Some Comments on PowerPoint
It often makes me laugh to see how officiously books on presentation skills tip-toe around the issue of visual aids, and in particular the use of “electronic media”. They talk of "new presentation methodologies" and "sophisticated computerised approaches". These are embodied by "complex presentation software" that enable presenters to produce "computer-generated electronic aids". They are, of course, talking about PowerPoint.
Maybe they don't wish to mention the "P" word directly (all of the above terms are quoted from books on my desk by the way), and I think many of them are genuinely intimidated by the new technology, but we are all too familiar with PowerPoint not to know what they are talking about. I thought it might be useful to clear some of the fog and state as concisely as I can the case for and against this "computer-based display" software.
The Downside - The ubiquitous PowerPoint bullet presentation fails in two ways: it distracts the audience and it distracts the speaker.
The audience cannot read and listen at the same time. And if there is an engaging speaker talking with interest about something that is of use to the them, then why would they want to read at all. Written material has its strengths and its uses (it is permanent and can be very detailed) but these are not harnessed by fleeting bullet points. The audience gets next to nothing out of this and it breaks the essential contact between speaker and listener.
Worse, however, is the distraction is becomes to the speaker. And I am not just talking about the frequent looking at the screen or having to keep clicking the show forward. More damaging is the way it destroys the structure of the presentation. Rather than being an engaging story with three or four key ideas, each one fleshed out with examples, graphs, stories, demonstrations or analogies; it becomes, instead, an endless procession of propositions, one after another, and the presenter's delivery becomes flat and tedious.
Apart from anything else, there is no justification for this kind of delivery. A presentation is a verbal communication between an individual and a group. The set of speaking skills we have been perfecting for years can thus be employed, with a bit of practice, to great effect. Why this should play second fiddle to the same words, plainly written in point form, on the screen is beyond me. There is no logic behind this. Showing pictures, diagrams and occasionally lists and headings: yes, but paraphrasing everything you say in bullet points? Why? Why on earth?
This kind of presentation is usually indicative of bad planning. People start writing out bullets and putting together slides in an effort to summarise a body of material that they wish to talk about. This is wrong. What you should do is:
1. Decide what you want the audience to achieve,
2. Decide what ideas or arguments you wish to put forward to realise this,
3. Decide (imaginatively) how you will make each point.
If you plan it this way, you will find there is little room for the kind of bullet points we have been discussing.
The Advantages - I sometimes hear of trainers who say they have no time for PowerPoint and who suggest not using it at all. This is an over-reaction. PowerPoint is not the problem, it is the wrong-headed use of PowerPoint that is the problem. If you think back twenty years, the only way to show pictures in a presentation was to take photographs, develop them, crop them and then send them to a printer to make into slides. These would then be loaded into a slide projector and the presenter would click the slide carousel forward, explaining each one in turn. Text was a problem; labels and arrows were a problem; diagrams were a problem. And then there were all of the perils of jamming projectors as well as upside down and back to front images, not to mention the almost complete lack of flexibility, a change in order of the slides being about the best you could manage.
Now you can scan the pictures into your computer or load them directly from a digital camera. You can use the computer to alter, add items to, or animate these images. You can also use graphical tools to create images and diagrams of your own. These can all be put together and sequenced in a presentation and, with the aid of a data projector, projected on to a screen for all to see. This, in fairness, is a big plus.
You can tailor material for a particular presentation (although many people don't expend the mental effort necessary to do this properly - planning again) in a very short time. You can build images up in steps and make items appear and disappear so as to achieve good directed focusing for the audience. The presentation material is then portable and easily assimilated into more detailed written documents. Powerpoint makes the rendering of visual material so easy, that it would be foolish not to avail of it when making a presentation.
In summary, PowerPoint, like so many things thrown up by the digital revolution, is a useful tool and I use it myself all the time. However, you must ask the question "what am I trying to achieve?" first. Then, and only then, turn to PowerPoint to help you to do this and only if you actually need to.
.
Maybe they don't wish to mention the "P" word directly (all of the above terms are quoted from books on my desk by the way), and I think many of them are genuinely intimidated by the new technology, but we are all too familiar with PowerPoint not to know what they are talking about. I thought it might be useful to clear some of the fog and state as concisely as I can the case for and against this "computer-based display" software.
The Downside - The ubiquitous PowerPoint bullet presentation fails in two ways: it distracts the audience and it distracts the speaker.
The audience cannot read and listen at the same time. And if there is an engaging speaker talking with interest about something that is of use to the them, then why would they want to read at all. Written material has its strengths and its uses (it is permanent and can be very detailed) but these are not harnessed by fleeting bullet points. The audience gets next to nothing out of this and it breaks the essential contact between speaker and listener.
Worse, however, is the distraction is becomes to the speaker. And I am not just talking about the frequent looking at the screen or having to keep clicking the show forward. More damaging is the way it destroys the structure of the presentation. Rather than being an engaging story with three or four key ideas, each one fleshed out with examples, graphs, stories, demonstrations or analogies; it becomes, instead, an endless procession of propositions, one after another, and the presenter's delivery becomes flat and tedious.
Apart from anything else, there is no justification for this kind of delivery. A presentation is a verbal communication between an individual and a group. The set of speaking skills we have been perfecting for years can thus be employed, with a bit of practice, to great effect. Why this should play second fiddle to the same words, plainly written in point form, on the screen is beyond me. There is no logic behind this. Showing pictures, diagrams and occasionally lists and headings: yes, but paraphrasing everything you say in bullet points? Why? Why on earth?
This kind of presentation is usually indicative of bad planning. People start writing out bullets and putting together slides in an effort to summarise a body of material that they wish to talk about. This is wrong. What you should do is:
1. Decide what you want the audience to achieve,
2. Decide what ideas or arguments you wish to put forward to realise this,
3. Decide (imaginatively) how you will make each point.
If you plan it this way, you will find there is little room for the kind of bullet points we have been discussing.
The Advantages - I sometimes hear of trainers who say they have no time for PowerPoint and who suggest not using it at all. This is an over-reaction. PowerPoint is not the problem, it is the wrong-headed use of PowerPoint that is the problem. If you think back twenty years, the only way to show pictures in a presentation was to take photographs, develop them, crop them and then send them to a printer to make into slides. These would then be loaded into a slide projector and the presenter would click the slide carousel forward, explaining each one in turn. Text was a problem; labels and arrows were a problem; diagrams were a problem. And then there were all of the perils of jamming projectors as well as upside down and back to front images, not to mention the almost complete lack of flexibility, a change in order of the slides being about the best you could manage.
Now you can scan the pictures into your computer or load them directly from a digital camera. You can use the computer to alter, add items to, or animate these images. You can also use graphical tools to create images and diagrams of your own. These can all be put together and sequenced in a presentation and, with the aid of a data projector, projected on to a screen for all to see. This, in fairness, is a big plus.
You can tailor material for a particular presentation (although many people don't expend the mental effort necessary to do this properly - planning again) in a very short time. You can build images up in steps and make items appear and disappear so as to achieve good directed focusing for the audience. The presentation material is then portable and easily assimilated into more detailed written documents. Powerpoint makes the rendering of visual material so easy, that it would be foolish not to avail of it when making a presentation.
In summary, PowerPoint, like so many things thrown up by the digital revolution, is a useful tool and I use it myself all the time. However, you must ask the question "what am I trying to achieve?" first. Then, and only then, turn to PowerPoint to help you to do this and only if you actually need to.
.
posted by Barry Brophy at 7:00 PM
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