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A powerful tool that
it is often misused in presentations is power point or key note for those
macintosh watchers.
Powerpoint allows us to get out points across very powerfully or to send their
audience into a deep
deep trance.
Now we've all experienced death by powerpoint, the room slightly dimmed and
then somebody turns their head to a presentation screen and reads,
dot point, after dot point, after dot point and sometimes really,
really,
really small font. All they show is a spreadsheet that is huge where we can't really
understand anything.
Please... please don't do that to your audience
If I had a mission today, it is to say to you
stop committing death by powerpoint. So how do you do that?
See power point as an adjunct to your presentation.
People have come to listen to you, if you don't add any value, don't turn
up, just send them the notes.
But if you add value to the presentation then that's what you should
do and then the powerpoint
or the key note adds value to you.
So how do you create this? Use pictures. A picture
says a thousand words.
So don't use dot points, pick a picture or image that gets your point across then
you only need one title or maybe one point or quote
which backs up your presentation and let's know where you are in the flow
and it adds.
Otherwise, your audience are not listening to you, they are reading the screen.
If you do have a spreadsheet or you do have some information that they need to read,
then print that out as a handout
and pass it out to them either in the beginning or the end of your
presentation but let them now it's available.
So if you do run on power point, here's a couple of just technical things to do.
For the header,
try and not go smaller than 40 point.
For the dot points, please, no more than five on a slide and don't drop
the size down below 28 points which is pretty big, which is going to limit how many you do.
Split the points between two presentations.
Don't overdo the animations just because the animations are there
doesn't mean you have to use them.
Remember, just a soft
transition from one presentation slide to the next and if you want to add
something with a custom animation, just one
soft appear or white will do the job.
Minimize the text,
don't kill people,
inspire people.