The Pointlessness of PowerPoint
By now, the term “Death by PowerPoint” should ring a bell in our ears and even send shivers down our spine. And most of you unfortunately had experienced the wrath of powerpoint or perhaps have been on the giving end. Most critics have conveniently placed the blame on Microsoft and its creators. However the truth is, the fault never lies on the tool. Of course this begets the question: who then should we blame?
Who else — the speaker!
Isn’t it ironic that we sit through a Power-Point presentation without getting the pointthat the speaker was trying to make? Without repeating the - ever increasing - sins that speakers commit with powerpoint, I shall attempt to “justify” why these sins are committed. And perhaps by understanding WHY, we can finally do justice to powerpoint and use it the way it should have been.
1. The Slide Is Not Your Script
Very often, you are tempted to put everything they want to say down on the slide for fear of forgetting them. Such intention is easily identified when we see you reading from the slide. As a result of putting everything you want to say on your slide, the slide gets cluttered. As audience, we have absolutely no idea where to look. And as we attempt to read what you have typed on your slide, we lose focus which distracts us from listening to you, the speaker. Having more text on your slide also mean reducing the font size of the text, which will increase difficulty for the audience to read. And when it is too difficult to read, we switched off totally.
Let’s take the above slide for example. There is really no need for the speaker to put full sentences on the slide: “When people are trained with the relevant skills, they are more able and comfortable to work in this specialised and challenging field…” Can’t that be said in his own words?
He might want to change the key word “Education” to “Make Them Relevant By Training”. Not only is this phrase specific to what he wants to express, it also triggers his memory to allow him to elaborate. Additional data such as facts and numbers from success stories can be written on his cue cards to aid him in his presentation.
2. The Slide Is Not For Documentation Purposes.
Once I had this client who told me that she had to put everything she wants to say down on the slide as it also serves as documentation for her bosses. “What’s Microsoft Word for then?” I questioned adamantly and she replied sheepishly, “Urm.. too troublesome. We are trying to kill two birds with one stone…”
Believe me, not only will you miss the two birds, you have two stones hitting you on your head!
As a presentation, the slide distracts the audience. As a documentation, the slide pales in comparison with a word document. Explained aptly by Garr, “a good document, complete with text and graphics, is something designed to tell a story on its own. Logic and clarity with the written word are paramount…”
Slides on the other hand serves as a visual aid to enhance your logic and clarity and is not there to tell the story for you. In fact, without you, the slides are useless. This explains why a storyboard should be created before the slides are designed. Before any presentation, the speaker has to first decide his message and then plan how he can effectively deliver the message. Only with a plan can the speaker leverage on powerpoint technology to help him deliver his message with impact and memorability.
3. Your Slide Is Not The Star!
There was a running joke that everytime the powerpoint presentation starts, the audience goes to sleep, all thanks to the dimming of lights. As Angela commented in her article Death by PowerPoint, “hitting the lights right away can kill a presentation. Launching into the slides may seem like the best way to get to the point, but it tells the audience they should pay attention to the slides, not the speaker.” It also doesn’t help that the screen is the center of the room. And in order not to cast a shadow on the slide, the speaker has to present off-stage which further reinforce the subtle message that the slide is the star!
Unless someone starts shifting the screen off-stage or invent some dimmer lights that make the slides visible even without hitting the lights, I suggest you start your presentation with a blank screen i.e. black background. The techniques of starting strong applies. For example, telling a story, doing a demonstration or asking a rhetorical question. But they have to be done before you flash your first slide. This subtlely reminds your audience that you are the star, not your slides! Another technique I employed is to keep the text on my slides minimum. My favorite is to simply include a picture with a quote. Once the audience is done reading the quote, I start speaking. This directs attention back to me and the picture also serves as an emotional anchor to my message. For instance, this slide that I flashed during my humor workshop yesterday.
Lastly…
4. Your Slide Is Not Your Note Page
Seriously, you never want to be caught in such a situation as depicted below…
Cheers,
Eric Feng
Your Speech Coach
Related Entries
How (Not) To Use PowerPoint
How To Create A Technical Presentation That Makes Steve Job Green With Envy
Nice piece. I have been collecting good articles about making presentation and I have added this to that list.
Hello Satish! I am glad I am part of YOUR list. *grins* Do share with me some of the quality articles you have collected and I can share them with the readers here. Come back soon!
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One of the reasons that many powerpoint slides are wrongly prepared is because the author wanted to use them as handouts as well which are usually produced by the 6 slides printout. This has given rise to more text creeping into the slides than required.
I hope to see more positive examples of how to use powerpoint to drive home your points.
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