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Presentation Tip #2: The PowerPoint Problem

I was at a conference this last week and it reminded me again how much I hate PowerPoint. I’m sorry, but I really do. It just makes for the most awful, boring, “shoot me now” presentations I’ve ever seen.

There are two big mistakes people make with PowerPoint: 1) They make the slides the star; 2) They have boring, unreadable slides.

Most of the advice for improving PP presentations focuses on the second item. But I think the first is much more important.

Here’s the classic example of making the slides the star, and I’m guessing you’ve seen this too. The screen is front and center, the lights are dimmed (so people can see the screen), and the presenter is off to the side at a podium, reading their notes—which happen to be the same, word for word, as what’s on the screen.

Friends, that’s not a presentation. That’s torture. And in large part because there’s absolutely no personal connection with the speaker.

Think about this for a moment. I was at the National Speakers Association’s national convention last Summer. This is an organization made up of the most professional, experienced, and successful speakers in the world. In other words, it’s a group that knows how to connect with an audience! And you know what? In not one of the general sessions did I see a single slide. Not one. There’s a lesson there for all of us.

Being effective with your audience is about connecting with them. And that’s not about slides, it’s about you. People relate to people. Your best tools for connecting are your voice, your body, your stories, and your expertise.

The message is, if you want to improve your presentations, focus on you first and your slides second. Here’s how.

First, as you plan your talk, write the first draft as if there won’t be any slides at all. Just think about what you want to say. Or better yet, what your audience needs to hear. Come up with a good story to open with, and a closing that summarizes your points and sends people off on a positive note. Then, once you have your comments in place, NOW you can start to add in slides, but only to reinforce the points you’re making. Here’s an example:

You: “Today I want to talk to you about three things.”
Slide: 3 Things

You: “The good”
Slide: (Under 3 Things, first bullet appears) The Good

You: “The Bad”
Slide: (Second bullet) The Bad

You: “The Ugly”
Slide: (Text fades to single image) Photo of you in a truly awful sweater.

See? Single words. Large type. No more than four lines of text. Single images. Sparse. Simple. Supporting. This way, you’re the contact, you’re the leader of the discussion, and the slides support you, not the other way around.

Tags: Communication, communication training, david levin, Don't Just Talk, presentations

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 8:30 am and is filed under Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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