I have been in PowerPoint hell for the last few days. By that I mean that I was attending a conference where every presenter used PowerPoint for their presentations and most of them used it poorly; really, really poorly. I am sure you know what I mean.
The main crime—too many slides crammed with text that the presenter then proceeds to read through. Some presenters went so far as to explain that their presentation was really long and since they only had 30 minutes they had to go through it very fast. Why did they prepare a longer presentation knowing they could not do it justice?
I also fail to understand why a presenter would use a graph on a slide and then proceed to tell the audience, “I know you can’t see the graph clearly but this is what it says”. Really? That’s the best you could for us? Then why use it on the slide? If the data was that important then find another way to present it. If you can't do that, then leave it out.
This morning as I was surfing one of my favorite websites, Fast Company, I came across a timely post, “Are Your Presentations Powerful or Pathetic? 4 Persuasive Presentation Preparation Tips”.
The post by Lisa Nirell, also includes a video interview with Guy Kawaski, who is well known as a “global expert on building customer evangelists”.
In the interview Guy gives a good example of his key presentation tips, “tell a story and follow the 10/20/30 rule”.
I encourage you to read the article and watch the video and save us all from PowerPoint Hell.
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