Virtual Identity Dialogue

I had this post on my mind for a while so I thought I'd finally write my rant before the year ran out.

It appears there is a strong and growing backlash to PowerPoint aka PPT (even at OOW we had the "No Slide Zone"). Which I think is focusing on the wrong thing. To borrow an analogy I read "Blaming PPT for bad presentations is like blaming ball-point pens for bad penmanship".

Basically - the tool isn't the problem though I'll admit it does make it easy to do presentations badly.

First some presentation background. Before We had PPT - when you learned to give a speech (my dad is a speech teacher & I took many speech classes throughout school) was to write down your key points (bullet points :)) on 3x5 cards.

And even in those ancient days - hard to imagine BUT some people presented well and many did not.

Enter PPT - which because it seemed to make 3x5 cards now viewable by everyone in the room - somehow we decided that was a good thing.

Which of course leads to "Death by PowerPoint". I have also experienced "Death by Boring Demo". Though each are caused by the same basic problems.

Which is actually sad because PPT (and it's copy-cat cousins) probably does more to actually enable good presentations than practically any other tool.

That is if you know what to do.

My advice largely based on "Beyond Bullet Points" and "Presenting to Win" is this:
* Organize your thoughts into 5, 15 and 45 minute presentations
* On slides - use graphics to communicate visually. Leave any verbal notes in the Speaker Notes field
* Practice your presentation

And if you are going to give a demo - in particular at a conference booth - keep it snappy & short. While we like to think it's "Show & Tell" - in reality it should be more "Show and Listen". Both sides will learn more from conversation framed in the context of the demo than watching the canned presentation anyway.

Finally here are 3 presentations that I think really show what you can do:

I've linked to places that will let you purchase the video. Trying to find them online elsewhere is left as an exercise for the reader.

* Robert Wuhl's "Assume the Position" - Very entertaining trip through pop-culture history going back even into the 1700s.
* Thomas P. Barnett's "Pentagon's New Map" - Besides presenting a new way to look at the world  - this is the presentation that totally changed my view of what a PPT presentation could be.
* Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth - I don't agree with the movie (though for much more complex reasons that don't belong in this blog) but I have to admit - he can give one heck of a PPT. After all it won him an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize.