|
PowerPoint? Absolutely! - October 2012 I couldn't disagree more. To be sure, one can do some serious damage with PowerPoint. I don't know if Peter Norvig authored the satirical "The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation," but it's pure genius ... and not nearly as bad as many non-satirical uses of the tool. But blaming PowerPoint for a poor presentation is like blaming a hammer for a poor house. Ideally, the purpose of a presentation is for the audience to learn. PowerPoint (or Keynote, or [insert favorite presentation authoring tool here]) can be a powerful and positive tool to help with this learning. I'll focus here on "supported presentations" rather than presentations designed to serve as standalone reports. Before I dive in, it's worth dissecting the phrase "supported presentations," which has things exactly backwards. The presentation should support the presenter--not the other way around. So, what principles of presentation design--implementable via PowerPoint--best support the presenter and therefore the desired learning? I've long thought that the learning that sticks with me best is that which I've acquired via "narrative." A caveat--I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to evidence supporting this observation. A quick web search suggests that there's a lot out there potentially informing this notion--two interesting starting points are here (Tenkasi et.al.) and here (additional references welcome!). If I'm on the right track, then, narrative--that is, the telling of a story--can be a powerful presentation approach. As an aside, there are countless resources focused on improving presentations. One of my favorites is Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen. My primary focus here is on a single presentation attribute, although that won't stop me from sharing several others. I'll distill the ideas above into two foundational characteristics of good presentations (as opposed to those of good presenters and the value of charisma, practice, and so on--topics for another time). I. The presentation should support, and not distract the audience from, the presenter. II. The audience benefits from the presentation following a narrative structure. Taken together, these characteristics inform what I contend is BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT--and by far the most often ignored--ATTRIBUTE OF A PRESENTATION: the "build." We've all seen countless examples of what I'll call the "anti-build"--a long list of text-dense bullet points displayed all at once. As an audience member, what's your immediate response? My bet is that it's more often than not one of two. One, you read ahead. That's all well and good as far as it goes, but if that's your path, why have a presenter at all (and what did he/she just say, anyway)? Two, you tune out--who has the energy to read all of that? I'll further bet that every presenter would like to avoid both of these responses ... and they can do so via builds. In presentation terms, a "build" is the iterative "revealing" of points one by one. In PowerPoint, builds are implemented by what Microsoft calls "animation." How you access animation varies from version to version--in PowerPoint 2010, there's a top level menu item that gives you access. Builds aren't inherently good, however (just as PowerPoint isn't inherently evil).
|