Are you presenting using ‘Death by Powerpoint?’

13th July, 2010 - Posted by stellacollins - No Comments

I’ve been to a few events recently where the audience, including me, has sat through a  PowerPoint presentation hoping to hear something engaging and memorable but ultimately a little disappointed.

Is this a familiar feeling to you too?  You’re sitting in a presentation that you’re really interested in but you can feel your eyes getting heavy, your breathing’s slowing down, you’re trying not to yawn and your limbs feel immobilised.  You know the presenter is an interesting person in their own right but they’re reading the same slides that you’re reading – and they’re looking at the screen and not you.   Sadly you’re struggling agains a similar affliction to millions of others – Death by PowerPoint.

And you could even be guilty of unwittingly inflicting it on other people.  You’re an interesting person with a fascinating point to make but  it’s so ubiquitous to use PowerPoint and it would be stepping out of the mould if you did anything else.  Of course that’s what everyone else hopes you’ll do – they want to be engaged, even entertained but most other people have done it by reading out the PowerPoint slides so you probably ought to conform.

There’s nothing wrong with PowerPoint itself; it’s a great tool and we use it regularly but we don’t send people to sleep.  One of my colleagues says that “What we’re fighting to get recognised is the importance of the message and the recipient, rather than the messenger and it’s what happens to that message that gets results.  If people have been only semi conscious then their understanding and memory of the message is going to be weak and we want your message to be strong.”

Someone I met recently gave me a fantastic tip that I’d like to share with you if you ever feel nervous about the idea of giving presentations to a group.  If the person who gave me the tip reads this and gets in touch I’ll gladly accredit it to you.

One of the problems we were discussing was how it can be a bit nerve wracking to make eye contact with everyone which is why people sometimes default to reading the slides on the screen instead.

So if you wear glasses – take them off.  The people you’re looking at will then appear fuzzy and unthreatening and it’s easy to just look in their general direction.  And you won’t be able to read the screen yourself so you won’t be tempted to turn back and read from it so that nobody can hear you or engage with you.

If you don’t wear glasses then borrow a pair and you’ll be in the same boat – and have the additional benefit of looking more intellectual.

Try it and see.

And here  are 5 more top tips:

•       Instead of slides – create posters from Powerpoint and put them on the walls – allow people to browse them like an art gallery

•       Use a picture instead of words – then you can be the centre of attention

•       If you must use words limit yourself to 5 per slide

•       Test your slides – would you want to look at them?  Can you see them from the back of the room?  Are they interesting?

•       Use a question instead of statements to engage your audience – this stimulates people to think harder.