Using Computer Presentation Programs Effectively
"Are you still doing speeches in the stone age?"
This was the question a participant asked of a presenter at a recent
conference I attended. The presenter had lugged along a box of
transparency slides to show during his half-day seminar, and I
admit, I was a little doubtful at first about the lack of modern
technology. The presentation went well, overall, but could have
clearly been enhanced by a good Microsoft PowerPoint, Lotus
Freelance, or Aldus Persuasion program. Additionally, it would have
been much easier to present for the speaker, and definitely lighter
to carry on the airplane. Later in the month, however, I got a
different perspective when I spoke a participant in one of my
seminars after the rest of the class had gone. She told me that when
she first walked into the room, she was very disheartened to see a
computer-generated image being shown on the screen. She confided
that although she had enjoyed the presentation entirely, and that I
had overcome her initial apprehension, her first reaction was:
"Oh no! Not another PowerPoint Presentation"
This reaction is not unique, I've found. When talking to people in
my seminars and social settings, the message I get is clear; People
are tired of worn-out power point presentations! Does this mean we
should jettison the technology and go back to the "stone age", as
one person put it, in giving our presentations? No more than we
should ban television because of the likes of Jerry Springer and
Temptation Island. The medium itself is not to blame; it is how that
medium is used that falls short. Too often, presenters rely solely
on their software to provide every bit of their presentation's
creativity. The problem with this approach is that the entertainment
value of PowerPoint and other programs leaves a lot to be desired.
When a speaker decides to use it as a crutch, instead of as an
enhancement tool, it can give a presenter a false sense of security
about a bad presentation. I've sat through many a bad presentation
where the insecure presenter just hides behind a barrage of screen
activity as a gratuitous gimmick rather than having good
illustrations and attention-getting visual element to add in making
their points. So how should this medium be best used?
Obviously, there are millions of reasons for a presentation, and
therefore, millions of effective and creative ways to deliver it.
Creativity can take several forms, from the spontaneous quip to the
extravagant special effects of a Hollywood blockbuster. Keep in
mind, though, that a crummy movie with very impressive special
effects is still a crummy movie, and the same rule applies to
presentations. Things that may work well in some presentations will
not do so in others, but here are some general guidelines for
successful use of electronic slides.
1. Add, don't detract. If you find your presentation
including phrases like "Here is a picture of how we envision the
final product", or "Here is how the process works", with the
appropriate slides, it is probably working to your advantage. If, on
the other hand, we interrupt our thought flow, and that of our
audience, to draw attention, there is probably something lacking in
the content. In one notable presentation I attended, the presenter
gave the audience points one and two of his conclusion, then said
something like "OOPs! Don't be like this guy who just got run over
by a bus because he crossed the street without looking both ways
(while an on-screen video displayed the demise of the unfortunate
rube) now..., on to point three". While meant to be humorous and
draw attention to his third point, which was to be prepared for the
unexpected calamity, it completely distracted the audience from his
closing, and got most of them off the path which he was trying
diligently to lead them down.
2. Don't distract. This brings up another important point,
which is obvious to most presenters, the appropriateness of the
material we show. While most presenters I know would never say
something like "I heard of a guy who got hit by a bus because he
didn't take the appropriate level of care in crossing the street,
isn't that hilarious!" Nonetheless, many presenters would think
nothing of inserting a video like the one mentioned above into a
presentation as an attention-getter. Not only do you run the risk of
having people in the audience who may have been injured seriously in
accidents, or worse, have had relatives or friends killed that way,
you also completely misdirect the attention and thought patterns of
the whole audience. The intended effect, to get those people who's
thoughts were drifting to focus back on your presentation, will
fail. Now those people are focused on the dangerous drive home, not
you. What's more, those who may have been paying attention to your
points may be reliving the sadness of losing their neighbor to a
drunk driver three years ago.
3. Know your stuff. By using presentation programs as a
supplement to, rather than the substance of an effective
presentation, you insure yourself against the unexpected failure of
almost any part of the presentation. During a technical seminar in a
large hotel banquet room filled with engineers, I had the misfortune
of having my laptop based slides stop projecting to the screen.
After a short bit of humor to smooth things over and show that I was
still in control of the situation (I did a few shadow puppets with
the white light coming out of the projector- to applause and
laughter), I continued for over fifteen minutes on the topic I was
covering. This also gave me the opportunity to wander out away from
my laptop and into the group, which I love to do. Not only did the
absence of slides not ruin the seminar, it almost enhanced it, not
only for the reasons above, but because it gave the audience and mea
shared humorous experience that I referred back to a few times for
humorous effect (e.g. I jokingly accused one participant, who asked
a strange question, of being the one who had unplugged the video
cable earlier). This could not have been possible, had the visual
part of the presentation been it's main support.
4. Know your medium. If something goes wrong with the
equipment or presentation, you should have a good feel of how
everything works. I watched in horror as a salesperson, who was
delivering a presentation about a fairly technical product
accidentally stopped the slide presentation and couldn’t get it
going again. The program had not closed down, just gone from "slide
view" to "slide creation view" and simply had to be restarted by
clicking a button on the screen. By not knowing how to do this
simple step, she ruined her credibility and wound up looking
sheepishly on as a member of her staff came up to the podium and
restarted her presentation. This is an extreme example, but it
also pays to not only know how to run the program itself, but how to
diagnose other technical problems that may occur. In the
presentation to which I referred above, where the image from my
laptop suddenly stopped showing on the screen, it was helpful to
know a bit about the equipment. During the short break that I called
after the outage, I was able to diagnose that a member of the
audience had accidentally kicked the video cable, dislodging it
slightly from my projector. While I am not an expert of every type
of projector on the market, nor would I want to be, I knew enough
about the workings of the system in general to fix the problem
within minutes, rather that waiting helplessly for the hotel media
staff.
5. Stay home. Just kidding, but please heed this warning.
The most notorious misuse of presentation programs is putting
everything on the screen that you intend to say, and reading from
the slide. Please take my advice, if your presentation contains all
the words you are going to say, stay home and e-mail them to your
audience where they can read them at their leisure. Slides should be
reserved for visuals that add to the presentation, diagrams, or
information that the audience can take special notes on (e.g. your
e-mail address or telephone number). In fact, slides can be used
effectively in hundreds of ways. I saw one presenter who said
something like, "Here are a few of the laws that govern the
operation of a small business today". He then proceeded to show
several slides of laws, rules, and regulations that increasingly got
smaller and smaller in type size and more rapid in succession.
The point was well made that there was a good reason to have a good
business attorney. One way that they should not be used is as a
script to read from. Even bullet points are a bit suspect, if they
have nothing to add to the presentation other than being a guide for
you to follow. In the technical training field, there are many folks
who, because they have some technical knowledge, assume that they
are effective presenters because they can read from slides. We call
such people aptly, slide-readers, and they can always be counted on
to put the audience promptly to sleep. They fail at communication
by using the slides as a crutch, rather than an enhancement.
Slide-readers have done more to damage the viability of technical
presentations than cold coffee.
Your success in delivering an effective, memorable presentation can
be greatly enhanced with presentation software. It will, however
rarely come from integrating new plug-ins, images or Flash content,
or by fielding dozens of slides that contain the verbiage of your
entire presentation. Used wisely, creative elements and bullet
slides have their time and place, but the art of communication
involves a much more expansive universe of interaction. The bottom
line is that the purpose of a presentation isn't to fine-tune your
graphics until they look great, or to display all of your ideas from
a screen. The object of an effective presentation is to communicate
important ideas and messages. Using presentation programs should add
to, and not detract from, that goal.
For questions or further information on this article, contact the
author at
garym@masteringtechnology.com
Gary Mull, BS, DTM, MCT, MCSE
Technical Speaker & Consultant,Mastering Technology, Inc.
Phone: (937) 252-9450
