Having a Conversation with Powerpoint, or, 5 Do's and Dont's of Pitching

We've given a bunch of presentations, demos, and pitches this past week...a few new rules for myself that I learned listening to myself and others.
My new Do's and Dont's for presentations:
1.  Don't open with an audience question, especially if you're not sure that the VAST majority of people are going to raise their hand.
2. Don't laugh at your own joke...life doesn't give you a TV show laugh track...either the audience thinks its funny, or it isn't funny  (or they're sleeping).
3.  Don't use the word empower.  Please.  I'm begging you.
4.  Don't name drop.  If they aren't a part of the story, then the name you just threw out, unless it's your CEO who just so happened to make a billion dollars selling ice to eskimos, is useless, and confusing.  Either cut them out..or rewrite the story.
5.  Don't follow the script.  Yes your pitch has to hit the 10 key points... but nobody ever said you have to do all 10 in order.  Our pitch became significantly stronger when we rearranged the marketing, team, financials, solution etc etc slides to fit the story we were telling.  Don't jump from your marketing to your team to your financials to your competitive advantage just because the slide prompt had them in that order.

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1.  Do watch Steve Jobs.  Read Presentation Zen.  Stop looking at your slides.  Bring a human brain.
2.  Do have a conversation with your powerpoint slides, and with the audience.  Jobs and others do so well because they aren't pitching or preaching or yelling or stumbling...they're just talking.  Your slide deck is like your friend that's hanging out behind you, integrate it into the conversation you're having with your audience.  Introduce them.  Make them friends.  It sounds weird but speaking
with ease between your .ppt file, your audience, and your brain just makes everything work.
3. Do seed the crowd.  I gave a speech a few months back to a room of over a hundred.  My teammates and girlfriend were there...and it was quite a pickup to see her being the first to laugh at my bad jokes.  If you're in a smaller room, find the object that you can focus on when the room's smiles fade...or, if you're able, place someone there to smile the whole time so that you can come back to them for a pickup in the middle no matter what the tone of the room is.
4. Do be present.  If you don't know what I'm talking about in #3, then you aren't looking at the people you're talking to.  Don't go into your own little talking world; understand the room, what's happening, and either feed off the positive energy or figure out how to draw them back if you lost them somewhere in the financials.
5. Do have stuff.  Humans like stuff.  Our physical representation of our customers pain point tend to be far more memorable than any slide.  Props work.