Types of Presentations: the "good enough" or "compliance" presentation.

There are many different types of presentations.

Sometimes, "good enough" is good enough.  Sometimes all you want to do is to comply with accepted norms, read your presentation of the PowerPoint slides, look like you've prepared, sound like you know what you're talking about and  not be humiliated.

If you're part of a big organisation, corporate communications may supply you with a Master Title slide and a font.  If you're lucky they'll have designed it properly.  If you're particularly good you'll even manage to make sure that the font sizes are consistent, and overcome that default PowerPoint feature which reduces font size when you put too many words on the slide leaving your presentation jumping around.

If all you want to demonstrate is that you have (a) prepared for the meeting or event and (b) know some facts that you hope the audience wants to know, and (c) not humiliated yourself then you can count this as a "success".

But if you want to be memorable, if you want to connect with them, if you want to influence them to take bold action - then you may need to try a different approach. 

Creativity and Powerpoints - perspectives in the NYT

Two articles caught my eye in the online edition of the New York Times.

1 - "Real creative urges, those we are meant to express, don’t go away. If ignored, they bother us, affect our health, fester and eventually turn us into the living dead." Pamela Slim writing about why recessions can be a good chance to reassess your values, and chase a career dream.


2 - Interviewed by Adam Bryant, Richard Anderson CEO of Delta Airlines emphasises why speaking and writing skills have never been more important for executives.

Other points from the interview:

• Blackberries should be off in meetings.
  
• Be a problem-solver, not a problem-creator... don’t bring a Rubik’s cube to the table, unless you have an idea on how you’re going to try to get an answer"
• "It’s not just enough to be able to just do a nice PowerPoint presentation. ... You’ve got to have the ability to communicate."
  
• "When you find really capable people, it’s amazing how they proliferate capable people all through your organization." (This is reminiscent of Jim Collins' "Good to Great" - get the right people on the bus"
• "I don’t think PowerPoints help people think as clearly as they should because you don’t have to put a complete thought in place. You can just put a phrase with a bullet in front of it. And it doesn’t have a subject, a verb and an object, so you aren’t expressing complete thoughts."
• "good history books are the best books on management"

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....