The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has avoided an embarrassing red card from FIFA. He’s not able to attend key presentations next week in London when the FIFA 2018 World Cup inspection team comes to the UK.

It’s reported that David Cameron made a personal phone call to FIFA President, Sepp Blater, on Sunday night. In that phone call the Prime Minister made clear his total support for the England 2018 bid, but also explained that his family commitments in Cornwall mean that he can’t join the presenting team.

The FIFA inspection team, currently in Russia, visit London and possible World Cup sites in England next week.

Not to be totally out-flanked David Cameron has recorded a personal presentation to the FIFA inspection team ready for the presentations next week.

Having the Prime Minister’s support is one thing. Getting the 2018 World Cup fixture is quite another.

So, what’s the drill when you are faced with a presentation opportunity that could land you $75 million?

A 5-member presenting team from Hawaii reckons it knows the answer. Practice and rehearse your presentation as much as you can.

The team is in Washington this week to bid for incremental funds for the State’s Education Department from the Race to the Top grant scheme. Their presentation to the US Department of Education took 30 minutes yesterday with a full hour for questions and answers. There’s a follow-up today.

The presentation is an important event for the State. Only two States–Tennessee and Delaware–received funds in the first round of funding. In this second round it’s reckoned that 10 or 12 States might strike lucky.

Preparing for the presentation was key. Robert Campbell, the State’s executive assistant for school reform, noted how the team had rehearsed their presentation twice in front of a mock adjudicating panel and also rehearsed individual parts of the presentation countless times. They had also rehearsed their answers to numerous questions likely to be asked by the Federal Education panel.

One issue that might jump up. Faced with a choice to present sitting down or standing up…the team opted for the choice of sitting down. That wouldn’t be my choice and certainly not my recommendation. Their presentation would undoubtedly get more impact with a standing performance.

Good luck to the Hawaii State presenters.

Leading household essentials business Kimberly-Clark announced its Q2 2010 earnings on 23rd July. Using a live webcast conference call the management team outlined their results for the Quarter.

Supporting this essential piece of investor relations was a beautifully presented PowerPoint™ presentation. It was a beautifully presented package, but its beauty stopped there–at the packaging. Because the Kimberly-Clark earnings PowerPoint™ show was essentially yet another piece of corporate presentation-ware.

They used a standard corporate template, bullet lists and bullet dashes were everywhere. Yes, there were product pictures, but they never had the prominence that they deserved. Instead it was text that had the priority. Large text, small text and even smaller text. One slide–slide 23–contained some 125 words. And nothing else.

It’s indicative of a wider corporate presentation malaise. And it will take some curing.

Many of the biggest names in the comic-strip film  and entertainment industries have been at the Comic-Con 2010 show that finishes today in San Diego. It’s an unparalleled event showcasing the work of artists, designers and film makers.

One such design team is that of Hasbro who showcased their new models in San Diego. The design team is huge and had prepared some impressive work for the event.

But their choice of presentation material–albeit, as shown on the web–is uninspiring.

Their presentation appears to be a poorly constructed PowerPointâ„¢ slide deck of some 55 slides. It’s a classic piece of corporate branded PowerPointâ„¢. There’s a Hasbro branded header and a footer on most slides; those that don’t have a header and footer feature a Hasbro watermark.

Pictures and illustrations abound. Yet they don’t dominate the visual landscape. Instead small images of the popular Hasbro figures are placed in small holders throughout the slide presentation. Often they have to fight for space with other images from the Hasbro stable. Or worse still–bullet points. In some cases the pictures obscure the blue Hasbro logo in the Hasbro footer…negating the case for the footer.

The screen text would have to be unreadable to the audience. A better tactic would be to get rid of most, if not all, of the text. And the remaining text? Bulk it up. Beef it up like the Hasbro characters themselves and give the words focus and standing.

It’s a very disappointing corporate presentation that had the potential to be much better. There’s a wealth of creative talent in the Hasbro design and marketing teams that presented at Comic-Con 2010. And there’s also a wealth of illustrative material that could be superbly photographed and presented.

It’s not a PowerPoint problem but undoubtedly a management presenting problem. Clone Wars = good. PowerPointâ„¢ clone = bad.

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A script or no script? That is the question.

It’s a question that could have been asked by Microsoft’s Bob Muglia at the Microsoft Management Summit  2010 in Nevada.

With a script his presentation would have been tighter. His points would have flowed better and the structure of his presentation would have been neater for his audience. Without a script there were times when it felt that the President of the Server and Tools Business, was scratching for the next line.

The clues? Disjointed speech and jargon.

But he’s not unprepared. He’s built plenty of repetition into his speech He stresses the word, “more,” at each utterance and his pausing works…albeit there are times when he races away at speed. But the words just don’t flow as neatly as they could.

A script or no script? It’s a tough choice for any presenter, even for one accustomed to keynote presenting.

Use a script, but keep it life-like. Don’t use a script but pay attention to the actual words you use. And that’s the conundrum.