PowerPoint is so ubiquitous, its name is a verb:
"Why don't you powerpoint that for our next meeting?
Do you really need PowerPoint slides every time you talk to a group of people?
And when you do use PowerPoint, do you use it effectively?"
Several professional presentation designers and presenters suggest that you do not always need a slide show to give a presentation.
"Sometimes the best presentation is... no presentation, Kathy Sierra argues. "Ditch the slides completely. Put the projector in the closet, roll the screen back up, and turn the damn lights back on!" Read Kathy's article for more of her thoughts.
Slides are not always necessary, marketing guru Seth Godin says. “The purpose of PowerPoint is to communicate with your audience, getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic or whatever else you are.)"
"...cancel the meeting and send in a report," Godin advises when all you doing is creating a file of facts and figures.
Get a copy of Godin’s little ebook, Really Bad PowerPoint and How to Avoid It, is at his Web site, Seth Godin: Free Prize Inside.
Too many presenters let PowerPoint control their presentation, thinks Chris Hilder.
PowerPoint is ... seductive. With an AutoContent wizard, templates, animations, and clip art all at your finger tips the temptation is to create a slide show, then fit your presentation to it. This is putting the cart before the horse and gives rise to the following evils:
- The slide show upstages the person. All those transitions and animations attract the eye away from the presenter, and away from the content. Experienced PowerPoint users hardly ever use animations or transitions.
- The person uses the slides as their speech notes. They show them to the audience and then read them out. Speech notes belong on paper or small pieces of card. Showing them to the audience spoils the effect.
- The person doesn't try to give a lively, creative presentation. Instead they believe that a good slide show will make them look good. It doesn't.
- The person skips the thinking and writing stage, and goes straight to PowerPoint and tries to use it as a writing tool. PowerPoint is actually very structured, not just the templates and AutoContent, but the whole way the program works. It is not a writing tool, and trying to use it as such creates fractured, saccadic prose, with a consequent loss of the flow of thought.
Read Chris’ guidelines for avoiding bad slide shows.
PowerPoint is only a tool; a great presentation comes from content and delivery, not slide transitions and animated bullet points. Next time you finish a slide show, give it a critical look before you run off and show it to a room full of people.
The following three articles can help you recognize the signs of a bad PowerPoint show, and the first and third offer some quick suggestions for making it less bad:
