What not to do with your PowerPoint
the team at m62 make some good points …
Presenters are beginning to realise that their presentations don’t have to be boring, and it is inspiring to see that people are moving away from bullet points to more engaging visuals. Audiences are now demanding more, and presenters are rising to meet this.
Unfortunately however, a large number of presenters feel that the small improvements they have made to their slides are sufficient, failing to realise that there is so much more that can be done with them. And so we see the same mistakes made time and time again – without the presenters realising that they’re doing wrong.
and the article goes on to list 7 major mistakes made in powerpoint presentations and how to avoid them.
Good thoughts in the article and while I agree with all 7 points – the main PowerPoint Pitfall is left out: thinking PowerPoint IS the presentation.
PowerPoint is a visual aid meant to supplement the talk. It is the dressing, not the salad.
The message of the talk still needs to be the focus, the personality of the speaker and delivery style next, then PowerPoint comes in to assist.
Thanks!
What a great way of putting it, Ethan, thanks!
I think you hit all the important potins. Great post. The only other thing I do is try to test out the microphone. I try to sneak in the room during a break or lunch (thinking conference here) to do this. I’m not sure why, but the volume of my first words always surprise me, and I like a sense of how loud or soft the volume is set before I begin. It is a little thing but something that makes me feel more comfortable if I can do it beforehand. Oh what about loading your USB to make sure it works? Nothing worse that presenters fumbling with hardware and trying to hide their panic when there is a lag or problem with loading it. I laughed out loud at your comment about practicing a minimum of three times. I do it three times the morning of the talk. I couldn’t even count the number of times I practice overall! I look forward to your post about the slides because I have a laundry list of pet peeves about PowerPoint slides.