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? What’s the point of PowerPoint What’s the point of PowerPoint ?

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These drop-in text boxes are intended to provide a narrative voice for this stand-alone presentation.

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Happy birthday PowerPoint Happy birthday PowerPoint So, PowerPoint has turned 25.

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And most people think it sucks

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Because most presentations suck

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THE SHORT VERSION Why do most presentations suck?

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Because people are lazy …

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… selfish …

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… imitative …

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… and heedless.

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Why are so many PowerPoint presentations so BAAAAAAAD? (The real problem?)

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FAR TOO MANY Because we deliver of the wretched things

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We use PowerPoint as an AutoCue

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We use PowerPoint as a brain dump

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We use PowerPoint when we should be using email

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And we use it to (badly) summarise hefty reports

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Most PowerPoint presentations should come with a warning label …

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It’s difficult to know which slice of the pie your presentation is in

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You can ask her, but your mother is just not a valid test audience …

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That’s lovely dear. Very nice!

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Most audiences aren’t quite this overt in their feedback

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And your friends and colleagues usually aren’t sufficiently clear with their feedback either …

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You totally suuuuuuck! Although sometimes they can be quite direct

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A handful of ideas

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When is PowerPoint not the tool of choice?

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IDEAS Presentations are about

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WORDS And you speak lots of to convey those ideas

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So this becomes a very important concept … wpm

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150 wpm Most people speak at

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Which means that for a 10 minute talk, you will speak …

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1,500 words

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How many words are in your PowerPoint file? (check its ‘Properties’)

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50% If the wordcount in your file is about of the words you are going to say

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Because if you just read to them, your audience will shut down … No matter how fast you speak, your audience can read a lot faster

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And if you use PowerPoint as an AutoCue for your benefit …

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… rather than as a visual aid for their benefit … (Pavement chalk art by Kurt Wenner)

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… they will switch off

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PowerPoint has to pass the 60mph challenge

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If your slides are cluttered and complex, if they don’t get the essence of what you are saying at a glance …

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… you will lose your audience

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The 60mph Challenge Look at the following slide for 3 just seconds

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Any doubts about what they’re selling and what the benefits of the product are? Now, click on to the next slide for 3 just seconds

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No wonder PowerPoint makes so many people so unhappy

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Lousy PowerPoint is costing you money!

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Bullet Points are the biz! <ul><li>This is the first point </li></ul><ul><li>And here’s another </li></ul><ul><li>Then, in case the first two (2) bullet points get lonely, I thought I’d include a third one and I’m too lazy to condense my thoughts, so here’s every word I am going to say … </li></ul><ul><ul><li>With a sub-bullet, just to mix things up a bit </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>And a second one, so the first sub-bullet doesn’t get lonely </li></ul></ul><ul><li>And let’s round things off with another fine outstanding example of bullet-pointage </li></ul><ul><li>Just 73 more slides to go … </li></ul>We’ve all heard of “Death by bullet point”

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Death by incomprehensible flowchart

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Death by data dump

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Death by hideous templates

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Death by lazy-ass, cluttered, crud

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You need safety equipment to sit through this kind of material!

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<ul><li>Lazy </li></ul><ul><li>Selfish </li></ul><ul><li>Imitative </li></ul><ul><li>Heedless </li></ul>This isn’t PowerPoint’s fault. This is the presenter’s fault.

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<ul><li>Rushed / Hassled / 1,000 emails in inbox / Ridiculous deadlines / Pressure for results. </li></ul><ul><li>Therefore, no time to: </li></ul><ul><li>Think / Prepare / Rehearse </li></ul>The slightly longer version of why this happens so much …

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Imagine if actors behaved that way …

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Or stand-ups …

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And you’d be right to get upset; tickets to shows cost a lot of money these days

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Well guess what? Every lousy presentation you sit through costs you money too …

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You’re either paying the bozo who is presenting to you

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Or losing out on an opportunity cost basis

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“ Up with this I will not put!”

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Stay the hell away from PowerPoint for as long as you can

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If you’re starting to put a presentation together …

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Click to insert Headline <ul><li>Click to add text </li></ul><ul><li>Click to add text </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Click to add subtext </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Click to add sub-subtext </li></ul></ul></ul>Title Area for AutoLayouts Object Area for AutoLayouts Don’t start here

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Start here

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Jot down a few key thoughts

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Then build your structure

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Write up your words (1,500 per 10 minutes)

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Then you can think about how PowerPoint might help you get those ideas across

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The top 3 differences between the good and the great

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REHEARSAL

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REHEARSAL

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REHEARSAL

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“ All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed”

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Common Objection #1

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But we never have time to rehearse around here!

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(translation)

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I couldn’t give a damn about (a) my audience or (b) the outcome of this presentation

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Common Objection #2

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Yeah … rehearsal is great, but I don’t want to end up sounding stale

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Try telling that to Meryl …

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… or Dylan …

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or Leonard …

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All these professionals do you the courtesy of rehearsing and honing their performances until they are jaw-droppingly good. Operative word: Professional

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John Lennon’s advice to bands starting out …

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“ You need to spend 100 hours practising in the garage for every hour you will be playing on stage”

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Imagine the difference even a tenth of that effort would make to your next presentation (Besides which, you can’t argue with John – he was The Walrus)

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So, happy birthday PowerPoint So, happy birthday PowerPoint But never lose sight of this …

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PowerPoint is not the presentation. You are.

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© Fortify Services 1993 - 2009 presentingissimple.blogspot.com Lots more ranting on this topic at:

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It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech