Improving Your Presentations in 2009

THERE'S AN INTERESTING TOPIC being bandied about by some of us presentation blogger types that you might find valuable. The theme is "What would you like to see in PowerPoint slide design in 2009?" The idea was sparked by Olivia Mitchell (I'll give you the back story in a minute) and I couldn't resist the invitation to join the discussion.
        My short answer is . . . "Nothing." 
        PowerPoint slides have been sliced and diced, filled and drained, complexified and simplified in virtually every way imaginable. Sure, most of the 30 million presentations given every day are of the classic bullet-mania type, so they could definitely use a makeover. And Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte (among others) have given us outstanding examples of how to improve the effectiveness of our visual communications.
        So we've probably covered the range of PowerPoint slides from a design standpoint — unless we all want to follow Tom Peters's lead and make flaming red the new "white" for backgrounds (check out this example) (and then never, ever do it).

Let me then revise Olivia's charter (as did others) to focus on what I'd like to see in PowerPoint, or even just what I'd like to see in presentations in 2009. And, rather than give you a long list, I'll give you just one thing — one thing that, if you do it, will change both how you interact with your audience and, very likely, what your slides look like.

        Make your first slide a "goal" slide, not a title slide.

That's it. Start off with what your audience is trying to achieve or what you want them to understand. That will give them a powerful and (hopefully) succinct way to think about what is to come. And if that goal is sufficiently compelling, they'll be involved with you the whole way.
        In fact, they'll stay engaged whether your slides look like something from Duarte Design or from Bubba's Bullets-R-Us. Give them a reason to care — right from the start — about what you're going to cover, and PowerPoint doesn't really matter. You could bombard them (as did Tom Peters in this example) or you could leave PowerPoint completely out of the picture (as Edward Tufte did in the story at the end of this, my favorite YouBlog post).
        So that's what I'd like to see from PowerPoint users in 2009: a stronger connection with their audiences. Everyone wins in that scenario.

<THE BACKSTORY>

Olivia got the idea for this group writing project after she read a provocative post by Laura Bergells, entitled "PowerPoint, Propaganda, and You". I get what sparked Olivia's theme, but I'm of a different mind than Laura on where we are or where we're headed with the current direction of slide design. Laura seems to find simple graphics manipulative, and maybe she's seen some presentations that left her feeling that way.
        But I don't think the vast majority of PowerPoint users have the skills or insights to be consciously manipulative. When you consider that a LOT of engineers and highly-paid management consultants use PowerPoint as their word processing tool, you know that we're not close to eliminating the bullet-mania approach. In fact, of the 30 million presentations given every day, I'd guess that at least 90% are bullet-fests. Of those other 10%, which tend toward the Presentation Zen style, only a fraction are likely in the truly manipulative style. And the people who are skilled manipulators don't need PowerPoint to weave their tales. Ever walked onto a car lot? (Here's a story about that.)
        Anything that improves communication between people is a winner in my book, so I have no problem with the simpler, more refined approach that Garr and Nancy and others espouse. If, however, you feel someone is manipulating you, call them on it — but don't think that it's a movement.
        As for the group writing project, Olivia has rolled out her initial recap. You can find it here. 40 people contributed to this and there's an interesting mix of ideas. Happy reading :-)

Comments

[TD]

I like your idea about starting with a goal instead of a "Title Page." I think that can help the majority of those presentations at least to some degree...I think you're right that most of the presentations are still bullet-point driven, but if they adopt this idea it would be a starting point. Great suggestion!

Travis Dahle

[John Windsor]

Thanks for your comments, Travis, and I appreciate your spreading this idea. Meanwhile, welcome to the blogosphere! You've got a great start on it.

Best regards,
John