Learn techniques to improve MS PowerPoint presentations
Learn techniques to improve MS PowerPoint presentations
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Introduction
More than 300 million people use PowerPoint, from CEO’s to 2nd graders, from pastors to lawyers. It has been said that PowerPoint presentations (which includes Keynote, SlideRocket, etc.) are the most used form of business communication in the world today. If this is so, a lot of information is being lost in the noise of poor slide design and presentation. Four years ago I made a documentary about WalMart, which had the end result of my appearing on lots of network news shows. Speaking agents started calling me because of this, and all of a sudden I had a second career as a public speaker, presenting mostly to business audiences on topics that mostly involved WalMart.
When I started presenting, I didn’t use slides at all. I just spoke. I quickly came to realize, however, that meeting planners and audiences expected a slide deck to go along with the speech. So I started working with PowerPoint, and in the beginning I used the templates offered when you open the program, and the “Type Text Here” box. I defaulted to bullet point structure because that is what I had seen others do.
My results were OK, but not great, as reflected by the scores on audience evaluations. I then watched Steve Jobs give his presentation of the iPhone, and was struck at how much information he conveyed in his presentations, using minimal graphics and text. Sometimes he would have just one word on the screen. I started to emulate his slide design and method of delivery, getting rid of bullet points, using meaningful pictures instead of clip art, and telling a story. Lo and behold, my audience evaluation scores went way up, and I started getting hired to speak a lot more. Plus, I enjoyed giving the speeches more. Rather than reading from a bullet ridden slide I simply used slides to augment what I was saying, matching the visuals with my remarks, and not using notes at all. I was so intrigued by the change in my audiences’ reception of me that I decided to try and figure out why some slide decks and methods of presentation were better at making information stick than others. Making the content stick, after all, is the goal of a presentation.
My thinking was that if you cleared up all the noise of poor slide design and ineffective presentation, the “bandwidth” of the information being presented would be increased, and people would learn more. So I spent a year traveling the country, interviewing experts about slide design and presenting for the #lm “Rethinking PowerPoint.” But a 90 minute #lm can only present so much information. What follows is the full text of the interviews from the #lm, and what is interesting to me are the common threads that run through the interviews as regards to the best way to design a great slide deck and then give the speech.
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Planning Your Presentation
RICK ALTMAN: Well, this all gets back to the whole question of how you would actually start a project like this. I think you have to get away from the computer when you are going to start any sort of creative project. PowerPoint is the worst place to begin a project. It might be a really good place to end up, but the computer in general is really a very bad place to begin any sort of creative project. where's just so much temptation to make it perfect with backspace, autocorrect, and “type text here.” that's just the wrong way to try to be creative. You'd be much better o" with the proverbial cocktail napkin than you would with the “type text here” box. that's a place where you can scribble notes. “!at is no good, throw it away, and start over.” that’s where you become smart. that's really where the creative process begins, when you can have bad ideas and throw them away and start over. It’s very difficult to do that on the computer. People just want to make it perfect the first time.
JULIE TERBERG: Step away from PowerPoint and make sure you have a really good story to tell, a logical, compelling story. If you're reporting something make sure you have your facts and #gures. !en think about what visuals you can create to help your audience understand and remember those main points. !is is for your audience. It's not for you. Realize that you have access to speaker notes, you can print out your notes or you can use presenter view. You do not need to have every word up on the screen. If you put every word on the screen your audience is going to read it. If they are reading, they are not listening to you. You can not read and pay attention at the same time. If someone is coming to hear you as a professional speaker, they are there to listen to you. Your visuals should support your message but not include every point. So keep it simple on the screen, elaborate in your script and rehearse.
CARMINE GALLO: !e most important thing is to have a story to tell before you open your PowerPoint "le. Steve Jobs may have made his money in the digital world of bits and bites but he plans in the very old world of pen and paper, or in his case, he likes to whiteboard and sketch. I think that is the best way of creating the narrative, creating the story. It’s not that effective to open up PowerPoint and jump in there and start creating slides. Why? Because you are losing the big picture. You are losing the story. In fact, PowerPoint makes it easy to be mediocre, because what's the first thing you see, a template for a headline and bullet points. !ere are no bullet points in a Steve Jobs’ presentation. It’s highly visual. In order to visualize the narrative and to visualize the story; sketch, white board, and think about things. What are the elements that are going to be in your presentation? Are you going to have a demo? Are you going to shut o" the PowerPoint for a minute and conduct a demonstration? Are you going to stage it like a theatrical event and bring on other characters? Steve Jobs always introduces employees or partners to share the stage with him. It’s much more than just the words on the PowerPoint. If you begin a PowerPoint presentation by opening up the software, that’s not exactly the most effective way of creating a narrative that ultimately inspires and excites people.
PETER NORVIG: I think one of the limitations of PowerPoint is that it does not separate out the various phases of research, figuring out what you are going to say, and practicing what you are going to say. !en you actually have to present it. those are all tied together. Sometimes when I'm preparing a presentation I write down bullet points, kind of as notes, but then I almost always take them out. I find that the more I take out the better. these are things that I want to talk about, not things that I want to have written on the slide.
RICHARD HARRINGTON: What I see a lot of times is that people start in PowerPoint instead of starting in a more traditional sense with a pad of paper and then moving into a word processor. they just jump right in and start writing. I think that that really ties into the faster culture, the faster pace of business. they think, “I have to create. I have to get this out there. Why am I wasting all my time with all this pre-thought? Let’s just start creating the presentation and get it ready, so I can get to market faster.” It’s an easy program and when used effectively, it’s a great program. But a lot of people bypass some of the necessary steps.