ഠnotice about it? · 2014-10-27 · Among the folks I’ve helped create impactful presentations for are C-leve\൬ executives and business leaders in the technology industry. 8
Hi, My name is Mark Leutwyler. And before we begin, I just want you to take note of how I start my presentation. What do you notice about it?
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I am a sea aggie, which means I went to Texas A&M Galveston
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Where I studied Marine Biology. And a lot of good it did me too! To this day I can identify any number of species of fish and invertebrates that live absolutely no where near where I do.
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I am now a creative design project manager
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I help to provide sales with the tools they need
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To have valuable conversations with decision makers in both the Public and Large Enterprise sectors
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Steve Felice
Steve Schuckenbrock Ron Garriques
Mark Jarvis Presidents,
VPs, and CMO
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I’ve also created a lot of presentations in my day. Among the folks I’ve helped create impactful presentations for are C-level executives and business leaders in the technology industry
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I previously I worked in San Antonio
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Where I was director of Marketing for a small IT Security firm called Digital Defense
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And prior to that I was director of marketing and sales for Garrison Technologies, another IT security firm based in
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Austin TX, which is where I still live today
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With my wife, a four year old son and 10 month old baby girl.
Focusing on the Takeaway
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Powerful Presentations for Public Speakers
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So, now I am all out of slides! Just kidding, but I do want you to make note of the pacing I used in that opening section because we’ll be talking more about pacing later in the presentation. Also, the minimal use of text on slides is known as the Lessig method. IT was developed by a Stanford Law Professor (not a graphic designer!) as a way to get his audience to focus on what he was saying, rather than what was written on the slides. Today we are also going to talk about how to Focus on the Take-away through cognitive guidance. Whew!
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Does everyone remember what one of these is? This is a slide projector. The only reason I am showing this is to remind everyone of the roots of the presentation medium. We’ve come a long way, but even though technology allows to do a lot more with our presentations, many of the concepts of a good presentation still apply.
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So today I will discussing making PPTs for spoken presentations. This isn’t a technical session where we go into how to fit your entire spreadsheet onto one slide and have it still look good. In fact, this is just the opposite. In this session, I’ll be giving you all some tips on how to effectively communicate a lasting message to your audience through simplifying your message and focusing on the main points you want the audience to walk away with. As educational psychologist Richard E. Mayer points out, PPT presenting can be one of two worldviews. The dominant worldview is information presentation.
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Information presentation focuses only on the display of data and has little or no regard for the audience’s ability to process and retain the information presented. From this perspective, understanding is simply not a criterion for success: you drive the data across the slides, and you’re done. This is a perfect example of that information presentation ideology.. This presenter is saying to the audience “here’s the data, now its your responsibility to figure it all out and remember it. Not only that, but this slide will take at least 5-10 minutes to explain. So, we stare at this one slide for that entire time.
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The result is this. Sleepy, bored, checking their blackberry, checking their watch.
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Case Study: ACME IT
•“From the product catalog to the customer profile to the shopping cart to customer support after the sale, SQL Server is one of the components that makes the online retail site happen on a day in, day out basis.”
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•“Using the same hardware platforms as deployed in the field we were able to verify that a switch to SQL Server 2005 would deliver a performance enhancement of about 1.4- times over that found with SQL Server 2000.” •- John Hancock, IT Strategist, Global Data Services
ACME
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Here’s another example that is not quite as hectic and is actually probably a pretty typical PowerPoint slide for most folks. It has the bullet points and a quote to illustrate the point. To the presenter’s credit, I’m sure he or she was talking through all of the information on the page. But, the audience’s attention is divided between what the presenter is saying and trying to read all of the text on the slide. The result is that the audience isn’t able to do either very well. Their divided attention, that conflict between spoken word and written text, obscures your message and impairs the audience’s ability to absorb the information.
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Death by PowerPoint! We’ve all sat through presentations like that. And once the lights come up and the audience starts to come back to life, you ask hopefully, “Any questions?!”
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And this is the response. Head scratching, at least from those folks who are still awake.
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But wait a second, PowerPoint is essentially just slides with bullets on them. It’s limited. There is only so much you can do with it.
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But wait a second, PowerPoint is essentially just slides with bullets on them. It’s limited. ��What else am I supposed to do? Here’s an example of what you can do with PowerPoint, if you have enough time.
Yeah, right
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Luckily we don’t have to create flashy presentations with cognitive guidance. In fact, those slides were just for fun. Too much animation actually distracts from the message you are trying to communicate.
Cognitive Guidance begins by making it easy for the audience to follow along
focused
simplified
illustrated
explained
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Luckily we don’t have to create flashy presentations with cognitive guidance. Let’s begin by making it easy for the audience to understand our message. This method of presenting information focuses on how people process information and help present the information so they can easily absorb it. This second presentation ideology produces radically different results. The message is broken down into simpler chunks, illustrated, and explained in a way that supports short-term and long-term memory. The cognitive approach provides real understanding that someone can apply in the workplace.” Cliff Atkinson, Author Beyond Bullet Points
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Focus
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Let’s start by talking about the importance of a strong focus on a few important messages you want the audience to walk away with
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You’re audience is probably only going to remember one thing from your presentation
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According to Olivia Mitchell, the audience will likely only remember one thing from your presentation. And not even that if not presented correctly.
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Use “The rule of three”
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That’s pretty dismal. 1 thing? Ouch! I think a more realistic number is three. There’s a reason so many things come in threes, especially things we are supposed to remember. Audiences tend to start losing focus and memory after any more than three points. Before working on your presentation, decide on three takeaways or less, then be sure to repeat them throughout the delivery to lock-in their importance.
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“Simplicity is the nature of great souls” -Unknown
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So, keep your message simple and stay focused on what you REALLY want to communicate.
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Removing unnecessary text from the slide improves your audience’s ability…
to retain information by 28%
to apply information by 79%
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According to Cliff Atkinson, well respected business consultant and author of several books on PowerPoint (Beyond Bullet Points), removing unnecessary text from a slide improves the audience’s (click) ability to retain information by 28% and their ability to (click) apply information by 79%. So, if there is a lot of technical data you need to communicate, either just provide a quick summary, spread it over several slides or leave them a white paper or brochure to read after the presentation. *Make sure not to give them the handout until after the presentation is over or they will just flip through the handout and not pay attention to what you are saying.
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Give each concept its own slide
Cliff Atkinson, respected business consultant and Author of Beyond Bullet Points, believes that each bullet point should have its own slide.
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That’s why Cliff Atkinson believes that each bullet point should have its own slide. When combined with the idea of keeping only critical text on the slide, this forces us to distill the information down to its basic components. Chances are you’ve already done this, whether you knew it or not. If you have bullet points on your slides, you’ve already begun the process of breaking the information down into manageable bits. Also, make sure you use complete sentences as your slide titles. It helps for a more complete and memorable thought.
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“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo da Vinci
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Even complex ideas and concepts are comprised of many smaller, simpler concepts. Break them down for the audience.
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One bite?
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Think about a hamburger. Do you eat the whole thing in one big bite? No! Just like you eat a hamburger bite by bite, concepts are more easily digested by our brains when taken bit by bit. The more complex a concept, the more it needs to be taken one bite at a time.
It all began with one simple idea and 23 years later… – The same simple idea powers the World’s data
centers. – It powers virtually every government on Earth,
including National, State, and Local Governments – It powers millions of small businesses, from mom and
pop shops to small start ups – and people at home and school everywhere
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Our history in a nutshell
ACME
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Lets take a look at an example. This slide tells its story, but could it be better? Is there anything particularly exciting about this slide?��This tells the story of a fictional company, Acme.
one simple idea..
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Let’s look at some examples of this idea applied. These slides really illustrate the point of spreading messages across several slides. Also, notice how the images are just as important as the text. It all started as one simple idea…
years later
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the same simple idea powers the world’s data centers..
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.. it powers virtually every government on earth
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… and millions of small businesses
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.. and people at home and school everywhere
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I like this image because it portrays such enthusiasm. Whatever you say while this image is on the screen is going to sound cool.
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ACME
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Images are the language of memory
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Images help the mind relax and absorb information quickly. That’s because the mind isn’t struggling to decipher complex textual communications, it can open up to your message more easily. One popular method of remembering people’s names is to convert their name into an image or by correlating their name to an image of their face. Images are the language of memory and can have a lot of information attached to them. Communication is based on attaching meaning to symbols and sharing symbols which have a broadly understood meaning. If you can find images that correlate to your message, it helps to drive your message home. Recently a S Korean presidential candidate released a perfume called “Great Korea” into the air at each of their campaign rallies. Then when it came time to vote, they released the same scent outside of the polling places. That candidate won.
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I’m sure everyone has a smell that transports them immediately back to a place and time, like grandmother’s cookies for example. That’s because those memories are “attached” to that smell. Images work very similarly.
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l isten deliver
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We’ve talked about how each slide should be able to stand alone as an explanation of a single concept or idea. They say an image is worth a thousand words. This slide certainly tells its story, even taken out of context, and it implies even more than it is saying. It also implies trust and relationships. It does all of this with two words.
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Explain your ideas verbally
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So, as a speaker, you want to keep the audience focused on you and you should also focus on the audience. If they are nodding off, or have a puzzled look on their face, stop and ask if there are questions. The more interactive you are, the more engaged your audience will be. Verbally explain your ideas so that the presentation is augmenting what YOU are talking about. Don’t rely on the presentation to tell the whole story for you, presenting shouldn’t be like reading a book to the audience.
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Keep the pace up, keep them visually stimulated and engaged
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Today’s audiences have shorter attention spans than in the past. They want the meat of the matter, and they want it quick. They’ll become bored when a single slide is displayed for too long. Some edits in today’s media last less than 3 seconds. Put just the main message on the screen, and break up your point over several slides
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What else can we do to improve our presentations?
1. Keep the pace up 2. Get their attention early 3. Write headlines that are complete sentences 4. Tell a story
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So, “What’s the secret of a successful PowerPoint presentation?” Let’s start with the basics.
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If you think about it, each slide is like a frame of a story board. Except with PowerPoint, you get to be the director! You may not want to have tentacled monsters in your presentation, unless they are just figurative monsters, but you get the point.
Telling your story Begin by creating a very basic script, or create a mind map like this one
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Luckily we don’t have to re-invent the wheel here. If you want to make a “show-biz” quality presentation, let’s take some hints from the masters in Hollywood. They’ve been telling stories in a visual format for over 100 years. Start by creating a basic script, so just brainstorm the topics and ideas you want to cover. Even more importantly, as you brainstorm, remember that your audience is going to forget most of what you’ve said, so think about what you most want the audience to walk away with. Maybe even highlight or draw a star by the important topics. This will help you later to distill the information down to your main points.
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Begin to organize your topics (Hint: outlines help!)
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Chronological, cause & effect, topical, spatial. Keep thinking about the message and the story you want to tell about it. If you start with Word documents and use bullets, you can take those bullets and import them right into PowerPoint. In the word doc, you can write as much as you want
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Start creating slides! Just include one main thought per slide to start.
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Now take that outline and start breaking down each major bullet into a different slide. If you have lots of text, or several important points to make, just spread those points out across several slides. You can use the notes section for large amounts of text. Just remember, the presenter may not be able to read through a large amount of text, so keep a keen editors eye.
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1. G et their attention early
2. Keep it simple, take things one step at a time
3. Illustrate your ideas with compelling imagery
4. Tell a story, use complete sentences
5. Present facts to back up your assertions, but don’t get bogged down in the details
6. Avoid C lip Art and distracting animations
7. O nly present information when ready to talk about it
8. Find consistent fonts and color schemes* to use
*See Resources and Inspiration slide for more on this
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So, “What’s the secret of a successful PowerPoint presentation?” Let’s start with the basics.
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So, free yourself from the convention of bullet laden “eye charts” as slides. hopefully now you will view PPT as an opportunity to have a bit of fun and express your creativity
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Maybe you can even reach a place of peace with your presentations.
• Nancy Duarte – Industry expert, recommended – http:/ /blog.duarte.com/ (blog on presentation design) – slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations (book)
