The Death of Death by PowerPoint (hopefully)

This is an article I wrote a few years ago. Sadly, it is still relevant today. 

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Bad PowerPoint is all around us. It can be found in board rooms, class rooms, and conferences all across America. It is so prevalent, that when I say “Death by PowerPoint,” everyone knows exactly what I’m talking about.

So why is that? How did we get here? How did we arrive at a point where droning through bulleted lists became not just acceptable, but the norm?

I believe the two main culprits are lack of training and lack of time.

The vast majority of the presentations you see were created by someone with no real training in the area of design. They have probably been trained how to use PowerPoint, though even that isn’t a sure thing. But knowing how to use PowerPoint and knowing how to use it effectively are two completely different things. It’s like teaching someone how a car works, but not teaching them how to drive or explaining any traffic laws.

And design is a skill, like any other. I work with IT consultants every day. Smart people. Actually, freakishly smart people who know more about computers than people should really know. They have a very specialized knowledge-base and skills that make them the right people to go to if you need a network designed (for example). I wouldn’t tell them how to design a network because I don’t know enough about it. I’m vaguely aware of how a network functions (through a series of tubes?), but they have the right training and expertise. They are the right people for the job.

Design works the same way. It is a discipline with a well researched knowledge-base. People don’t think of it in those terms, because there is an artistic element and we are drilled that any artistic voice is valid. Yes, there is a creative element. But there are rules behind solid design, and unless you know them it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t work

Another reason presentations are bad is that we don’t give them nearly enough time. Good presentations – really good presentations that make an impact – take more time than you probably think. A good presentation needs to be planned out start to finish. It needs to be sticky-noted, whiteboarded, and thought through from an audience’s perspective. And that’s before one pixel is built. Because we don’t have time, the tendency is to throw ideas on the page. Because there is no time to consider how to best do this, the ideas get bulleted. Graphics are limited to what’s on hand, and often intended to “spruce up” a page that already has too much text on it.

And that is how we get Death by PowerPoint.

If you really want to avoid Death by PowerPoint, you will not give in to the standard paradigm. You won’t look at PowerPoint as a tool to create lists. You will give your presentations more time. Above all, you will consider the best way to convey your ideas to your audience.

Here are some principles that I think all presenters should consider. They aren’t comprehensive, but they are a good start.

Brevity

I could go on and on (and on) discussing brevity. “Less is more,” is a well-worn cliche, but it is at the heart of all good slide presentations. When it comes to slide content, you should question everything you put on the screen. Every word and every image should serve to convey your idea. If it doesn’t help you convey your idea, remove it because it’s clutter. Keep your diagrams simple, your images direct, and your words few. Your presentations will be better for it, and your audience will be grateful.

One Idea per Slide

I’m not big on rules, but I’m a firm believer that you never want to convey more than one idea per slide. That’s because all people, even world-class multi-taskers, can only fully attend to one thing at a time. If you give each idea its own space, you are giving your audience their best chance at understanding your point. If an idea is important enough to present to your audience, it deserves its own space. So give each idea its own place in the projector. After all, slides are free.

What’s the Big Idea?

I don’t want to break anyone’s heart, but your audience will not remember everything in your presentation. With that in mind, you need to pay close attention to your “big ideas”. What do you want your audience to remember a week from now? These are the ideas that should be the focal point of your presentation. Be sure to present them in a way that shines light on them. Make them memorable. Repeat them. Build your presentation in a way that gives them focus.

Bringing enough focus to your key points can be a big differentiator, because most presentations I see are relatively flat. They convey loads of information, but they don’t do a good job illuminating their key takeaways. And make no mistake, it’s your big ideas that people are after. Don’t disappoint them. Put a spotlight on your big ideas.

The Glance Medium

Slides are an important aspect of most presentations, but not in the way most people think. That is, a slide shouldn’t be the star of the show. It’s a supporting role. If your audience spends too much of their mental energy reading or examining your slide, they probably aren’t spending enough time listening to you. Therefore, think of each slide as something to be glanced at that supports your point in some way. Unless you’re walking through the information on screen, then the content on the slide should convey its meaning in just a few seconds. The rest of their time, they should be listening to you.

Sans Cheese

You’re a pro, so stay away from cheesy things that makes you look like an amateur. That means avoiding clipart, transitions, and animation. These things can all be used well, but probably 99% of the time they are not. Clipart screams “unprofessional” from the top of the hills. Better to either use a good photo or no images at all. Transitions and animation are most often used to dazzle audiences, but it’s normally distracting. If you use animation to help highlight your point, that’s fine. Otherwise, leave the tricks at home. They look cheesy.

Take Care

Be careful and deliberate about where you place things on a slide. Items that are poorly aligned or clash with the rest of your presentation will stand out to your audience as carelessness. This is a grave error, because you want your audience to understand that you value them and their time, certainly enough to make sure fonts are consistent, text lines up, and elements are displayed where they should.

Be a Student

If you want to be a good presenter, you need to study. Read the best books on the subject. I routinely recommend the works of Nancy Duarte (slide:ology) and Garr Reynolds (Presentation Zen) because I believe they are the best minds in the field of presentation design. Broadly speaking, I would avoid books that focus on “how to use PowerPoint.” These books tend to focus on what PowerPoint can do and focus very little on design. And a lot of what PowerPoint “can do,” should be avoided. Keep it simple.

You should also learn lessons from the best presenters. If you come across a great presentation at a conference, ask yourself what they did to make it such a success. If there are ideas you can incorporate into your own presentations, do so! There are also some great sources on the Internet. For example, I make a point to check out the presentations on Ted Talks (www.tedtalks.com). In addition to thought-provoking content, there are some outstanding presenters. Learn from them.

Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is a fundamental principle of all business communication, but it bears repeating. Take the time to consider what your audience is after. What does your audience want? How can you help them? What’s the venue? A firm understanding of your audience, their expectations, and their needs enables you to build a presentation that will make an impact on them

Know Thyself

Just as important as knowing your audience is knowing yourself. What is your style? How are you most comfortable speaking? Knowing this is critical in how you present your information to your audience, because your audience is there to see you, not your slides.

For example, I am most comfortable presenting in a conversational manner with humor dropped in as it occurs to me. I’m better if I do some ad-libbing than working with a set routine. That means I need to avoid long bits of rehearsed content. It’s more important for me to know my content and audience well so I can think clearly on my feet. While this approach is ideal for me, it doesn’t work for most people. Find what works best for you and always consider your presentations through the lens of your style.

Advocacy

When you make the commitment to good design, spread the word. Encourage others to raise the bar and challenge the existing paradigm. Offer to review presentations with others and provide candid (but friendly) feedback. Be an advocate!

Brevity

Ironic, but it bears repeating. Less is more.

Epilogue

If you’ve made it this far, you probably care about improving your presentations. Keep caring and be willing to break the rules. Be willing to do whatever it takes to engage your audience and change their lives. Because people want to find a better way. They want ideas that save them money, make their lives easier, or make their world a better place to live. People want ideas, not lists. Give them your ideas. Change their world.

Giving an Ignite Talk

A while back I was one of seven people selected to give an Ignite Talk as part of the closing keynote at BidCon, the international conference for the Association of Proposal Management Professionals. I was thrilled and honored to be selected. My topic? The value of being nice.

For those not familiar with an Ignite Talk, it is a fast-paced, focused presentation with some strict guidelines. Each Ignite is five minutes long, twenty slides, fifteen seconds per slide, no pausing. These restrictions are intended to keep the speaker on point and moving so they can provide a concise message and experience for the audience.

While I was excited to take on this task, I was also anxious. Those of you who have seen me speak know that my presentations are normally conversational rather than scripted. I move through my key points in a linear fashion, but I demonstrate them with examples and stories that occur to me in the moment. And sometimes I end up on a tangent that needs to be directed back to my primary point.

With an Ignite Talk, there is no time for improvising or tangents. If you get off track or stumble you find yourself in catch up mode. It can derail the entire presentation. I’ve always been confident in front of a crowd, but my style seemed as though it would work against me. And it unnerved me a little.

At least at the beginning.

Once I had my key ideas outlined and a slide or two for each, my “script” came together quickly and naturally. I started rehearsing about ten days before the event, mostly reading my script along with the slides. As I got more comfy with the timing and made various edits, I was able to reduce my slide notes to a few key words on each slide. And as I worked through it more, I found I didn’t need notes at all. By the time I was invited to the stage, I felt ready.

Lessons learned? This experience affirmed my belief that preparation is key to any good presentation. I don’t think most people could get through an Ignite Talk smoothly without a lot of prep. I also appreciated how the constraints of the format really forced me to edit ruthlessly and consider what I most wanted to deliver.

So how did it go? You would have to ask the people in the audience. From my perspective, I think I told the story I wanted to tell in the way I wanted to tell it. And I loved presenting it. Which is as much as I can ask for.

And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Hate the player, not the game (or presentation app).

I sometimes get asked what I think about Prezi. My answer usually goes something like, “Well, I think it’s a powerful app that can do some pretty interesting things. But I think most people don’t use it very well.”

“But PowerPoint is so tired/old/dated/over,” usually follows.

To which I reply, “Horse hockey.”

PowerPoint isn’t tired/old/dated/over. The way people usually use it absolutely is.

Like Prezi (and Apple’s Keynote), PowerPoint is a powerful app capable of some interesting and engaging things. Unfortunately, most people don’t use it to do anything compelling. They use it as a script and drop a few images in to make things “interesting.” And as we all know, standing in front of slide after slide (after slide) of this is tired and old and dated, but sadly, not quite over. Some people don’t understand the problem. Some understand it but don’t know how to change. And some know better, but are unwilling put in the time and effort necessary to build truly engaging presentations.

I would say the same is true of most Prezis I’ve seen. That is, most Prezi frames suffer from the same problems I see in all presentations. Too many words, lots of lists, images thrown on as an afterthought, etc. We’ve seen it all before. Worse, if Prezi isn’t handled carefully, the transitions from frame to frame can, a) get distracting, or b) make your audience dizzy. Sadly, Prezi is not really the answer, because it can be misused just as easily as PowerPoint.

Why is this? Because building truly powerful presentations requires a paradigm shift. It takes start to finish storyboarding, a willingness to be ruthless about eliminating slide elements, and fierce commitment to align your slides with your message and speaking style. This isn’t easy, so most people settle for tweaking what they have always done and real change escapes them.

No, applications are not the problem. It’s the presenters who put too much on the screen and expect you to read along. Don’t tell me PowerPoint is dead. Don’t tell me Prezi is the answer (or amateur). Look at the person in front of the screen.

Discovering my style (sort of).

Recently, I’ve had several conversations with people about my “Know thyself” post. It seems I touched a nerve for some people, mostly good. This led to several discussions of how I became aware of my own speaking style.

There are really two answers to that. The first answer is, I don’t know. I’ve been performing in front of people in one form or another since I was in junior high, and it seems like I’ve always felt at ease in front of a microphone without a script. I’m certain there was a time when I was nervous or uncomfortable, but it’s so far back that I have no memory of those feelings. In any case, I never really analyzed it much—it’s just part of who I am.

But I became fully aware of my style, and its importance to my presentations, only recently. In fact, it was May of 2012, while preparing for last years’ BidCon. I was feeling pressured to pack my presentation with good content. I wanted to be sure I got to everything, so I scripted my presentation, something I don’t often do. In practicing, I was disappointed. It was hard and I found myself stumbling far more than normal (when I’m not scripting). So I asked my lovely and talented wife to be my audience.

About ten minutes into my presentation she stopped me.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Uh…. I’m giving my presentation.”

“No, I mean, it sounds like you’re reading,” she offered, “It sounds like you’re giving someone else’s presentation.”

I stared at her, not knowing what to say, so she continued, “You don’t present like this. I’ve seen you speak and you just talk naturally. People are interested in what you have to say because you know what you’re talking about and it sounds like you’re just having a conversation.”

“But this is a big conference and I want to. . .”

She stopped me, “It doesn’t matter who it is. If you want people to enjoy your presentation, just have a conversation. Do what you always do because that’s what you’re best at.”

Strange, I already knew all of that, but hearing it explained so succinctly was an epiphany of sorts. Not only did this free me to be my best, at a stroke it heightened my awareness of that we all have our very own optimal style. This awareness also makes me better equipped to help the speakers I work with on their presentations.

Lesson? Make sure you give YOUR presentation. If you’re funny (and your topic allows), then be funny. If you’re serious, be serious. If you use stories to illustrate your point, then—well, you get the idea. If you try to be something you’re not, you won’t help yourself or your audience.

Also (obviously), always listen to my lovely and talented wife.

Two disclaimers.

First, my “top of mind” style does not relax my preparation at all. In fact, I need to spend even more time making sure I’m familiar with my presentation, content and message. I need to be sure I hit my key points and I need to be more aware of my pacing. If I get caught in a story or tangent, I need to bring things back on point and know where to land.

Second, most people are NOT at their best presenting this way. For me, it’s an extension of who I am both on stage and off. My brain is wired in a particular way and I have a great deal of experience speaking spontaneously, both as a speaker and a musician. Most speakers need to keep more detailed speaker notes and need to be more linear and rehearsed to be most successful.

Reflecting on a conference.

I spent most of last week in Atlanta for BidCon, the annual conference for the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP). My presentation, Extreme Slide Makeovers, seemed to go well (though they didn’t carry me off on their shoulders when it was finished–I may have exaggerated on this point to a few key people).  More important, I was (again) blown away by the level of expertise within this organization and I learned some great lessons. I’m already looking forward to next years’ conference in Chicago.

As a presentation wonk, it’s natural for me to scrutinize the sessions I attend. I thought most of the presenters were very good, even if there was (as always) too much slide reading. That said, here are some observations/thoughts for presenters:

1. Get to the point! People come to presentations wanting to be engaged and expecting to learn. But if you spend five, ten, or twenty minutes (yes, it happened) establishing who you are, you will lose a segment of your audience and the opportunity to enter with a splash. The best presentations I attended began with interesting content rather than a career recap of the presenter.
2. Be prepared. Sometimes you will be let down by technology. The Internet connection will falter, the clicker will fail, your microphone will squeal (this happened to me)–you get the idea. It’s frustrating, but it’s bound to happen when you present at conferences. So expect it. Don’t let one of these problems spoil your presentation. I saw one session completely derailed by an audio issue, and I saw another move seamlessly through a (bigger) projection issue. No need to tell you which presenter came off looking like a pro.
3. Be yourself. As I said in my last blog, knowing who you are as a presenter is critical. The best presenters I saw clearly understood this. One of the best sessions I attended was given by Nancy Webb on the topic of page design—a subject near and dear to my heart. Nancy didn’t have splashy slides or charge into the crowd to motivate people. Because that’s clearly not who she is and her topic didn’t demand this of her. Instead, she got directly to her content and in her relaxed and thorough manner covered more ground than I thought possible in a 60 minute session. All without raising her voice or resorting to a single Death Star slide (guilty).
4. Break the rules. Why? Because there are none! Over the years, I have seen several “experts” set forth a number of rules when it comes to slides. You can only have X lines on a slide. No more than Y words on a slide. The font must be at least Z point. You must have an image on every slide. Poppycock. My only unbreakable rule is this: if you are going to use slides, make sure each one helps your audience understand your point. If it takes a sentence with more than six words, then so be it.

Know thyself.

As a presenter, it’s critical to know your strengths, weaknesses, and optimal style.

I’m always reminded of this when I present, because I generally fret over what I’m going to say. Probably too much, because I’ve found that if I think too much about what I’m going to say—scripting—I stumble. I come off stiff, I sometimes forget things, and I’m not in any way engaging. It is not optimal for me in any way, though it works very well for many (most?) people.

I’m best speaking conversationally as things occur to me, which is why scripting is a bad approach for me. My brain seems to operate at its best when I’m spontaneous. So my best presentations are less a presentation and more a conversation between me (internally and externally), the audience, and my content. No two presentations are ever quite the same (even if I use the same slides), but they are always more interesting for the audience.

So what does that mean for me?

It means I need to be every bit as prepared, perhaps more so. But rather than think in terms of scripting, I need to be deeply familiar with the content and my main points. This familiarity enables me to speak off the top of my head and really be at my best. It frees me up to be funny, pull ideas together as I go, and respond to questions I couldn’t possibly anticipate. It also prepares me for when things go off plan. If my laptop crashes or the discussion takes an extreme turn, I’m already thinking on my feet so I’m better able to maintain my composure and stay on point.

So what does that mean for you?

Know thyself. Only by knowing what works best for you will you know how to best prepare and present. If you need a more scripted approach, take the time to craft your message ahead of time and be familiar with your “marks.” If you are more effective without a slide presentation, then don’t be pressured into using one.

In short, don’t do what people expect, do what works best for you and your audience.

Being part of the solution…

When I speak about presentations, I often feel like I’m being too negative. And perhaps I am, but in fairness (to me) there are a great many awful presentations out there with awful decks. So it’s easy to point out what’s wrong. What’s more, the first step in fixing a problem is realizing you have one.

And when confronted with slides like this, can you blame me? I mean really…. can you blame me???

But any fool can burn down a house. Building one–one you’d want to live in–is another matter.

So for my presentation at BidCon this week, I will be focusing on solutions rather than problems. I call it, “Extreme Slide Makeovers,” which is both cheesy and deceiving. The cheese is obvious, but the surprising thing about creating good slides is that they are rarely extreme. In fact, simplicity is generally of great value because with simplicity comes clarity. Add in a dash of “attention to detail,” and you have better slides and generally better presentations.

But, “Modest Slide Makeovers to Clarify Your Points,” isn’t very catchy.

Whatever I call it, I will sprinkle my solutions into this blog when I return.

Less is the new more.

So I thought I would start my blog with my mantra, or at least one version. Less is more.

When it comes to presentations, nearly every slide I see has too much content. Too many words, too many images…just too much stuff. In fact, when I work with someone on a presentation, most often the biggest favor I do them is removing much of their content. When they ask me to add something, the question is always, “why?” If it doesn’t help convey their ideas, it doesn’t belong in their presentation.

That’s because less is the new more.

So embrace a world where presenters aren’t slaves to their PowerPoint templates. A world where words are carefully chosen and images are used to illustrate a point. Trust me… you’ll like this new world.