A few weeks ago, I nearly dozed off during a series of speeches. The topics were fascinating. The presenters were leaders in their fields.
The problem?
The speakers all used PowerPoint in their presentations.
More accurately, they abused PowerPoint.
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| Dave Olecko photo, Business Edge |
| Communications expert Betty Cooper advises clients to cull their slideshow presentations. ‘Less is best,’ she says. |
One by one, these experts flashed one slide after another onto a large screen. Then they read the text, verbatim, rarely breaking from the illuminated script.
Sound familiar?
Communications expert Betty Cooper sees it a lot.
She’s even had clients who showed her up to 70 slides they planned to use in a presentation.
Mercifully, Cooper culled the slides to a half dozen.
“Less is best,” says Cooper, a renowned speech expert and executive coach. Based in Calgary, Cooper’s client list stretches from Vancouver to New York and London. In December, she also received the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers’ highest award – only the second time it’s been given out.
There’s only one reason to use PowerPoint, or any other visual aid, Cooper says, and that is to amplify and clarify a person’s message.
Otherwise, don’t use it.
“What presenters have to understand is that when they have PowerPoint up on the screen, it is bigger than they are, and it’s brighter than they are,” she says.
“If the audience doesn’t have to listen to you, if they can read it on the screen, what are you doing there?”
In other words, why not just give them a printed handout, and not waste everyone’s time?
So the question arises: Why do intelligent, well-meaning people fall into such terrible habits with PowerPoint technology?
Pam August, an adult educator who teaches faculty at Calgary’s Southern Alberta Institute of Technology to use PowerPoint, says she can teach someone to use it in 20 minutes.
“It is a tool and a toy,” says August. “So it’s easy to use, and abuse.”
Presenters can load on text, pictures, videos, graphics, dissolve images and make words dance across a screen.
But the results can be overwhelmingly negative. All the action on the screen wears on a person’s ability, and willingness, to focus on the key points in a presentation.
People must be vigilant about PowerPoint, August says.
She follows a rigid set of rules. In a session where she’s encouraging participation by students or adult learners, she uses one slide every three to five minutes. And if she has text on a slide, she operates by the 6x6 rule. That means she can only have a maximum of six bulleted items on a slide, and a maximum of six words of text to describe each bullet.
“If you have less content on your PowerPoint, you have more time to engage with your learners,” August says.
“I’d say one of the common complaints by students is that faculty overuse it. Students’ eyes are glazing over as slide after slide comes up.”
Nevertheless, she remains an advocate for the technology. It’s up to presenters to be thinking whether a picture, graphic or video might convey a message more effectively than words.
Like August, Cooper says the presenter has the responsibility to be succinct.
“You can have a good slide that has just one word on it,” says Cooper. For example, the word “WHY” highlighted on a slide will help the presenter keep an audience focused on the presenter’s goal.
In the workplace, Cooper sees traps into which people commonly fall.
As an example, she cites the employee who is asked to make a presentation to the next level of management. The employee is determined to prove he or she knows everything, and sets out an elaborate presentation.
“So what happens when the chairman says: ‘You’ve got two minutes?’ ” asks Cooper. “You have to be able to be concise.”
As part of her work, Cooper will specifically teach clients how to present to boards. Her rules? Presentations are seven minutes maximum, with a maximum of five slides. It’s a lesson all presenters can learn. Most presentations are far too long, and in most cases, 15 minutes is more than enough time.
“People today are poor listeners. Presenters have to ask themselves: ‘What is the 10 per cent, the key things I need to say to get them to buy in to what I am saying?’ ”
Cooper offers some other advice:
* If you are asked to make a presentation, don’t first run to the file looking for slides and documents. Figure out what you need to say, and then decide if the slides will help illustrate your point.
* Set up your slides verbally, before you put them up on the screen. For example, say:
“We are going to discuss three problems that cut into profits.” Then put up a slide that says, “Problems That Hurt Profits.” Then discuss the first problem and then reinforce the point by putting text on the screen.
* Remember that as soon as you put a slide on the screen, people will read it. If a slide is put up without the speaker setting it up in advance, the audience will read the slide, or interpret a graph with their own bias. This means that the speaker reduces the ability to project his/her own agenda.
* Never read aloud what is on the slide. The audience can read faster than you can.
* Text on the slide has to be large enough to read.
* Don’t use slides to continue a point. Each new slide presents a new subject, a new idea and requires a new banner at the top.
Cooper says that people must be clearly focused on what they want to say in a presentation.
“They need to say: ‘Why am I up there? What do I need to say to get you (the audience) to do what I need you to do?’ ”
When Cooper works through presentations with her clients, she says people invariably put their most important slides at the end of the presentation, instead of the beginning.
“You have to put up front why you are different,” she says. “It’s the bait. It’s why you are unique, why they should be interested in your presentation.”
Then keep it simple. That’s the important message – because you don’t want people dozing off.
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