Thursday October 4, 2007

Nobody likes a windbag

by Matt Donovan in Business

6 comments

I have this recurring dream. I’m in a play – usually in highschool – and as I walk on stage I know I’m totally unprepared. I can’t remember my lines, so I just start talking. As I talk, I realize I don’t even understand the words I’m saying. I’m just babbling. The stage director feeds my lines to me from the curtain. I make it through the scene, but I can tell the audience is unmoved if not annoyed.

Ever sat through a presentation where you felt like you were on the other end of that dream? I recently attended a meeting in which 3 people gave presentations, each using the Pecha Kucha presentation method:

Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up.

As an audience member, I was more attentive and appreciative. I felt as though the speakers considered the value of my time. Luis always says “pressure makes diamonds.” He’s a cheese-ball, but he’s right. The constraints made the presentations better. They were focused, entertaining, and memorable.

Nathan sent an email this morning linking to this comparison of the presentation methods of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Seth Godin posted some helpful thoughts a while back on really bad powerpoint. He also made an e-booklet.

All good stuff. Bad stuff can be equally motivating. In the spirit of repentance, I’d love to hear some of your presentation horror stories.

Comments on “Nobody likes a windbag”

1. Paul Gibler said:

   I have a handout on my blog PPT – Powerful Presentation Techniques (http://www.connectingdots.typepad.com/ppt) that provides links to all sorts of articles and resources about both good and bad PowerPoint that your readers might find interesting. The worst presentations I’ve seen are when the presenter reads their presentation or when graphs are so busy they make no sense to anybody.

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2. Tim said:

   I gave a presentation recently. It was planned as an humorous intermezzo. I proposed to do this because I’m the only designer in our company, and the other presentations (before and after me) were kind of long-dreaded and boring (sorry guys!). I prepared my slides a week in advance and started thinking about some jokes I could slip in. Coming up with jokes is not an easy thing to do, but I managed to find a couple.

   The presentation went like a dream. The hardware (Macbook Pro and the little remote) didn’t abandon me, I said all I wanted to say, and people laughed with the jokes. So, I was in 7th heaven!

   Later in the evening, during a company barbecue, my boss comes up to me and says: “Tim, I really liked your slides, but you’ve got to train your presentation skills, I had no idea what you were talking about.”

   That felt like a needle in a soap-bubble…

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3. Matt Donovan said:

   @Tim – What a bummer! If people were laughing with you, they at least had an idea as to what you were talking about. If they were your primary audience, I’d call it a success and chew on any advice your boss gave you for the next time.

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4. Chuck Mallott said:

   In the past few days I’ve been reading The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, by Edward Tufte. It is a truly great read and very eye-opening about the (over)use of PowerPoint. Good to hear you guys trying to break out of the mold.

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5. Chuck Hollis said:

   I give maybe 100+ presentations a year, and have done so for many years. People tell me I’m pretty good, and I don’t think they’re just being polite.

   My first rule is that it’s the presenter, and not the presentation, people want to hear. Sounds simple, but how many of us figure out what we want to say, and THEN fire up PowerPoint, vs the other way around?

   I think that PPT is the last step in the process, and not the first! On the rare occasions when the technology fails me, I can still deliver a great presentation — without any slides.

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6. Matt Donovan said:

   @Chuck Hollis – I’m glad you brought this up because it seems like this exercise is a step in a process to becoming a better speaker.

   For the most part, the Pecha Kucha slides simply enhanced what the presenter was saying as opposed to supplying the content entirely. Though, there were a couple of points that would have failed without the corresponding slides.

   Maybe it’s appropriate to think about this in terms of the separation of content and presentation on the web? If what a presenter is saying (i.e. his mark up) won’t make sense without his slides (i.e. his CSS) then he should rethink how or why he’s using the technology.

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