Archives For powerpoint

Fastest, Easiest Way to Improve any PowerPoint Presentation

Christopher Witt —  March 23, 2018

Improving a PowerPoint presentationMost PowerPoint presentations leave a lot to be desired.

Too often they are confusing (“what do you mean?”), pointless (“what do you want me to do?”), and/or boring (“who cares?”).

Good planning will improve most PowerPoint presentations.

  • Limit the scope of your presentation.
    Focused presentations are good. Focused, short presentations are better.
  • Know your audience.
    What do they already know and feel about your topic? What do you want them to know and feel about it?
  • Determine your presentation’s objective.
    What do you want the audience to do as a result of listening to you?
  • Organize your material in a clear and logical fashion.
    After a brief introduction, develop three main points that clarify what you’re talking about, why it matters, and how it works.

Designing good PowerPoint slides will improve your presentation.

  • Use fewer slides.
    Only use slides that will help your audience understand the point you’re making. Never use slides as your script.
  • Don’t rely on PowerPoint templates or graphics.
    They are amateurish. (Microsoft should be embarrassed by how tacky most of their design elements are.)
  • Make them legible.
    My least favorite line from a presenter is, “You probably can’t read this, but…”

Rehearing your presentation will also improve your presentation.

You don’t need to be highly polished or theatrical. But you do need to sound coherent, as if you’ve thought about what you’re going to say. And you need to sound interested in what you’re saying. So practice your presentation out loud at least once before you stand in front of an audience.

The Fastest, Easiest Way to Improve any PowerPoint Presentation is to Engage your Audience’s Participation.

Passive audiences are less likely to invest in your presentation, less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, less likely to care about or to adopt what you’re proposing.

Do not keep your audience passive. Do not make them sit quietly while you talk on and on. Do not talk for 40 minutes and give them 5 minutes at the end to ask questions.

The Best Way to Engage your Audience’s Participation Is to Encourage Discussion and Q&A.

Present a little, discuss a little. Present a little more, answer your audiences’ questions. Talk a little, listen a little, add to what you’ve said.

The Easiest Way to Encourage Discussion and Q&A Is to Black Out the Screen Periodically.

When you’re in presentation mode while using PowerPoint, simply tap the “B” key. Magically, the screen goes black. Tap any other key and your presentation comes back exactly where you left off.

Blacking out the screen is a non-verbal way of telling your audience that the presentation isn’t “up there” on the screen. The presentation is happening between you, the speaker, and them. It’s a way of saying, “let’s talk.”

(If you tap the “W” key, the screen goes white.)

Check out Making the Most of Q&A.

In Technical Presentations , , , ,
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Three Questions Concerning PowerPoint

Christopher Witt —  March 17, 2015

about PowerPointI’m the author of Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint (Crown Business), so you might think I’m always and everywhere opposed to its use.

I’d say I’m critical of it, but not opposed to it. Many of my clients–subject matter experts of all stripes–use PowerPoint, and they should.

But these days it’s assumed, at least in the business world, that everyone should use PowerPoint every time they give a presentation. And that’s a mistake.

I begin with the assumption that PowerPoint is a tool for organizing, formatting, and projecting information visually.

If that’s the case–you can disagree with me–then there are three questions you can and should ask about it.

1. Is PowerPoint a good tool?

Does it make organizing, formatting, and projecting information easy, efficient, and effective?

Opinions vary.

Continue Reading…

In Lead, Sell Ideas, Speak, Technical Presentations , ,
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Rules for PowerPoint Slides Don’t Apply to Most Presentations

Christopher Witt —  December 17, 2014

Speaking PowerPointThere are two basic approaches to designing PowerPoint slides these days.

1. The traditional approach produces the type of slides we’ve all grown accustomed to…and bored by.

This approach has its own set of rules. It emphasizes clarity and simplicity. It recommends limiting the amount of text on a slide (e.g., no more than 5 lines of 5 words each). It counsels against using animations and fancy fonts.

2. The newer approach creates a most artistic, visually appealing set of slides.

Its rules are simpler. Use images with a few words. Tell stories.

Both approaches to designing PowerPoint Slides have their merits. But a book I recommend (and wrote the foreword for) — Speaking PowerPoint: The New Language of Business — makes me question both approaches.

Bruce Gabrielle, the author of Speaking PowerPoint, distinguishes — rightly and wisely, in my opinion — between two different types of presentations:

  1. BallroomBallroom presentations are given at conferences and to general audiences by keynote speakers or at breakout sessions. The audiences may (or may not) be invested in what the speaker is addressing. They are easily distracted. They generally do not have an in-depth knowledge of the topic being addressed, nor do they want a detailed, in-depth presentation.

    The audiences are at a distance from the slides. They have trouble reading text and most graphics (charts and the like).

    The rules recommended by both the traditional and the newer approach apply, it seems, to ballroom presentations.

  2. BoardroomBoardroom presentations are for business meetings, where attendees do’t expect to be entertained. They don’t want to be bored or confused, mind you, but they want to be informed. They expect details, data, and in-depth analysis. They dislike fluff.

    The audiences are up close. They can see the screen. And, often, they have printed handouts to read. (They may have received and reviewed the “deck” in advance.)

    Boardroom-style PowerPoint decks, according to Bruce, have several uses. They can be used as 1) a stand-alone reading deck that is circulated, almost like a white paper, 2) a discussion deck, to spur a conversation among decision-makers, or 3) a briefing deck.

The slides used for a boardroom presentation — which includes most workplace presentations — require more detail, including text and statistical data. They are, necessarily, complex.

The PowerPoint slides used in business today — the most common type of presentation — require a new set of rules, different from those proposed by both the traditional and the newer approach.

Bruce proposes his own rules, which I find very helpful. (They’re too sophisticated for me to go into here.)

So let me ask you. Do you buy into the distinction? Does it make sense to you? What do you find works?

(By the way, I do not receive any compensation for recommending Bruce’s book.)

 

 

In Speak, Technical Presentations , ,
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The Right Words for Speeches

Christopher Witt —  August 19, 2013

Picture of bookAlthough you should consider writing out at least some parts of your speeches, you have to bear in mind the difference between the written and the spoken word.

Spoken words require more attention to sound. For instance, you probably would never say “eschew” from the podium — it sounds too stuffy and almost obscene — but you could use in in a written piece. Some word combinations — fluent French for example, or bright blue — can be difficult to pronounce, especially when you’re nervous and your mouth is dry. (That’s one reason it’s always wise to practice your speech out loud: to discover — and revise — sounds that might give you trouble before you’re in front of a crowd.

Spoken words need to be conversational. You can get away with more formal usage when you’re writing. But when you’re giving a talk, people expect you to sound somewhat as you sound when you speaking to them in a conversation.

Spoken words must be immediately or almost immediately understood. If you use a word in writing that readers don’t understand, they can think about it for a moment, try to figure it out from the context, or perhaps look it up, then resume reading. But if you use a word that listeners don’t understand, they stop listening to you to try to figure it out. They stop listening; you keep speaking. When they figure it out — if they do — they tune back in to what you’re saying only to find that they’ve missed something.

excerpted from Real Leaders Don’t Do PowerPoint: How to Sell Yourself and Your Ideas

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