I am currently interviewing people for a book on communication but finding experts is not easy because despite always championing the use of examples when explaining something, citing examples of good presenting is actually quite difficult to do.

There is a word association website and when you type in the word ‘presentation’, you get the following five words in return: display, feature, academy, show and speech. These are for any connotation of the word ‘presentation’ but if you ask someone to tell you what comes into their mind when they think specifically of an oral presentation (and I have done this) you will also get things like: podium, microphone, lecture, audience, spotlight and of course nerves.

Which all points to what is misleading in citing examples of good presenters. It is natural, when tackling the daunting task of speaking before a group of people, to look at others who have spoken in front of groups of people and done it well. It is also natural to look at the more famous exponents of the art but when you do this, you end up with examples like that of Barack Obama (or even Enda Kenny) speaking on College Green.

This, however, is a far cry from the presentations you will normally be asked to make. And I am not talking about the size of your audience, the fervour with which they greet you or the cost of the dress your wife will have to wear to make you look good on stage. A political speech is different to a presentation in a number of ways.

Firstly, it is recorded. You have to be able to stand over every word you say so the content has to be set out in advance and thus read word for word. Secondly, it rarely has a tangible aim. Instead, it is usually part of an ongoing process of garnering support or simply saving face. Thirdly, it is often riddled with lies. And I am not being cynical when I say this but the pragmatism of having to toe the party line or simply observe political correctness, curtails what any politician is allowed to say. By contrast, the best thing about a presentation is that it can be honest and convincing. If you allow it to be, that is.

The key thing to focus on when preparing for a presentation is not the setting (podium, microphone, that damn, nerve-inducing audience) but on the intellectual process that is taking place. Imagine you had to communicate with just one person in that audience and construct a plan based on that. Then work outwards.

If you do it this way, you will come to realise that a lot of the presentation trappings are not much help, namely: a room of banked seats that discourages interaction, a microphone that turns you into a newsreader, a podium which hides you and restricts motion, a laser pointer that is more irritating and less helpful than a wasp on the screen.

As an example of how a presentation can follow the lead of a functional conversation rather than a political speech, consider my recent purchase of an iPod docking station (a speaker for an iPod, basically).

There was the expert (the shop assistant) talking to an interested audience (albeit an audience of only one). There was an aim to the communication (to enable me to make a decision) and the expert chose only that portion of his knowledge which was relevant to this aim instead of filling endless slides with listed information. There were no slides either, of course. There were examples, demonstrations, anecdotes, visual aids and interaction. And best of all, it had a conclusion – I got something.

This short trip to the shops had all the ingredients of a presentation and provides a more useful example of the process than Barak Obama did on College Green. Which brings me back to where I started.

For the book that I am writing, I am looking for people who are famous communicators (essentially good at explaining stuff) or are associated with enterprises (publications, museums, TV channels, radio programmes) that are renowned for the same thing. And I would like the scope to be as broad as possible – I am not just looking in the areas of science and engineering. So if you have any suggestions at all, please let me know.

And when you are giving your next presentation, focus on what is going on in your head and in the heads of the audience, and not just on the auditorium in which it is taking place. Be a shop-assistant, not a head of state, because when I go to buy an iPod docking station, I don’t want Barak Obama or Enda Kenny wasting my time with oratory. What do they know about music, anyway?