This year I have been generally good, with a few episodes of overindulgence all to report on the bad girl front. Whilst I know this is the season for giving, could you do some taking instead? If you take a few features in PowerPoint away, you will be giving back thousands, if not millions of hours of life to those who might otherwise suffer from Death by PowerPoint next year. I know they are big asks, but if anyone can do this, you can.
Please, please delete the Word Art function - it's about as clever as writing your name using an etch-a-sketch.
Ditto clipart - those bean men might have seemed clever in the days when an electronic typewriter was the height of fashion, but honestly, have you seen technology nowadays? Would the iPad have clipart?
Please delete the function that lets people print out their PowerPoint slides as handouts - it only panders to lazy presenters and bores us all with prose-ridden slides (when did the "visual" part of a presentation become a page of a book?)
Please also delete all the hideous PowerPoint design templates - which I think is pretty much all of them - a blank white screen is preferable in many cases, especially that one with the annoying ball that moves across the screen for every single bleeding slide.
Please also delete the following functions:
* adding sound effects - unless operated by a skilled sound effects guru
* animating words so that they spiral in front of our eyes - unless part of a Derren Brown hypnosis
* and finally bullet points - nuff said
Thank you very much in anticipation of a much more inspiring year of Presentations.
Yours humbly
Sparkie
I am sure I will think of a few more, but these would make me very happy in 2011.
Showing posts with label Death by PowerPoint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death by PowerPoint. Show all posts
Friday, 17 December 2010
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
Decluttering Your Materials
Continuing on the theme of paring down your presentations and workshops, so that you can focus on the NEED TO KNOW information, it is now time to reflect upon your materials...
We've all seen presentations containing tens or hundreds of similar slides with a handout the size of Encyclopaedia Britannica as we leave...
We've all laughed at Don McMillan's brilliant parody of cluttered PowerPoint slides on YouTube (and if you haven't, just follow this...http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM )
But in the spirit of decluttering, ask yourself these questions:
* What information do my listeners or learners really need to take away from this event? ... Can I fit it only a credit card as a takeaway?
* What slides or images do my learners really need to look at during my event?... Can I eliminate slides all together?
* For each piece of NEED TO KNOW information, what would be the simplest way to convey that to my learners?
Don't think that if you have shunned PowerPoint for flipcharts then you are off the hook. Last weekend I saw some dreadfully cluttered, overly colourful flipcharts where the presenter was trying too hard...
Let's say that you have presentation with a year's worth of figures (broken down monthly) that you need to present - perhaps your instinct is to choose a bar chart to display them. But it might only be a single month that counts - a peak in August, or tumble-weed blowing through the cash tills in February.
So do you display them all, then use your laser pointer to highlight the key month...
Or, do you have a single figure or percentage next to the name of the month on a slide and tell your audience why that figure is important?
Which is most likely to grab their attention? Which one tells the most powerful story?
Look at all the materials you use during your presentations and workshops and eliminate any that do not 100% enhance your learners' experience during your event.
Then you can use the fire test. When decluttering your house, you pick a single box of items you can save in a fire. So in a similar vein if you had only a handful of slides/ notes/ handouts which of these would you pick?
Now look at the ones you didn't pick - how could you either eliminate them, or make them great enough to be in your final selection?
Remember - what your audience takes away from a presentation is not determined by the pages in your handouts.....
Keep your message simple and strong and they will take it away in their minds and hearts instead.
We've all seen presentations containing tens or hundreds of similar slides with a handout the size of Encyclopaedia Britannica as we leave...
We've all laughed at Don McMillan's brilliant parody of cluttered PowerPoint slides on YouTube (and if you haven't, just follow this...http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM )
But in the spirit of decluttering, ask yourself these questions:
* What information do my listeners or learners really need to take away from this event? ... Can I fit it only a credit card as a takeaway?
* What slides or images do my learners really need to look at during my event?... Can I eliminate slides all together?
* For each piece of NEED TO KNOW information, what would be the simplest way to convey that to my learners?
Don't think that if you have shunned PowerPoint for flipcharts then you are off the hook. Last weekend I saw some dreadfully cluttered, overly colourful flipcharts where the presenter was trying too hard...
Let's say that you have presentation with a year's worth of figures (broken down monthly) that you need to present - perhaps your instinct is to choose a bar chart to display them. But it might only be a single month that counts - a peak in August, or tumble-weed blowing through the cash tills in February.
So do you display them all, then use your laser pointer to highlight the key month...
Or, do you have a single figure or percentage next to the name of the month on a slide and tell your audience why that figure is important?
Which is most likely to grab their attention? Which one tells the most powerful story?
Look at all the materials you use during your presentations and workshops and eliminate any that do not 100% enhance your learners' experience during your event.
Then you can use the fire test. When decluttering your house, you pick a single box of items you can save in a fire. So in a similar vein if you had only a handful of slides/ notes/ handouts which of these would you pick?
Now look at the ones you didn't pick - how could you either eliminate them, or make them great enough to be in your final selection?
Remember - what your audience takes away from a presentation is not determined by the pages in your handouts.....
Keep your message simple and strong and they will take it away in their minds and hearts instead.
Monday, 12 January 2009
Decluttering Your Message
The New Year is a great place to start putting some new habits into practice, so let us have a little clear out - or in some cases a really big clear out....
Let us start by decluttering your message.
Many of you will have heard of the 80/20 or Pareto rule...
Well the same applies in presentations and workshops: 80% of your impact will come from just 20% of your message,
So now is the time to declutter your message so that you get clear about the 80% that really makes a difference. Using the Pareto rule, mandatory training could be cut to 20% of the time it usually takes by cutting to the chase.
Using Post-It notes, write down all the key things you normally say in your presentation (that last a few minutes at least). Count the notes and work on getting down to one-fifth or 20% of that number.
There are two rules now for dealing with each note: Ditch It or Do It.
If you feel it falls into the 80%, ditch it.
If you feel it falls into the 20%, keep it and keep doing it.
This is a great method for getting clear about what you should be saying and what you pretty much can leave out with very little detriment to your listeners....
Now you have something sleek and elegant - and can design some interactive exercises that reiterate your core message, rather than adding in non-core fluff.
Keep an eye out for part 2, where I will talk about decluttering your materials.
Go the 2nd December 2008 to find out more about the NEED TO KNOW basis for content design.
Let us start by decluttering your message.
Many of you will have heard of the 80/20 or Pareto rule...
Well the same applies in presentations and workshops: 80% of your impact will come from just 20% of your message,
So now is the time to declutter your message so that you get clear about the 80% that really makes a difference. Using the Pareto rule, mandatory training could be cut to 20% of the time it usually takes by cutting to the chase.
Using Post-It notes, write down all the key things you normally say in your presentation (that last a few minutes at least). Count the notes and work on getting down to one-fifth or 20% of that number.
There are two rules now for dealing with each note: Ditch It or Do It.
If you feel it falls into the 80%, ditch it.
If you feel it falls into the 20%, keep it and keep doing it.
This is a great method for getting clear about what you should be saying and what you pretty much can leave out with very little detriment to your listeners....
Now you have something sleek and elegant - and can design some interactive exercises that reiterate your core message, rather than adding in non-core fluff.
Keep an eye out for part 2, where I will talk about decluttering your materials.
Go the 2nd December 2008 to find out more about the NEED TO KNOW basis for content design.
Friday, 21 November 2008
Presentation Visuals
This week I have been putting into practice and experimenting with new approaches to presentations and the design of PowerPoint (or Keynote) slides... Whilst I know that you can create workshops and presentations without ever touching a computer (and sometimes they are all the better for it), I know that PowerPoint is embedded within the cultural mindset.
So I feel that if you are going to use slides, they had better be brilliant and enhance what you are saying rather than repeating it (and hence distracting the audience's attention, see yesterday's blog)....
PowerPoint itself does not exactly help you to design great slides - it contains ghastly templates that encourage gruesome colour combinations that are way too busy, with a whole host of bullets or text over the top. Whatever you do, please leave all that alone.
The most important approach is one that says: less is more.
There are three key questions to ask yourself about each visual that you use:
1) Is it simple? Can anyone understand the point you are trying to make easily? That means that large amounts of text or data or points on graph or images are out. Think one key point per slide.
2) Is it beautiful? Does anyone want to look at ugly or cluttered images, clipart or fonts? Why not strive for a beautiful image that people will want to look at?
3) Does it add to what I am saying? The images should be a powerful way of enhancing what you are saying, focussing in on key messages that you want your audience to remember.
Step away from the PowerPoint templates and backgrounds.
Step away from bullet pointed lists.
Step away from clipart.
Embrace full slide photographs.
Create your own simple graphs and diagrams (or even better get a designer to do it).
So I feel that if you are going to use slides, they had better be brilliant and enhance what you are saying rather than repeating it (and hence distracting the audience's attention, see yesterday's blog)....
PowerPoint itself does not exactly help you to design great slides - it contains ghastly templates that encourage gruesome colour combinations that are way too busy, with a whole host of bullets or text over the top. Whatever you do, please leave all that alone.
The most important approach is one that says: less is more.
There are three key questions to ask yourself about each visual that you use:
1) Is it simple? Can anyone understand the point you are trying to make easily? That means that large amounts of text or data or points on graph or images are out. Think one key point per slide.
2) Is it beautiful? Does anyone want to look at ugly or cluttered images, clipart or fonts? Why not strive for a beautiful image that people will want to look at?
3) Does it add to what I am saying? The images should be a powerful way of enhancing what you are saying, focussing in on key messages that you want your audience to remember.
Step away from the PowerPoint templates and backgrounds.
Step away from bullet pointed lists.
Step away from clipart.
Embrace full slide photographs.
Create your own simple graphs and diagrams (or even better get a designer to do it).
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Making PowerPoint Powerful
Where are people going wrong when they design slides that result in the muttered phrase "Death by PowerPoint"?
There are two basic mistakes:
Mistake 1 - Designing Slides as Handouts.If you have enough information on your slides for them to work as handouts, then your slides are wrong. Why not simply print out the slides and circulate them, instead of becoming the voice in your audience's heads as they read them?
These slides are Death by text.
Mistake 2 - Designing Slides as an Autocue.The next mistake, is to design your slides to help remind you what to say. Your audience will still read your slides, as you fill in some extra gaps.
These slides are Death by Bullet Point.
Research has proven that it is more difficult to process information if it is coming at your both verbally and in written form at the same time.
So your audience should not be both listening to you and either reading handouts or reading slides. If they are, then they will be doing neither well.
The point of slides is that they provide a strong visual backdrop to complement your words, with the audience focussing on listening to you, your passion and knowledge. They are the stills and you are the narrator.
To avoid these mistakes, you must design your slides, your prompts and your handouts as separate items. You can use PowerPoint for all three, but they are likely to be separate files not the same one.
Next time you are designing a presentation, see if you can think of the slides as a visually exciting film, which you are narrating.
There are two basic mistakes:
Mistake 1 - Designing Slides as Handouts.If you have enough information on your slides for them to work as handouts, then your slides are wrong. Why not simply print out the slides and circulate them, instead of becoming the voice in your audience's heads as they read them?
These slides are Death by text.
Mistake 2 - Designing Slides as an Autocue.The next mistake, is to design your slides to help remind you what to say. Your audience will still read your slides, as you fill in some extra gaps.
These slides are Death by Bullet Point.
Research has proven that it is more difficult to process information if it is coming at your both verbally and in written form at the same time.
So your audience should not be both listening to you and either reading handouts or reading slides. If they are, then they will be doing neither well.
The point of slides is that they provide a strong visual backdrop to complement your words, with the audience focussing on listening to you, your passion and knowledge. They are the stills and you are the narrator.
To avoid these mistakes, you must design your slides, your prompts and your handouts as separate items. You can use PowerPoint for all three, but they are likely to be separate files not the same one.
Next time you are designing a presentation, see if you can think of the slides as a visually exciting film, which you are narrating.
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Beyond PowerPoint
Today I have been pulling together some tips on Beyond PowerPoint. In mentioning creative training and the need to avoid PowerPoint, one person reacted by saying "I'd be interested to see what she does instead"....
Are we really so wedded to this software that we cannot think of anything else?
Do we really believe that the best way for people to learn is to absorb facts and information through their eyeballs?
So here are my suggestions when it comes to taking your training Beyond PowerPoint:
* firstly aim only to cover NEED TO KNOW information. Think about this in advance and you may find that your event is substantially reduced. The best trainers are ruthless editors.
* next get your learners to tell you what they need to know about the topic. Use a cocktail party style icebreaker where everyone stands up and when they meet someone else, shares one thing they would like to learn from the session. Combining all these at the end on a flipchart gives you a great focus for your session.
* next find out what people already know about your topic. So ask small group of around 3-4 people to brainstorm things that they know (perhaps about specific elements) and to write these on a flipchart. You may be amazed at how much they already know - one person within a group might know quite alot and they will have already taught their colleagues, and by asking each group to summarise their flipchart, they teach the rest of the class. Anything that is inaccurate or wrong, please correct at this point and add key missing items to.
Now you have a clear focus for your event and you haven't even touched your projector.
When it comes to covering the information that bridges the gap between you have a number of alternative options:
* Card Exercises. Here small groups (2-3) are given a set of cards with words or phrases on them. They then have to either put them into some sort of order (first to last, most important to least important) or categorise them (true/ false). Even with little prior knowledge of a topic, people will start thinking, discussing and will do most of this without help. You can then coach them on a few cards they are unsure about. This is a powerful way to interact with information and works for a wide range of topics.
* Case Studies. You provide some scenario or case study for small groups to discuss. If need be, you can also give them some summary information, books or reference material, where they can search for further help. This helps people get to grips with what they already know or don't know and you can provide the information or skills they need to improve dramatically.
* Stories. Find someone who has a powerful, emotive story relating to your topic. If you cannot actually invite them to the session, then video their story. Imagine the power of someone who has your widget keeping them alive in their artificial heart to inspire your technicians to tighter manufacturing tolerances. Imagine the impact from a mother who has lost a child to gang violence.
* Quizzes. By setting simple or complex questions, you can test and evaluate what people know. By providing clear answers, you can teach them a whole range of vital information. Quizzes are very flexible and you can ask questions aloud (preferred as you can alter the questions to suit your learners on the day), and then ask teams to hold up cards with their answer, move to somewhere in the room based on a multiple choice answer (a, b or c for instance) or write their answer down.
Here I have shared just a few techniques to help you go Beyond PowerPoint. I hope you are inspired the next time you are designing some training to step back from the keyboard, and write some cards, or a quiz and a case study, to inspire your learners in new ways.
Are we really so wedded to this software that we cannot think of anything else?
Do we really believe that the best way for people to learn is to absorb facts and information through their eyeballs?
So here are my suggestions when it comes to taking your training Beyond PowerPoint:
* firstly aim only to cover NEED TO KNOW information. Think about this in advance and you may find that your event is substantially reduced. The best trainers are ruthless editors.
* next get your learners to tell you what they need to know about the topic. Use a cocktail party style icebreaker where everyone stands up and when they meet someone else, shares one thing they would like to learn from the session. Combining all these at the end on a flipchart gives you a great focus for your session.
* next find out what people already know about your topic. So ask small group of around 3-4 people to brainstorm things that they know (perhaps about specific elements) and to write these on a flipchart. You may be amazed at how much they already know - one person within a group might know quite alot and they will have already taught their colleagues, and by asking each group to summarise their flipchart, they teach the rest of the class. Anything that is inaccurate or wrong, please correct at this point and add key missing items to.
Now you have a clear focus for your event and you haven't even touched your projector.
When it comes to covering the information that bridges the gap between you have a number of alternative options:
* Card Exercises. Here small groups (2-3) are given a set of cards with words or phrases on them. They then have to either put them into some sort of order (first to last, most important to least important) or categorise them (true/ false). Even with little prior knowledge of a topic, people will start thinking, discussing and will do most of this without help. You can then coach them on a few cards they are unsure about. This is a powerful way to interact with information and works for a wide range of topics.
* Case Studies. You provide some scenario or case study for small groups to discuss. If need be, you can also give them some summary information, books or reference material, where they can search for further help. This helps people get to grips with what they already know or don't know and you can provide the information or skills they need to improve dramatically.
* Stories. Find someone who has a powerful, emotive story relating to your topic. If you cannot actually invite them to the session, then video their story. Imagine the power of someone who has your widget keeping them alive in their artificial heart to inspire your technicians to tighter manufacturing tolerances. Imagine the impact from a mother who has lost a child to gang violence.
* Quizzes. By setting simple or complex questions, you can test and evaluate what people know. By providing clear answers, you can teach them a whole range of vital information. Quizzes are very flexible and you can ask questions aloud (preferred as you can alter the questions to suit your learners on the day), and then ask teams to hold up cards with their answer, move to somewhere in the room based on a multiple choice answer (a, b or c for instance) or write their answer down.
Here I have shared just a few techniques to help you go Beyond PowerPoint. I hope you are inspired the next time you are designing some training to step back from the keyboard, and write some cards, or a quiz and a case study, to inspire your learners in new ways.
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