5 steps to effective Powerpoint Presentations

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Stepcase Lifehack just published a blogpost on tips for more effective PowerPoint presentations. I was surprised to see some outdated and unhelpful advice. Here are my five steps to create an effective PowerPoint presentation. I’ve written about many of these steps before, so I’ve provided links to more detailed posts if you’d like more information.

1. Plan your presentation on paper first.

Keep away from the computer. Garr Reynolds from PresentationZen calls this going analog.

Instead focus on your audience and what you want them to take away from the presentation. What do you want them to do? How do you want them to think differently? What do you want them to remember? This will become your Key Message. See this post for more guidance A Simple and Concrete Key Message.

Then structure the flow of your presentation around what your audience will want to know - see Answer your audience’s questions.

The Lifehack post recommends writing a script. I don’t recommend this. Here’s why:

• Unless you’re a skilled dialogue-writer you’ll find it difficult to write your script in conversational language. And conversational language is what works best in a presentation.
• Once you’ve written a script, you may find it hard to keep from reading it. Reading to your audience is an effective way to put them to sleep.
• You may think that you can memorise it - what that means is that you’ll end up “reading” from the script in your head. You’ll still sound artificial and stilted. And you’ll be focusing on remembering what comes next rather than focusing on getting your ideas across to your audience.

Presenting is about communicating ideas - not exact words and sentences. So instead of a script create a set of notes for yourself. Your notes don’t say what you want to say - they remind you of what you want to say. For more guidance on creating notes, see this post The lost art of notes. Then you can focus on connecting with your audience.

Once you’ve created the structure and flow of your presentation, you can start creating slides. There are many different creative ways of creating slides. In this post, I’ll take you through a quick and easy way to use when you’re short of time.

2. Put one statement on each slide

Take each main point of your presentation and express it as a short and succinct statement. Put each statement on one slide.

That’s the only text you put on the slide. The Lifehack post says ‘No paragraphs’! I go further and say ‘No bullets’! Here’s why:

• Bullets are the speaker’s notes in disguise. Take them off the screen and put them in your hand or on the table/lectern in front of you.
• Having bullets on your slide and talking at the same time harms the ability of your audience to take in your message. See The problem with traditional bullet-point slides and New scientific evidence for banning bullets from your PowerPoint slides.
• Bullet-points are outdated. See 5 ways bullet-point slides damage your brand.

If you run out of time, these simple one-statement slides will work fine. If you’ve got time, go onto the next step.

3. Add a relevant visual to each slide

Now look at how you can add a visual element to each slide which helps back-up the point of the slide. There are four main types of visual:

1. An image or photograph which directly represents or is a metaphor for what you’re talking about.
2. A diagram which helps your audience understand the concept you’re describing.
3. A graph which shows the meaning of your data.
4. A flowchart that demonstrates the process you’re explaining.

For more description of each of these see this post on The application of visual thinking to presentations.

I agree with the Lifehack post that irrelevant, distracting images and cliched clipart shouldn’t be used. Watch out also for cliched images - the Slide:ology blog has lots of examples of these.

4. Pay attention to design

The Lifehacker post says:

Avoid the temptation to dress up your pages with cheesy effects and focus instead on simple design basics.

I agree. The key design principles are:

• Use a simple background - decorative templates add clutter.
• Use a sans serif font such as arial or helvetica.
• Use text which contrasts well with the background.
• If you’re using photos have them fill the whole screen and put your text on top of them. If necessary use a semi-transparent rectangle - a mask - behind the text to ensure that it is readable.

These two posts expand on these points:

• Powerpoint slide design - the basics
• PowerPoint slide design - adding elegance

The Lifehacker post says avoid dark backgrounds if you can to help with readability. This used to be true with older dimmer datashow projectors, but now with brighter projectors it’s not an issue unless you’re in a very light room like a conservatory or direct sunlight is hitting the screen.

5. Dance with your slides

You know not to read from your slides. But don’t go the other extreme of ignoring your slides like a wallflower at a dance. Dance with them. They are your partner in the presentation - sometimes you lead, sometimes the slide will lead. For more ideas on how to do this see my post Are you missing out on half the power of your PowerPoint slides?

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Are you stuck within the Overhead Projector Paradigm?

In the days of overhead projectors, we’d slide a piece of paper down the transparency to reveal information step-by-step. That’s the Overhead Projector Paradigm.

When you’re stuck in this paradigm, you’re not using the full power of PowerPoint. What are the signs that you’re stuck in the Overhead Projector Paradigm?

• You bring on elements one-by-one
• You add elements to the slide from the top to the bottom of the slide
• You never have an element leave the slide
• You never have an element move on the slide
• You never have an element get bigger
• You never have an element get smaller.

This is a lost opportunity. You can add so much meaning to your slides by using animation creatively.

Here’s an example from Dave Paradi’s blog. Dave does regular slide makeovers on his blog which I normally find creative and inspiring. But this week when I watched his slide makeover - I was amazed - in this particular makeover, Dave was stuck within the Overhead Projector Paradigm! And as a result he’s missed the ability to use the visual power of a slide. You can click here to watch his slide makeover. You might want to go and watch it and look for what he’s missing before you come back to see my take on it. I’ll start by showing you the stills - and then a video so that you can see the animation in action.

Here’s Dave’s first slide:

The calculation describes how an asset like a building is valued. If you’re unfamiliar with the terminology let me first define the terms: NOI stands for Net Operating Income eg; the annual rents minus outgoings. The cap rate is the rate of return on your capital investment that you expect.

Dave has missed the opportunity to represent the figures visually. Here’s how I might show the calculation:

Dave then shows how you can increase the value of a property by raising the rent:

The yellow arrows are supposed to represent the number growing - but why not actually show the numbers growing directly:

In this slide, I would animate the “top-up boxes” with an entrance animation - you can see this in the video below.

The second way to increase the capital value of a property is by reducing the expected cap rate (you do this by reducing the riskiness of the income eg: by converting the tenants from short-term leases to long-term leases):

And here’s how I would show the impact of lowering the Cap Rate:

Here’s a video to show the animation and the words that I would use to present it:

[display_podcast]

By liberating yourself from the Overhead Projector Paradigm, you’ll be able to make full use of the visual power of PowerPoint.

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Review of the top 10 methods to overcome fear of public speaking #1

There’s a ton of internet advice on how to overcome the fear of public speaking. Much of the advice is of the “what worked for me” kind. Or the advice is the first stage of trying to sell you a a hypnosis CD. So how do you decide what advice to follow? In this post series, I’ll be reviewing the 10 most recommended methods. Here’s the list (not in any particular order):

1. Affirmations
2. Visualization
3. Hypnosis
4. Relaxation techniques
5. Neuro-Linguistic Programming
6. The Lefkoe method
7. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
8. Medication
9. Just do it
10. Toastmasters

If you think there are others that I should be looking at, let me know. My aim is to look for evidence of effectiveness on a more than anecdotal basis. In this post, I’ll start with affirmations and visualization.

1.  Positive Affirmations

A positive affirmation is a statement stated in the present-tense which describes how you’d like to be. Here’s an example from the ThinkSimpleNow blog on conquering your fear of public speaking.

“I am a fantastic speaker and I deliver engaging presentations.”

You repeat the affirmation to yourself and stick it somewhere where you’ll often be reminded of it. It’s easy to find people who attribute their success to affirmations:

Before a sales meeting once, I was repeating similar affirmations to myself as I got ready in the morning, and in the car as I drove to the meeting. I sold with flying colors. That’s when I really learned the power of affirmation.

An article in Psychology Today ; Self-Help: Shattering the Myths says about affirmations:

Psychologists say this technique may not be very helpful. Changing how we feel about ourselves is a lot more complicated, explains William Swann, Ph.D., of the University of Texas-Austin…Self-affirmations, even when endlessly repeated, don’t make much of a dent — and when they fail to work, they may leave us even more demoralized.

Self-esteem research by Robert Josephs and Chris Jacobs indicates that people with low self-esteem don’t accept positive feedback from themselves - it has to come from someone else. The research is reported in Psychology Today in an article on affirmations:

Jacobs says the study’s results cast doubt on the value of self-affirmations, a self-esteem building technique found in many self-help books and programs. For people with a poor self-image, it seems, repeating the phrase “I am credible” won’t make it so.

This to me, is the critical issue with affirmations. An important component of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - a proven treatment method for depression and anxiety - is the believability of the new thought processes. Can affirmations really have an impact if you don’t believe what you’re saying?

2. Visualizations

There are two distinct types of visualization - one is supported by scientific research and one is not. But they’re often mixed up. The two types are:

a. Positive visualization, and

b. Mental rehearsal.

Positive visualization

In a positive visualization you imagine the results of giving a successful presentation. Here’s an example of a positive visualization:

You see yourself speaking to the audience. You’re doing a great job. The audience is leaning forward - they’re engaged, nodding and smiling at you. At the end of your presentation, they give you a resounding round of applause and people come up to you and complement you on how well you did.

I’ve been unable to find any scientific evidence that backs up the use of this type of visualization for effectively reducing your nerves or improving your performance. Here’s why I think that might be:

1. It’s not realistic - audiences are not always smiling and nodding. They’re not always fascinated by what you’ve got to say. Although this type of visualization may momentarily make you feel good, does it help your confidence when you’re faced with a more normal audience?

2. It has you experience the outcome of the presentation, rather than the process of delivering the presentation. Again that may make you feel good during the visualization, but it doesn’t deliver any other benefits.

Mental rehearsal

When you mentally rehearse your presentation, in contrast to the positive visualization above, you go through the whole process of giving the presentation - not just seeing the outcome. You see the audience reaction as you realistically think it will be. You imagine what might go wrong and rehearse how you will effectively cope with it. There is a large body of evidence that backs up the use of mental rehearsal (also called mental imagery, mental practice and coping rehearsal). Here’s a quote from the wikipedia entry on mental rehearsal:

Educational researchers have examined whether the experience of mental imagery affects the degree of learning. For example, imagining playing a 5-finger piano exercise (mental practice) resulted in a significant improvement in performance over no mental practice — though not as significant as that produced by physical practice and the authors of the study stated that “mental practice alone seems to be sufficient to promote the modulation of neural circuits involved in the early stages of motor skill learning.” (Pascual-Leone et al 1995).

This article on Imagining instructions: Mental practice in highly cognitive domains summarises much of the research. Mental rehearsal  is used widely by top athletes in many sports to improve their performance. It’s most effective at reducing your nerves when you use it to prepare for things not going well. Here’s a report of how Billie Jean King, a former top tennis player, prepares for a speech:

“She drives us crazy, absolutely crazy, planning for everything and anything to go wrong,” Kloss said. “She’ll say, ‘What about this? What about that? What if this happens?’ By the time Billie gets on stage or on the court, she’s laid out every possible scenario in her mind. And at that point, she’s totally calm.”

So using mental rehearsal to reduce your nerves is not about imagining everything going smoothly, it’s about imagining the things that might go wrong, and then visualizing how you will cope with this.

For example, let’s say you’re concerned about your mind going blank during your presentation. Visualize this situation as if it were happening to you right now. Now see yourself staying calm. Pause and take your time to look at your notes. Find your place and work out what what you want to say next. When you’re ready, look up at someone in your audience and start talking.

If you’ve practiced this in your head, should you suffer a mind blank during the real thing, you’ll have conditioned yourself to react in a calm and unruffled way, and you’ll be able to smoothly resume your presentation.

So unlike affirmations and positive visualizations, mental rehearsal is an effective method for reducing your fear of public speaking.

In the next post in this series, I’ll review the effectiveness of hypnosis, relaxation techniques and Neuro Linguistic Programming for reducing your nerves.

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The 3 steps to creating a PowerPoint Diagram

When you see that a diagram might be useful to explain the concept you’re talking about - don’t go straight to PowerPoint. Doing this is as bad as trying to design your whole presentation in PowerPoint.

Two things can happen:

1. You try and squish your concept into an unsuitable diagram type.
2. You get caught up in creating the technical aspects of creating the diagram without having a big picture view of how it’s going to work.

I know because I’ve done it. Now I storyboard first on paper.

That way the diagram will be designed to fit the concept, rather than the concept squished into an already existing diagram type.

Here’s an example of the process that I went through for a slide make-over I did recently for a client. First here are the original bullet-point slides:

Step 1 : Visual analysis

The first step is to study the written material to work out how it could be presented visually.

I identified the following ideas which could be presented visually:

• the difference between owning a job and owning a business
• if you own a job, the impact on you if you can’t work
• moving from doing it all yourself to putting in place systems and people

The key visual concept that I came up with was to show the business and the person as virtually the same entity for “owning a job” and to show those entities separating as the person moved to “owning a business”.

Step 2: Storyboard

My next step was to sketch out my ideas for how to show these concepts visually.

Step 3: Create in PowerPoint

Finally I went to PowerPoint and started creating the diagrams. Below is a screencast of the animated slides with my narration:

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The PowerPoint Revolution hasn’t gone far enough

We’re in the midst of a PowerPoint revolution as more and more people take on the ideas of Cliff Atkinson and Garr Reynolds. That’s great - countless people are being saved from death by bullet-point.

But many presenters still see PowerPoint as a visual aid, as an adjunct to their presentation. A take-it or leave-it enhancement.

Here’s my proposition - PowerPoint is your equal partner in your presentation.

The evidence

My support for this proposition comes from the theory of Dual-coding. This theory was proposed by Allan Paivio. He proposed that we have two ways of processing information - a visual channnel and a verbal channel:

Paivio’s theory is supported by many research studies which show that when both visual and verbal representations are used, people both process and remember the information more effectively.

The design of e-learning applications has close parallels to the design of presentations. They’re both about transferring information from one person to another. E-learning design principles include Paivio’s dual-coding theory. We should take it into account in our presentations too.

What does this mean?

If you decide not to use PowerPoint (or any other visual aid) in your presentation, you are potentially missing out on the learning power of the visual channel. It’s like you’re driving a Porsche at 50 Kms an hour. You’re missing out.

How to use PowerPoint to exploit the visual channel?

Check out this post on application of visual-thinking to presentations inspired by Dan Roam’s book The Back of the Napkin.   

Other ways of exploiting the visual channel

It doesn’t always have to be PowerPoint. Here are some other ways that I’ve posted about in the past:

1. Word-pictures

You can paint word-pictures on the minds of your audience. Imagined visual images are also powerful. Research shows that imagined images also contributes to enhanced recall. So don’t forget the word-pictures.

2. The flipchart

The flipchart has been eclipsed by PowerPoint. In this post I compare presenting the same information - via PowerPoint or via the flipchart and explore the difference in impact.

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Don’t forget the word-pictures

Many of my previous posts have been about adding a visual element to your presentations. But you don’t have to do this literally - you can also do it by triggering images in the minds of your audience.

I first learnt this about 15 years ago when I was presenting with an overhead projector. I was telling a story about elephants. It was about how a baby elephant is trained by chaining it to a post that it can’t pull out. It strains against the post but to no avail. Eventually the baby elephant resigns itself to being chained to the post. As it grows older, it develops the strength to pull out the post - but it has the limiting belief that it can’t pull it out - so it never tries.

Half-way through the story I put a cute line-drawing of a baby elephant on the overhead. An audience-member came up to me at the end and told me that the picture of the baby elephant had spoiled it for her - because up till then she had had a picture of a real elephant in her head.

You could object that I used a line-drawing rather than a real photo and that’s why it didn’t work. And yes, that might have been part of the reason. But consider the fantastic scenes that you visualize in your head when you’re reading a great book - then you go and see the movie of the book and it’s not nearly as good.

So the lesson is you don’t need to show a slide, if you can paint pictures on the canvas of the minds of your audience. Just like you visualised the elephant.

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