreign Words
Mistake 24: Filler Words
Mistake 25: The Wrong Approach!!!
Mistake 26: No Audience Involvement 
Mistake 27: Slide Mix
Mistake 28: Thinking You Are A God!?
Mistake 29: Staying Behind Something
Mistake 30: No Eye Contact
Mistake 31: Hands Behind The Back
Mistake 32: Talking Fast
Mistake 33: Irrelevant Demos
Mistake 34: Summarize The Demo
Mistake 35: Not Sure In Your Demo
Mistake 36: Writing Code Live
Mistake 37: No Data Source Referenced
Mistake 38: Spelling Errors
Mistake 39: Weak End
Mistake 40: The Microphone
Mistake 41: Too Much Text
Mistake 42: 16:9 not 4:3 
Mistake 43: PowerPoint Templates
Mistake 44: No Text Animation
Mistake 45: Weird Animations
Mistake 46: 3D Stuff
Mistake 47: Images Everywhere
Mistake 48: Different Fonts
Mistake 49: Color Combinations
Mistake 50: Slideshow, please!

Did you read them all? Let me know what you think in the comments!