A very counter-productive buzzword talk has entered through corporate and marketing communications. As an example, read the following sentence:
“XYZ enables customers to improve user service levels, reduce down time, and make more efficient use of IT resources while still increasing the performance, scalability, and security of their business”
Sounds familiar? Are you knowing actually more about XYZ now? I guess not. This kind of blabla violates the most important rule in presenting and selling: Never tell a feature without benefit, allways tell the benefit of a feature. The sentence above is all about benefit, but we have no clue about the “why” (-> feature). Therefore the reader or listener will not believe. Not until we said something about the “why”.
One can even make a slide out of the mentioned sentence. Sadly, 9 out of 10 slides are exactly like this:
It is not sufficient to excuse such a slide with “I will tell about the why during the presentation”. If at all, the slideshow must contain both. Even better would be a catchy picture, no text, but a great story that combines feature and benefit!
It might happen that during a presentation a discussion starts. Or that you want to have full attention on you. The very lively image or detailed contents on the slide that is beamed to the silverscreen are then not appreciated. A seldom used but very easy method to shut down the content is the “b” (for black) or “w” (white) key on the keyboard. They work in most presentation software and make the full screen either, well, black or white. Use it…
The latest Apple Event about the iPAD in January is a very nice example why uncluttered slides are important. See this shot from the official Apple Keynote, lowes resolution, screencaptured and low qual JPGed:
Uncluttered slides rule!
No problem at all to actually READ whats written here. And get the message, nothing is unclear, cluttered or “between the lines”…
I watched the keynote “live” through one of the many streaming sites. Really bad quality, not surprising from a handheld device located in the audience, with limited bandwidth. In parallel I watched a also streamed live broadcast of a corporate event. Even tough that was streamed with much higher bandwidth and resolution, I was not able to read a word from the slides. At the Steve Jobs show that was not a problem. Why? Reduction to the max.
It follows: How to improve your slide deck AND put you in the center? Start with changing your mindset: Dont think what you can add, think what can be deleted. You are the messenger, not the slide. Not Powerpoint, not Keynote, not Impress. You!
Last Saturday, I attended a congress about one of my favorite areas of interest. There where five presenters, and they made ALL of the errors I pointed out so far in this blog
They used a laserpointer, with the predictive result of the nervous red dot showing things on the slides that should not have been there anyway
They never repeated a question from the audience. Large room, I was in the back and did not hear ANY question at all, only the answers.
The question if the local language is OK was asked in the local language…
Some presenters hat their hands in the pockets and walked left-right on stage, watching a most interesting point about two meters in front of their feet
…and so on.
Soon soon I am going to give courses, and I promise I will make special price for the group I attended…Maybe for you to? Just ask…
This is an easy one, but nevertheless a lot of presenters fall into this trap. In typical Q&A situation, a person is given attention. A question is posed to the presenter. But, as the direction of the mouth is towards the front, hardly anyone sitting behind the person talking hears the question. Just hearing the answer is like Jeopardy. A nice game for in front of TV, but not for audiences towards you want to send excitement or selling something.
There are two ways around this. One is in having a pro equipment with headset and a hand-around microphone. Sets like this are available for not to much money, but are not suitable for typical corporate or community presentations.
The other, far easier one is to just repeat the question. This serves two purposes. The less important one being that all have heard the question and are prepared to hear the answer. Even more important is that this serves as verification if the question has been understood correctly. As a side note, it allows to “fine-tune” the question within a certain degree if the answer is not within your preferred zone…
I recentl had to create a slide-deck with StarOffice Impress, after having worked almost the whole 2009 just with Apple Keynote out of the iWork suite. Here are some comparing thoughts and experiences…
The company I work for has OpenOffice, respectively its twin-brother StarOffice as standard suite for office work. OpenOffice has many advantages over other well known office-suites; it simply offers best bang-for-the-buck. Also, the default file format is the open OpenDocument standard, everyone can download tools to see and work with ODT respectively ODP (OpenDocumentPresentation) files. There are even plugins for the marketleading office suite (see here). There is also a very useful presentation console available, see here.
StarOffice Impress is a mighty tool. It can do a lot of tricks and is well integrated into the other members of the StarOffice suite. Nevertheless I had to realize that I really missed Keynote. I like to work with pictures, sometimes a picture is the only content of a slide. There are simply no decent tools in Impress to ease handling and editing of pictures. Also, copy/paste did not work all the time. Traisitions and animations available are OK, as are all other integrated tools. StarOffice Impress is basiclly OK, it goes far beyond in capabilities what the average corporate presenter ever will use (which is a sad fact in itself).
…and now for something completely different: Keynote!
Sadly, Keynote has no export Filter for ODP or any other OpenDocument format, but zillion export possibilities for long extinct applications. So working in Keynote for my latest work was out of the question. Keynote is a very great presentation application. It has not the features in a deepness of the latest and greatest powerpoint, but it sure is efficient. Keynote is streamlined to ease the tasks that are most likely done when working out a presentation, and leaves the hard-core graphical stuff to the heavyweights in that area. I did not yet miss a thing in keynote tough. Especially the way transparency can be added to pictures is a huge timesaver. Immediate access to a picture library is a huge timesaver. The whole experience in itself is motivating to really bring out the best.
I would say that working with keynote saves half of the actual slide preparation work compared with Impress and Powerpoint. And it sure is far more fun to use.
First a very expensive toy, laser-pointers are nowadays to be found right at the low end of corporate give-aways.
There are many great uses for a laser-poiner. I found it a very great way to let cats go wild, by just a small movement of the wrist. Cats seem to just love that red dot. Of course, particular caution must be applied to not point to the cat, especialy the cat’s eyes. Same goes for human beeings.
But laser-pointers have not been invented for the pet-shop as accessories. They where intended to serve as an important tool in presentations.
Laserpointer: No!
The basic idea was, that the presenter is able to show an exact position on the slide. Laser-pointers therefore replaced the old bamboo-stick or these nasty little antenna-look-a-likes. A replacement that is not a benefit, unfortunately. See also the following ad…
I recommend to use either a bamboo stick or have someone move the cursor over slide, and of course make sure that you collect all the laser-pointers in the audience before you start… Here are some reasons against laser-pointers:
First and foremost, a laser-pointer is never steady. It wiggles around, especially when the user is nervous, and that we are all on stage, right? Same goes when a computer mouse is used, but these can be left alone when at the right position.
Secondly: A slide that requires a pointer is usually to cluttered. A slide should show one particular idea and be a support for the presenter. Of course, in a training environment, it might be needed to point to several areas in particular. But instead of wiggling a laser-pointer around, every presentation software allows to insert an arrow or other graphical pointer, even animated. If you have to use presentation software at all, use its features, this is a good one.
Thirdly: If a laser-pointer is used, the speaker must turn away from the audience. There is hardly an alternative to that. When you are sitting in the audience, do you like to see the speakers back?
There are many great alternatives, the best two have been mentioned. For example, you have to present the front-panel of a new generation car-stereo. There are several buttons and dials.
Draw arrows to the items you want to elaborate about. Let them appear and disappear one after the other. That they disappear is important, it prevents cluttering in the slide. Also, do not use fancy and distracting effects.
If you have a co-worker at hand for your presentation, let him do the pointing with the cursor. As mentioned, it is important that the person at the mouse is not resting the hand after setting it at a spot on the slide. Even small movement of the cursor is very distracting.
As a conclusion, get rid of these nasty laser-pointers. They are not help- but certainly harmful for the presentation, and also for pets and kids.
As part of my regular profession I am currently preparing material for two 1.5 hour courses. That made me think about the difference between a regular presentation (if that exists at all…) and teaching. For my courses I have been given material that formed these courses as a fully automatic web based training. Of course, the slides fall through in most aspects of a great presentation; far to much content for a presentation, not enough detailed for a documentation. But under the context of teaching, what is to be different, what should be the same? Read the rest of this entry »
Insanely Great: Today the book from Carmine Gallo about one of the greatest speakers arrived in my mailbox. A quick glance revealed that I will have good reading-evenings ahead of me. Stay tuned for a review as soon as I finished the book!
It is not sufficient to excuse such a slide with “I will tell about the why during the presentation”. If at all, the slideshow must contain both. Even better would be a catchy picture, no text, but a great story that combines feature and benefit!
