How many readers have not sat through a truly horrible PowerPoint-style presentation in the recent past?
Those precious seconds of your life. Lost. Forever.
Luckily I have taken it upon myself to work out exactly why so many PowerPoint presentations end up so awful:
The problem lies in the very ease of PowerPoint technology. Your speaking time-slot is always limited. But what if the length of your presentation is infinite? Easy. Fill up slide after slide with everything you have to say on any subject. Before you know it, the speaker is supporting the slides and not the other way round. And if you are a dull or unwilling speaker that’s not a bug – it’s a feature, or even the feature.
This stokes another anxiety – what if I leave something out and then later something goes wrong? They’ll say they ‘weren’t told’. I might get into trouble. I might be sued. Err on the safe side. Use the presentation as lecture notes. Cram in all possible information, however marginal.
The ease of the technology also allows a speaker to produce a great mass of material then ‘mix ‘n’ match’ slides for any possible presentation. This accelerates inconsistency of format within slides and between slides. Fonts vary, spacing and layouts vary. The audience feels the mess and misses the message.
Stylistic inconsistencies and underlying psychological insecurities (and/or sheer idleness) on the part of speakers accelerate across the business world. That creates one more bad effect. What if I give by far the best presentation at that event? Maybe people will think I’m arrogant or too clever? Hmm. Tone it down a bit. Why take risks?
And lo! A positive feedback loop develops. Presentation skills get sucked into a vicious death spiral to mediocrity and querulous secondrateitude. Presentations get worse, so speakers get worse, so presentations get worse.
And, even better, I have identified how huge improvements can be achieved at top speed. But it does require some, ahem, changes in attitude on the part of the presenter...
Over at PunditWire.
Or just get in touch, and let me sort out your gruesome PowerPoint problems. Satisfaction guaranteed.