Second Thoughts On PowerPoint When It Comes To Presentation Skills

  I think I’ve finally come to a reckoning with PowerPoint. In blog entries past, I’ve vented my spleen on the way this technological crutch can dominate a room, inhibit discussion and have many in the audience looking at their watches, not always surreptitiously, while the slides move inexorably on, swamping us with statistics and bullet points beyond measure. And more often than not, the presentation starts with a technical glitch that interrupts whatever momentum the speaker had hoped to build in his or her introduction.

   Well, I’ve softened a bit on that, and it has to do with the best teacher of all – experience. Context, as we all know, is everything. A couple months ago, I spoke about marketing through the media at a conference of water utility engineers and bureaucrats (in these times, it seems that everyone on the public payroll is struggling to keep their share of the budgetary pie from shrinking). The crowd in the large ballroom numbered around 100. It was the first presentation of the day and they were juiced on coffee, pastries laden with thick white frosting and bonhomie.

  I was doing fine with my spiel about AIM (audience, intent, message); plain English; getting your point out through op-eds, letters to the editor and “media events;” befriending reporters; the brevity-clarity connection, etc., etc. But when I turned to my feelings about PowerPoint, I got stares in return, not the nodding heads I’d encountered in other settings.

  Before long one middle-aged woman raised her hand, stood up and told me point blank, “I think you’re wrong. I’ve seen PowerPoint work many times, with charts and graphs. It’s the best way to get information to an audience. I’m sure of it.”

  Oh-oh. That stopped me, particularly since no one rose to dispute the lady. All my clever denunciations of PowerPoint were falling flat. Not sure how to react, I acknowledged another hand in the air, and we moved on to a different topic.

  A week or two later, a friend who’d been general manager of an urban water district told me that engineers need charts and graphs, and nothing else will do. His point: Such detail is a common language in his line of work no less than our native tongue, and should be put to use in any gathering of professionals who deal in precise measurement and the investment of tax dollars in efficient and safe public projects.

  OK. Point taken. Feeling a bit fallible, I went back to my office wondering about other advice I offer in my presentation skills seminars: Instead of PowerPoint, why not use flip charts or whiteboards/blackboards to jot down your points and solicit ideas from your audience? In other words, be “interactive.”

  That’s when the notion of “scale” hit me. Attendees at my presentation skills and business writing seminars – and many videotaped media training sessions, for that matter – rarely exceed 25 in number. Flip charts work fine in that setting. But when you’re in a much larger room, PowerPoint really is appropriate. It’s far more visible, and no one in the back is straining to make out my handwriting on a chart. Either that, or you distribute 100 handouts, which has the added benefit of allowing your audience to relax without taking notes.

   One last thing. As a school board member, I’ve been to several briefings at a law firm that represents school districts. At each one, where the room holds around 25 or 30, the lawyers hand out booklets on school law and use PowerPoint for just one purpose – humorous quotes, which never fail to lighten the mood and bring the audience together. Not coincidentally, the law firm no longer uses PowerPoint when making presentations to any clients. “It just didn’t work,” a senior attorney told me.

Dave Griffiths, former national security correspondent for Business Week, does freelance writing and freelance editing, as well as media training and instruction in marketing messages, business writing, communications skills, presentation skills and business communication. His website is http://www.davegriffithscommunications.com

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