2 May 2008

Powerpoint tips and traps : part 2

I've blogged before here about how not to use powerpoint.

At the moment, I'm doing the Certificate in Adult Teaching, and we've been looking at technologies.

When I did a playwriting course, my teacher said to look at what you've written then go back and take out everything that's unnecessary to tell the story. Good Actors will communicate more, and over-explaining is tedious, dull, and the stuff of daytime soaps. You know the kind - if they are surprised they say "I don't believe it!"

In Powerpoint (or as professional speakers call it "multi media presentation") the pictures, music and whole package contributes, or it should.

The fewer words the better. (and that 5 or 7 points per slide rule of thumb - well I heard recently that that's an urban myth - more research to do on that one!)

One thing I' have learned in my work writing speeches for others and doing my own presentations and teaching is that less is more.

I read somewhere that Coco Chanel once advised that when you get dressed in the morning take one thing off. A speechwriter (I'll find the reference sometime) translated that into speaking terms by saying take one idea or point out of your speech.

Most of the time, when writing speeches or presenting speeches and seminars myself , I've found that it is much more common to have too much material than too little. In fact, I don't think I've ever had too little material.

So today's speaking and presenting tip : less is more.

Now if only I could take my own advice....

1 comment:

Unknown said...

that 5 or 7 points per slide rule of thumb - well I heard recently that that's an urban myth - more research to do on that one!

It's probably based on Miller's 7±2 rule for the number of items people can hold in working memory simultaneously. I believe it's quite well established for its original purpose, but it's often mis-applied to set a limit for any kind of list.

The important distinction is whether you're expecting people to hold all the items in their memories while you give the presentation. If so, you need to bear in mind their limitations (and that they probably have other things already on their minds, so you don't get to use all seven memory slots). On the other hand, if you're just showing them the list but not expecting them to remember it all, it doesn't matter if you have more items.

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