Tag Archives: Death By PowerPoint

November 25, 2013 · 1:26 am

What is the Most Important Slide in Your Presentation? ~ Paul M Johnstone

The Power of Blanks

In short no slide! A blank slide gives your audience a chance to focus on you. Having your presentations to fade to a blank slide means your audiences focus is all on you! And as silence fills the room your audience focus on you and all ears anticipate your next words. You’ve just experienced one of the most important techniques to keep your audience engaged.

PowerPoint and Keynote are extraordinary tools, but just like too much beer or chocolates, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Like Chocolates and beer too much PowerPoint can be awful. Because a lot of presenters only use it as a huge version of their speaking notes, it has in fact becomes a large teleprompter that only detracts your audience’s attention. They look at your notes and not at you.

It will help if you keep in mind never underestimate the power of the spoken word, it can take men to war and change people’s point of view. Such creative speech has served many generations well, and, in some cases, has changed the world profoundly

Tap into this power by including a blank, preferably dark slide in your presentation. This helps them focus their audience’s attention on you. Use the slide to pause for a moment, let the room get quiet. Allow the anticipation to build for your next words.

You can simply automate this process. In the PowerPoint ‘automation Ribbon you will see on the far right @advance slide’. The default is set to ‘on mouse click’. Below that you have the option to check ‘Automatically after’ and set the time, my preference if to change the slide between 30 seconds to 1 minute. That’s it. You now have an opportunity to make some real impact on your audience. Now all you have to do is Get Presenting!

Management Speak and Bull S***~ Paul M Johnstone

Part of a series of occasional blogs on Management speak and other forms of communication! There is the good the bad and the, well best left alone. Check out this Jargon Buster!

The difference between what your boss says and reality

Differences Between You And Your Boss

When you don’t do it, you’re lazy.
When your boss doesn’t do it, he’s just too busy.

When you take a long time, you’re slow.
When your boss takes a long time, he’s thorough.

When you make a mistake, you’re stupid.
When your boss makes a mistake, he’s only human.

When doing something without being told, you’re overstepping your authority.
When your boss does the same thing, it’s called initiative.

When you take a stand, you’re being pig-headed.
When your boss does it, he’s being decisive.

When you don’t understand meeting etiquette, you’re being rude.
When your boss breaks the rules, he’s being original.

When you please your boss, you’re ass-kissing.
When your boss pleases his boss, he’s being co-operative.

When you’re out of the office, you’re wandering around.
When your boss is out of the office, he’s on business.

When you’re on a day off sick, you’re always sick.
When your boss has a day off sick, he must be very ill.

When you apply for leave, you are weak willed or you must be going for an interview.
When your boss applies for leave, it’s because he’s overworked.

Keep checking back for more in this series 🙂

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Next Time: PowerPoint Presentation Secrets

To your Speaking Success

Paul is the founder of the On The Money© an easy to master presentation system allowing you to deliver Killer Presentations every time.

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Tagged as Death By PowerPoint, How to use PowerPoint, Jargon Buster, Paul M Johnstone, presentation skills, presenting tips.

May 21, 2013 · 1:08 am

PowerPoint is Bull S*** Part 3~ Paul M Johnstone

Death by PowerPoint

You have probably heard of it, if not sat through it! PowerPoint Poisoning is something you may have to have endure. But it needn’t be like this.

In part 1 we looked at some common mistakes presenters make and you discovered some of the behaviours that turn audiences away from your presentation.

In Part 2 we looked at some design tips and PowerPoint features.

Now we will look at some presenting techniques that I hope you will find helpful.

Here in Part 3, You will learn why presentations that ignore these points often go down the tubes.

Many PowerPoint presentations are so bad, but who is to blame for wasting my time with a dull presentation? People are not shown how to present and told “Just knock up a quick presentation”. I believe it’s because you get PowerPoint free with Office, which is at the heart of the problem. And you can use Word and Excel so PowerPoint is a breeze- Right? Wrong.

Its true anyone can use PowerPoint, and as I said earlier the issue is no one has shown you how to use it. Nor have they shown you how to avoid Death by PowerPoint. In fact its odds on you have been left on your own, and expected to do it successfully!

And some companies just don’t get it! Why is it they tell their staff to knock up a quick PowerPoint presentation? And then get upset when the result is nowhere as good as they wanted? What did these managers expect?

How did it all get like this?

If you are like me you’ll have experienced, one or two presentations that were truly awful. Now is the time to own up. OK, I guess I gave a few in the past.

It’s not PowerPoint’s fault! here are some presenting tips for you.

1 Presentations Start with a rehearsal

It’s easy to get suckered into preparing your presentation using PowerPoint itself! Sadly that is often the cause of business presenters reading their slides! They fell into the trap of writing their pitch on the slides and as a result are left with nothing else to say!

The purpose of a Visual Aid (PowerPoint) for your presentation is just that- to aid your presentation.

When creating on the slides we often get carried away and use all the features and stack everything we know about the topic on the slides. We do this often with the view of reviewing them later. Sadly this is often the case and people run out of time and ‘go with what they have’

Taking just a few moments to set out your presentation, I use Post it Notes for this. It’s quick a way of getting in to the flow of my presentation. And being on Post it’s you can change the order quickly till you are happy with your contact.

Oh and reading to your audience, I heard one person ask the presenter if he thought the audience were illiterate? When the presenter said no, he got a tirade for reading to us. Now that is a severe reaction and an illustration of why you should never read your slides.

2 KISS

It is that simple. Stick to one concept per slide and you will have a much better chance of engaging with your audience.

If your talk is about finance, resist the temptation to tell non financial stories. Split your talk into manageable chunks, ideally chunks that are related so you can stay on one concept with that slide.

Staying with these concepts, a good tip is to rehearse your presentations and note how long it takes you to cover each concept. Then add the times to your slides. Well show you some great tips in the next section.

You now should have some post it notes with an intro, several with one concept and a close. Once you are rehearsed you will know where all the slide transition points are. This will help you stay calm while you are presenting because you know what and where things happen

Stay on track with one concept per slide and you will avoid the temptation to wander- Believe me this looses your audience faster than just about anything else.

3 How many words a minute?

You have seen the slides, full of bullet points. Somehow you just can’t stop filling your slides with bullet points.

Recent research from Harvard University tells us, as presenters if we are really good we will have 87% of our audiences attention. Let’s be honest most business presenters are not great presenters. The average attention we get is down to 61%. Meaning 4 out of every 10 people are not listening to us! The moment your audience sees a bullet point a further 24% of the remainder tune out at that point.

It’s time for some simple maths. This means that out of an audience of 20 people only 9 will be taking in the message you have spent ages preparing! Do you consider that acceptable?

If you must ‘cram’ data onto your slides at least ‘un-check’ the bullet point option, the default is often set to on.

4 Images and Movie Clips

As you learned in part 1 Quality images are a must if you want to engage your audience. By using cheap, poor quality images, you have to ask yourself what message are you sending out about your brand? The same principles apply to film clips.

Some You Tube clips look OK when you play them on your PC. However what does it look like when projected on to a large screen behind you? Often what is acceptable on your PC screen looks grainy and poor quality when projected.

As always when using You Tube clips you’ll need to get permission first. You’ll be surprised the positive reactions you get when asking people if you can use and credit their material.

Video technology is simple to use and very effective, when used to maximum effect. But sometimes technology doesn’t work as we want it to. So you will need to do a full run through to be sure your video runs how you expect it to.

PowerPoint is Bull S*** Part 2~ Paul M Johnstone

Death by PowerPoint, you have probably sat through it! You may have to have endure PowerPoint Poisoning. But it shouldn’t be like this.

In part 1 we looked at some common mistakes presenters make and you discovered some of the behaviours that turn audiences away from your presentation. You also looked at some design issues and found out just how images, font size, making the data on your slides discernable from each other, why it’s best to start your presentation on paper and all about one concept per slide.

In Part 2 you will discover some of the good things PowerPoint has to offer.

Leading on from some of the layout and preparation pointers, we will be dealing with some of the functionality of PowerPoint.

Anyone can use PowerPoint, but getting it right is a different matter. Your presentation is NOT FOR YOU it is for your audience. Believe me, they have not turned up so you can show how clever you are with PowerPoint. Normally they come because they want or need to know some of the information you will be speaking about. That’s why design becomes important. Let’s start part two with some simple design tips

1 Design

A follow on from part 1. I am now going to annoy just about every marketing and branding expert in the land. My number 1 tip is to lose your logo, in fact lose your template. This may sound drastic but it’s not. You logo, brand and template are often a hindrance to the audience understanding your message.

Take a moment to think about your presentation from the audience’s point of view. If a member of the audience has forgotten your name, no squiggle in the corner of your slide is going to help. Secondly templates often get in the way of good slide design.

For lots more information on this subject read ‘Clear and to the Point’ by Professor Steven Kosslyn. In it he shows how the mind absorbs the information presented to it. This is often at odds to how we business presenters want to deliver the information. But the bottom line is this:- we present our ideas so we can move the audience to our point of view. The best way to do this is in a way our audience would like to receive them.

A good example of this is a film. When you areatn the cinema watching the latest blockbuster, there is no ‘Universal’, ‘Dream Works’ ,’Disney’ or ‘MGM’ logo in a corner of the screen. They understand that for their audience to get the most benefit from their product, it needs to be delivered in a way that helps them. Please lose the logo!

2. Slides with Charts

It’s common for people to present slides that contain a lot of data (not good) to help them, I see a lot of charts in presentations. A big mistake some business presenters make is to pack all the data on to their slide. It’s a case of take yourself away from your presentation and take a seat at the back of the audience. By doing this you’ll see what the folks on the back row see.

Two quick tips here: First show the smallest and largest bar chart, so your audience can be sure of the difference between the points you are making. Oh, and use simple charts that are easier for your audience to see.

Second, use verbs instead of nouns. If its sales figures if the Eastern Region has be the best performer, say East is best. That’s simple, and easy to understand. When I was in the corporate world I once saw a slide that had on it “The Eastern regions has again proved to be the most successful” I doubt anyone off the stage could read that. Use simple direct language to direct your audience to what is important.

3. Readable Slides

Following on from the less than readable charts, all slides need to be read from a distance. Let’s face it, it’s often the person at the back of the room you need to impress. The issue is that they may have forgotten their glasses! This is no issue if you have designed your presentation well.

Font Size: Here it’s a case of size matters! Too small and the person at the back can’t read it, too big and it dominates any images you are using. No smaller than 30 point. At the other end it depends on what else in on the slide- However I use no larger than 90 point.

Font Type: It’s best to use scalable TrueType fonts. If you vary from the norm, viewers may not be able to read your slides. Try to stay with Sans Serif fonts as they are they are easiest for people to read on screen.

The best for this is Veranda which was designed to be scalable from 5 point all the way to 500 point. Don’t worry if you prefer a serif font, once you get used to using a font size of over 30 point on a slide that should not be an issue.

4. Animation good or bad?

Let’s face it’ some animation is a good thing. The problem often appears when presenters get carried away with it. Let’s get to basics. There are two types of animation in PowerPoint. One is for elements and the other for transitions. DO you remember the old adage Keep It Simple Stupid or KISS! It really is the watch word for PowerPoint presentations. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. If I were you, I’d select dissolve for slide transitions if I were using them. I would definitely avoid the more graphic, and as a result, more confusing transitions.

Because you have the opportunity you sometimes feel the urge to use everything. Don’t. The more elaborate transitions, you may think are fun once, but can grate on your audience. And what will your audience think after twenty slides?

In Part 1: we looked at the sometimes excessive use of animation but some animation can be good for a presentation.

With PowerPoint it is often a case of Less is More. Therefore for the sake of your audience Keep It Simple or KISS, there is a lot more on simplicity in part 3.

Related Blogs

5. Quickly locate the slides

This works when you get questions that you would like to answer and use your slide to reinforce your point. It maybe you want to go back to a particular slide to help your augment. Here is a tip that has saved me several times. I do hope you find it useful.

If you want to go back to a slide perhaps from slide 15 back to slide 8. You may need to do this if you get a question relating to that slide. There is a simple function that allows you to go there quickly. Select the slide number say 5 to get there quickly simply by pressing the ‘5’ key, and then press the return key.

To get back to the start of your presentation while you are in ‘Slide Show’ mode press the ‘1’ key followed by ‘Enter’ .

6. Hide your pointer

If you get caught and the mouse pointer is visible on screen, there are times when you want to hide the pointer as you present.

There is a simple short cut for this

Press the ‘U’ key when you are in ‘Slide Show’ mode and in 15 seconds the pointer will simply fade from view.

7. Short cuts when presenting

OK sometimes everything does not go according to the master plan and you need help. Here are just a few shortcuts you can use when presenting in ‘Slide Show’ mode. These are the ones I find can be most useful:

It may be useful to display a blank black slide, or return to the presentation from a blank black slide. To do this, select the ‘B’ key

Similarly you may wish to use a blank white slide, or return to the presentation from a blank white slide. To get there select the ‘W’ key

If showing hyperlinks you can move back and forward to them. To move first or next hyperlink select ‘TAB’. To move back to the last hyperlink in your presentation select ‘SHIFT TAB’.

Both of these have helped me in the past.

8. Time out to a blank screen

When you have to spend quite a bit of time on one concept, it can be distracting for your audience to look at the same slide for a period of time. Here is a great tip to help. First up time how long you will speak for, say 9 minutes on this concept.

Select from the ribbon marked ‘Animation’ you will see advance slides. In this field there are two check boxes. The check mark will probably be in the one labelled ‘On Mouse Click’ Un check that field. The check box below ‘Automatically After’ allows you to select a time. I use something around the 2 minute mark. Now when you are in ‘Slide Show’ your slide will move on without any interference from you!

But what do you want to move on to if you are still talking? I use a plain dark, blank screen. This does not distract your audience and allows you time especially if you expect questions.

9 Automatic slide change

In some PowerPoint presentation styles, notable Pecha Kucha, slides have a set time and the change is automatic. The presenter has no say in when they change so has to prepare their presentation accordingly. The idea for Pecha Kucha came from overlong presentations and a desire to have 6 or 8 presenters make presentations in an hour or less.

Pecha Kucha is a timed presentation style that allows each presenter 20 slides, each slide being displayed for 20 seconds. This means your presentation will last for 6 minutes and 40 seconds only. Key to your success is rehearsal, you’ll find much more about Pecha Kucha in this blog.

Remember poor presentations are not PowerPoint’s fault!

A Recap –

Design
Slides With Charts
Readable Slides
Animation good or bad?
Quickly locate your slides
Hide your Pointer
Shortcuts when presenting
Time out to a blank screen
Automatic slide change

PowerPoint is BS

In the third of this series PowerPoint is Bull S, You’ll learn why keeping things simple is key to your success and why storytelling is such a powerful tool.

Next Time: PowerPoint Presentation Secrets

To your Speaking Success

Paul is the founder of the On The Money© an easy to master presentation system allowing you to deliver Killer Presentations every time.

Let’s stay in Touch 😉

Please Add Paul M Johnstone as a friend to your

Facebook:
Follow Paul on Twitter

You can contact Paul through his websites at http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk or http://www.pmjohnstone.co.uk/

Paul M Johnstone©

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Tagged as Death By PowerPoint, How to use PowerPoint, presentation skills, presenting tips.

April 23, 2013 · 1:43 am

How to bore your audience the easy way ~ Paul M Johnstone

Countdown to Boredom

Can you deliver a presentation that sends your audience off to LA-La land? I bet some of you can. But regular readers of this blog will be far to smart to fall into that trap.

Creating and delivering a dull inspiration-less speech is easy.

It’s so easy in fact, that over 90% of all business presentations reach this level. That’s right research shows the 90% of business presentations are Dull!!

However you don’t need to fall into the traps that will get you an approval rating lower than bankers or Estate Agents. We are here to help you.

By avoiding these simple steps you will be a cut above standard business presenters.

Check out how you to can create a dull, sleep inducing, yawn inspired presentation your audience will just love fallen asleep to:

1) Lets start with Me then a bit more Me and guess what even More Me

Look you know you are the best expert on the planet and you are so knowledgeable you need to tell everyone else how good you are!– Your audience is bound to be fascinating and just dying to hear all about your life. Well that’s what they are hear for so give them both barrels.

Just so they are happy and contented talk about yourself at every opportunity. Hey the topic who cares when I’m on stage? You have no need to worry about not telling them what they came to hear when you are on stage. They should be grateful that you turned up in the first place they can just lie back and soak it all in, lots more Me!

2) Always Mix your Messages.–

Look these single messages can get in the way of a good presentation. Heck your audience might find something they can argue about, and we don’t want arguments do we? Why stick to one simple path when you can show them the world? What’s more you have a much better chance to let them know just how much you know. Because taking them on your journey provides opportunities for them to find other things they might like. Remember your audience is switched on and intelligent so taking in mixed messages will be a breeze for them. Look you have to keep your audience on their toes, or they will get bored.

3) Show your audience your superior knowledge at all times

You must be smart to present. And there is a world shortages of Smart-Arses.

To be on top of your game be sure to bark back answer instantly. Don’t muck about, be definitive and confident in every answer. Look we all make mistakes so who needs to be 100% correct? Well not you, not even for a moment. They are her to be wowed by you and the extent of your knowledge, so wow them. When people disagree with your point, shout at them, talk down to them and when you can, belittle them, that works for me. You never know you may even get a chance to show them up as an ignoramus. You know the crowds love that. As I said at the beginning there is a world shortage of smart arses.

Related Topics

Elevate your introduction http://wp.me/pvb0F-2J
What do you do when you give a poor presentation? http://wp.me/pvb0F-f6
Why people worry when they have to speak in public? http://wp.me/pvb0F-cv

4) Death by PowerPoint! Go on you know you can

Here are some pointers to use PowerPoint as a essential element of a yawn-inspiring talk.

Start with putting everything you wanted to say on each slide then read them to your audience. Look they can’t read as most of the people in your audiences are illiterate so do your bit and help them.
Use as many clashing colour schemes as you can find. This obviously makes your slides stand out and your audience will remember them.
And keep the font size small – You don’t want your audience to be able to read everything on your slides do you? And keeping the font small makes sure you are the one with all the knowledge, and they came to hear all about your knowledge.

5) Hey its a presentation why the heck should I practice?

Who needs to practice when the subject I’ll be presenting on is Me? Why go to all that trouble and waste valuable time when I know I’m number one. Most people like the nateural performances style that allows me to take the presentation wherever I want it to go. If you know your topic you can deliver off the cuff and be brilliant. You all know that rehearsing will only stifle creativity and lead to a stuffy presentation.

6) Making sure of the Agenda – Sorry the Boredom slot.

Hey an Agenda! This is where you get to tell’em you’re going to telll’em. Tell’em. Then Tell’em you told them. Possibly the most important part of your presentation, then the audience know what comes where. You must spend time here. Don’t miss a single details that way the audience is prepared. This is time well spent and your audience should be grateful to you. You can then show of with your top signpost technique.. This shows them the areas where they can snooze without having to listen for your clues. OPh and don’t forget to spend a further 30% of the presentation on a little company history, crowds love that.

7) Give then so much information their little brains won’t notice when you screw up!

As you have found out already both you and your information is king. Researchers try to tell you that shows audiences can only take in and remember 3-5 pieces of new information at a time. You know your audiences are smart. Best ignore the researches advice, after all academics don’t get out in the real world do they? You know they need to be wowed by the depth and breadth of your knowledge. And stunned by how ‘on top’ of the topic you are. Your PowerPoint techniques will make sure they come back for more and they will just love the 2 hour story of how the firm was founded. Time to do what you do best and present with passion.

That’s it Seven steps to drive your audience to a soporific, yawn-inspiring presentation. The beauty of this style is it needs NO effort and NO preparation. What’s not to like?

You know how dull other peoples presentations are so it’s up to you to show the way.

Look you know most business presentations send over 90% of the audience off on voyages of self discovery, allow them time to complete their to do lists Achieve results and put yourself at the head of the field.

Tell us what you think!

I’d love to know all about the last time you sat through a soporific presentation that bores the pants of you. Please share it with our readers.

You May Also Like Pecha Kucha, What’s it all about?

To your Speaking Success

Paul is the founder of the On The Money© an easy to master presentation system allowing you to deliver Killer Presentations every time.

Let’s stay in Touch 😉

Please Add Paul M Johnstone as a friend to your

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/PauMJohnstone
“Networking” BLOG at: http://networkinginanutshell.wordpress.com/wp-
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Paul M Johnstone©

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Filed under PowerPoint, Presenting, Public Speaking, Uncategorized

Tagged as Communications skills, Death By PowerPoint, Paul Johnstone, presenting tips., Speaking tips

April 18, 2013 · 3:11 am

Can you Time a Presentation to Perfection? ~ Paul M Johnstone

Tick Tock

How long is too long and how many slides should my presentation have?

How Many Slides is Too Many Slides?

People love PowerPoint because they can do so much with it. And I remember when I first asked for guidance on how many slides should I use, I got the standard answer of the 1990’s. One slide a minute. Interestingly when I presented my one slide a minute, I got praise and brick-bats in about the same proportion. This told me that the advice I received was flawed. Back then I had no idea what I should do, so reluctantly I stuck with one slide a minute.

I’ll come back to the number of slides shortly but right now I want to ask you a question. What is the purpose of your presentation?

I ask you that because the slides you use ‘should’ be proportionate to your message.

Is your Message Complex?

In other words can you get your point across with minimal fuss? This refers to your audience rather than your message. If presenting scientific data to other scientists, your presentation will be different to presenting it to business people. What is important to consider is the complexity of the ideas being presented.

Here is where I differ from the oft stated ‘perceived wisdom’ of talking for at least 30 seconds per slide. This advice has been pedalled for many years as almost a cure all for presenters.

Just calculate the following for me please.

You have 20 minutes to fill and 30 seconds a slide. The best speed for presenters to speak at is between 100 and 120 words a minute.

OK at the quickest delivery speed of 120 words a minute how many words do you have per slide? Then how many slides will you have?

I’m sure you quickly worked that out as 40 slides each covering 60 words.

Would you feel comfortable sitting through a slide show like that? Some of you may, but the majority will not.

Some presentation coaches suggest all sorts of complex ways of working out how many slides and what sort of slides you need. For me this is looking at the issue from the wrong perspective.

Concepts Matters

Every slide you use should support one concept.

Because I believe this is important I’ll say it again. Every Slide you use should support one concept!

You may be thinking, that’s OK for you to say but how many concepts should I have in my slide show? Clients quite often ask me this question. The answer lies in the main points you are trying to promote.

As an example, if you are presenting to a business audience looking for partners in a new venture what do you think your three main pints are?

After you have set out the big picture ‘The Context’, you will take your audience on a journey that will end up with them coming to the conclusion that they want to be involved in this venture.

Your opening theme may be the current systems and associated issues. Then you may follow that with benefits you have identified from doing things differently. Finishing with why your product or service is best placed to deliver the new benefits.

Related Blogs

Calculating Time

Looking at your presentation now there are Five sections:

Opening:
Current situation:
The benefits of change:
Your offering:
The Close

You still have 20 minutes so how do you slice and dice this to fit the time you have?

That depends on where you believe most emphasis is best spent. If I’m presenting in this style I spend more time on the benefits of change, you may feel differently.

When you are rehearsing you will start to get a feel for the times, but remember speaking at the fastest 120 words a minute you only have 2400 words. Please resist the temptation to cram them in because you believe them to be important. If you do that you stand a very good chance of losing your audience.

You will probably have more than one concept per section. This will be dependent on your topic. My preferred method is allow approximately 2 minutes per side and ensure my words fit with the concept. There are advanced techniques for dealing with this, however by talking for no more than 2 minutes per slide you should not bore your audience.

Your most important Section?

There is a quick method for estimation ‘general’ times I sometimes use. The concept or section that is most important to you will be the one consuming most time. Let’s say that section 3. benefits of change to the current system is the one for you. Allow 6 minutes which is 30% of your presentation time

Then allocate time to each of the other sections. My preferred split is:

Opening 2 minutes,
The current situation 5 minutes.
The benefits of change, your main section will be 6 minutes.
Your offering 4 minutes and
the close 3 minutes.

This takes you neatly to your allocated twenty minutes.

However, I’ve noticed that some people run through the slides more quickly when they practice. This happens most frequently when you rehearse in silence. When rehearsing a presentation it should be done aloud. Next door’s dog knows most of my presentations, well he’s head most of them, several times.

Timing Check Points

The one thing most organisers hate is presenters that go over time. Therefore the most important point is to ensure that you don’t over run! Calculate your section timing check points. For example in your 20-minute pitch you should know exactly what needs to have been covered at each section point.

Most of you will have a kitchen timer or count-down timer on your phone. Start by practicing one section at a time. Using your timer you should start to get a feel for how much you need to cut out, or if you need to add words to your presentation.

I use this technique for every presentation I give and it works perfectly. To accompany this I use two 3 X 5 cards. One with any points I may need help wit and a timing card – occasionally I use the countdown timer on my phone (only if I can set it to vibrate) I tend to review these just before I step up. Along with my mantra it’s the last thing I do before I speak.

Oh and when rehearsing always double check your timings. It’s much better to get it wrong at rehearsal than in front of your audience! I have made mistakes on my timing in the past which is why I always double check as an absolute minimum.

How Many Slides Do I Need?

Just enough. Much of what you do will evolve with trial and feedback. You could start with the 10, 20. 30 framework. However I will recommend a book for you to read. The person I learned more from as far as how visuals are received by your audience is, Professor Stephen Kosslyn. In his book clear and to the point, he explodes a lot of popular misconceptions that surround PowerPoint. I suggest you pick up a copy, it’s full of sound advice.

If time is against you, why not try Pecha Kucha or Ignite as a presentation format

If this post has helped you or you have found it helpful, share it with others and leave your comments below.

To your Speaking Success

Paul M Johnstone is a Management Communications Speaker; Public Speaking Coach, and The Public Speaking Expert. Paul is n Executive Coach and Communications skills mentor. He’ll help people Overcome their fear of Public Speaking.

Paul is the founder of the On The Money© an easy to master presentation system allowing you to deliver Killer Presentations every time.

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Please Add Paul M Johnstone as a friend to your

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Filed under PowerPoint, Presenting

Tagged as Death By PowerPoint, Pecha Kucha, PowerPoint, public speaking tips

April 16, 2013 · 7:34 am

PowerPoint is Bull S*** Part 1~ Paul M Johnstone

Why do PowerPoint presentations put you to sleep?

Sorry folks but I’m here to tell you it’s nothing to do with PowerPoint!

Death by PowerPoint and PowerPoint Poisoning. We have all sat through these at some time in our careers. I say once again the problem is nothing to do with PowerPoint. After reading this blog, you, me every business presenter should vow that we are not going to be guilty of delivering dull, mind numbing unstructured presentations ever again.

The first step is to understand how and why we screw up as often as we do. Like the question I often get asked is ‘why is PowerPoint such rubbish?’

The answer is that PowerPoint is not the issue. The trouble with bad PowerPoint presentations is the fault of the presenter!

Or is it the result of ‘Osmosis’ Management? You know it. When you get promoted and everyone expects you to come back the next working day with all the skills you need to do your new job!

Sadly if that job includes PowerPoint, all too often, your managers don’t believe you need any training. Managers think they don’t need to do anything more than they have in the past. This is usually – nothing!

I for one think it’s because you get PowerPoint free with Office. And because it’s effectively free anyone can use it! This is at the heart of the problem.

Well you can all use Word and Excel really well so PowerPoint is a breeze, right?

Wrong!

It’s true anyone can use PowerPoint. The issue is no one has shown you how to use it really well. No one has shown you how to engage with your audience. Nor have they shown you how to avoid Death by PowerPoint. In fact its odds on you have been left on your own and expected to be successful!

And some companies just don’t get it! Why is it they tell their staff to knock up a quick PowerPoint presentation? And then get upset when the result is nowhere as good as they wanted?

How did it get like this?

If you are like me you’ll have experienced one or two presentations that were truly awful. Now is the time to own up.

OK, I guess I gave a few awful PowerPoint presentations in the past, too.

Now I’ll say it once again – It’s not PowerPoint’s fault!

A few guide-lines

There are a few simple rules that will make it real easy for you to give great PowerPoint presentations. These come in three parts:

Part 1 deals with layout of your slides and helps you with some simple guidelines for how best to use the product and get your message across.

Part 2 looks at some simple techniques and PowerPoint features, some great some not so great, and looks at why some of them work so well

Part 3 will focus on how to get the best out of your presentation by examining some of the techniques that all the great presenters use, so you avoid Death by PowerPoint

Where did it all go wrong?

It could just be a case of bad design. When you cram too much text in a slide, or use poor quality pictures have often distracted your audience. Here in Part 1 you’ll find a quick guide, which I hope will help you to create great presentations, time after time.

Here are ten quick and easy tips to help you add a little WOW factor to your presentations. This is a good place for you to start and you already know you get better with practice. Feel free to share your own tips in the comments section at the end of this Blog.

1 Presentations Start on Paper!

The purpose of a Visual Aid (PowerPoint) for your presentation is just that to aid your presentation.

When creating on the slides we often get carried away and use all the features and stack everything we know about the topic on the slides. We do this often with the view of reviewing them later. Sadly people run out of time and ‘go with what they have’

Taking just a few moments to set out your presentation, I use Post-it Notes for this. It’s quick a way of getting into the flow of my presentation. And being on Post-its you can change the order quickly until you are happy with your content.

Oh and reading to your audience! I heard one person ask the presenter if he thought the audience were illiterate. When the presenter said no, he got a tirade for reading his slides. Now that was a severe reaction but it’s an illustration of why you should never read your slides.

2 One Concept Per slide

It is that simple. Stick to one concept per slide and you will have a much better chance of engaging with your audience.

If your talk is about finance, resist the temptation to tell non financial stories. Or stories with a financier in because it’s funny. They detract from your presentation. Split your talk into manageable chunks, ideally chunks that are related so you can stay on one concept with each slide.

Staying with these concepts. A good tip is to rehearse your presentations and note how long it takes you to cover each concept. Then add the times to your slides. We will show you some great tips in the next part in PowerPoint is Bull S***.

I use Post-it notes. Compile you presentation one concept at a time to set out your headings. You now should have some post it notes with an intro, several with one concept and one with a close. Then all you do is move them round until you have a running order that ‘feels’ right.

Once you are rehearsed you will know where all the slide transition points are. This will help you stay calm while you are presenting because you know when and where things happen

Stay on track with one concept per slide and you will avoid the temptation to wander. Believe me this loses your audience faster than just about anything else.

Related Blogs

3 Bullets are used to Kill People – Don’t be tempted

You have seen the slides full of bullet points. Somehow you just can’t stop filling your slides with bullet points.

Recent research from Harvard University tells us, as presenters, if we are really good we will have 87% of our audiences attention. Let’s be honest most business presenters are not great presenters. The average attention we get is down to 51%. Meaning 5 out of every 10 people are not listening to us! The moment your audience sees a bullet point, up to a further 24% of the attentive audience tune out at that point.

This means that you are speaking to a very small fraction of the audience. Do you consider that acceptable?

If you must ‘cram’ data onto your slides ‘un-check’ the bullet point option, because the default is set to on.

4 Use Quality Images

Always! One of the best way to lose an audience is by using clip art and other low resolution images. When you are thinking about your brand, do cheap and low resolutions crop up? It would surprise me if it does.

You’ll benefit from using quality images in several ways. First up you will be able to fill a large screen knowing your chosen picture will not get distorted. This also helps your audience get into what you are presenting.

Now time to go back to yours or your company’s brand. Quality shows through so best start with a quality image.

5 Discernability

Understanding how your audience receives information helps you deliver what the audience wants’ For instance how many times have you seen a slide with a chart displayed? OK so far but then it’s crammed with data because the presenter thinks you need to see everything. When in fact all you need to see to get the point is the smallest and largest numbers. This is so your brain quickly discerns the difference between the figures. It’s how your brain works and by a happy coincidence is how your audiences brain work!

Present in a way your audience wants, not the way you think they should receive information.

6 Lose the Logo

Think about watching a movie. Would you be put off if the studio logo was always there in the bottom right hand corner? I wonder why this does not happen?

Well I guess the studio bosses realize their logo would get in the way of the viewer’s enjoyment. The best place for all your branding is on the first and last slides as they are displayed longest. Just like the opening and closing parts of a movie.

7 Cut down on the animation

You can become an animator with PowerPoint. Slides whizzing in from all angles and spinning triangles with dizzying pentagons that you think look great.

The problem is your audience frequently just want your basic message presented in a form that is easy for them to understand (see point 6). Animation will not help you make your message easy to understand.

Some of the best business presentations you will probably have seen often only use high quality graphics. For a moment think Steve Jobs and his fantastic presentations on Keynote (Apples version of PowerPoint) to get the picture. He only uses a hand-full of slides to make his point. He hardly uses animation and frequently he’s on his feed presenting for over an hour.

I don’t know about you but I can’t remember any of his presentations using anything other than fairly simple slide transitions.

8 Slide That Support You

One of the best ways of engaging your audience is to use your visual support, PowerPoint. Use it in a way that it supports you. As you found in the first point your presentation starts on paper, so know you should not need lots of words on your slides.

People learn quicker when you engage both halves (hemispheres) of the brain left and right. When you use images these are processed by the right half and words are processed by the left half of the brain.

The other technique for getting the audience on your side is to use lots of images and fewer words. As you know your subject its best practice to do it without lots of text that can take ages for your audience to read.

9 Ten- Twenty- Thirty

A proven technique for PowerPoint presentations is this: No More Than

10 Slides

20 Minutes and

30 Point font size

The biggest fault that most business presenters have is thinking the audience needs to be amazed by their knowledge and experiences. Thinking this is the way to present they cram in stacks of slides.

When the truth is much simpler, your audience don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care*.

And font size, well its sods law that the person you need to influence is sitting at the back of the room and has forgotten their glasses. Make ALL the words you use on your slide readable from the back of the room. If you are in doubt, set up your presentation and go sit at the back of the room, it you can read everything clearly you should be OK.

*Source anon

10 If in doubt try Pecha Kucha!

Never heard of Pecha Kucha? It is Japanese for chatter and is a presentation style devised by two architects, as a way of getting a presentation across in a short, set time, with a simple structure that gives maximum benefit to the audience.

In a Pecha Kucha presentation you have 20 slides that change every 20 seconds. This means the presentation lasts only 6 minutes and 40 seconds, allowing time to get your message across, without boring your audience. At a Pecha Kucha event it’s normal to have a presentation followed by a question and answer session.

This keeps presentation fresh and the audience constantly involved.

If you want to know more about Pecha Kucha just go to You Tube and check out some examples. Or you can contact me.

A Recap –

Presentations Start on Paper
One Concept per Slide
Bullets are used to Kill People
Use High Quality Images
Make Your Slides Discernible
Lose Your Logo
Cut Down the Animation
Slides that Support you
10-20-30
Pecha Kucha

These steps will help you deliver your next PowerPoint presentation without sending your audience of to La-La land

In Part 2 of PowerPoint is Bull S*** you will discover how and when to use some of the features that are built in to PowerPoint. Some of these add greatly to any presentation, others are not so helpful.

Skype Special:

Why not book a session with Paul using Skype technology? For more details

To your Speaking Success

Paul is the founder of the On The Money© an easy to master presentation system allowing you to deliver Killer Presentations every time.

Let’s stay in Touch 😉

Please Add Paul M Johnstone as a friend to your

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/PauMJohnstone
Follow Paul on Twitter https://twitter.com/pauljohnstone
Get Speaking Tips to your inbox http://wp.me/pvb0F-aE
And Paul’s “Networking” BLOG at: http://networkinginanutshell.wordpress.com/wp-

You can contact Paul through his websites at http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk or http://www.pmjohnstone.co.uk/

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Filed under PowerPoint, Presenting, Public Speaking

Tagged as Death By PowerPoint, How to use PowerPoint

March 12, 2013 · 12:39 am

What Do You Do If You Give A Poor Presentation?~ Paul M Johnstone

Phew glad that’s Over! That speech was a turkey!

And Boy it was bad.

OK so it wasn’t the most awful speech in the history of speeches but…….

I’ll guarantee I won’t be winning any awards with it. If you have ever felt like that after you have spoken, this is for you.

Right now – when you finish, your emotions are in a mess. You feel embarrassed, you feel humiliated, upset with yourself, your inner voices are screaming ‘get me out of here.’

Now you’re looking for somewhere to hide. I know how you feel, I’ve been there and it’s not a nice feeling. Now is the time to take a few deep breaths and if you can, reflect on the death of your speech. But please don’t dwell on it. It’s just like falling of a horse or a bicycle, the quicker you get back on the easier it will be.

No one’s perfect, for example how many times have you seen a top sportsperson give a poor display? No one can be on top of their game all the time.

We are all fallible at times, sports people are, politicians are, CEO’s are Teachers are, so you can be.

Once you have come back down to earth, the most important thing you can do is: take a dispassionate look at how you did. Take a step back and take a seat in your audience. Please try and keep your emotions and your inner voices in check. What you need right now is a little objectivity.

There are some questions to ask yourself that should help you:

Why was your presentation ineffective and what went wrong? This is a way of saying it without using the word B**. Take a few moments to identify where you can improve it.

What parts of your presentation were out of your control? Technical stuff happens, such as the projector not working or the microphone playing up. This can upset the audience as much as you but remember they are on your side – highlight the distraction so it does not happen again.

If you can change one part of the presentation what would that be? Did you have impact? Was it pitched at the right level? Were the visuals/PowerPoint appropriate? Did you leave them with powerful last words? How were the Questions and Answers? It’s odds on it was one of these that cause some problems. Now is the time to look at the section causing you trouble and re-work it.

How prepared were you to speak? If the answer is not really- , then what more could have been don to prepare you? Had you researched the audience? Did you try to speak flying by the seat of your pans? Were you not fully briefed on your topic? If one of these issues caused you problems, it’s time to correct the error.

Were you the only one responsible? Just like point two being prepared for all eventualities is the number one rule. Check everything before you start, it’s too late afterwards!

Hope these pointers helped you. Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

Related Blogs

Take a few moments to think about these questions. You may find that jotting down what you feel went wrong will help you next time. Always in life we learn from our mistakes and this is no exception.

Now you have organised your thoughts there is an important step. Now is the time to take a step back. You need time for everything to sink in. Just like writing an important letter or proposal – we all make changes the following day.

Without a break from your perceptions you are likely to rush into making unnecessary changes. What is required is time to reflect and time to amend. Once you have done that, it’s time to rehearse the speech again. My suggestion is two days away from your notes.

The only reason you would break this rule is if you have a presentation to make the next day. But take a break from it for a few minutes, go for a walk, make some phone calls whatever, you do have a break!

This mental break will give you time to shore up your esteem and clear your mind.

Refreshed by your change you can return to your notes. You’ll never rewrite what went wrong. You do have personal power to change the future.

Remember – every speaker has a rough day. And you’ll never be alone in that. Best advice is get back on the horse and learn from your mistakes.

Or in the lines of the old song “Pick yourself up, Dust yourself down and start all over again”

You never know you may even use your past experiences in a future presentation, how good wood that be?

If you would like t0 engage Paul as a coach or mentor please check the Training and Seminars Page

Next Time: PowerPoint is Bull S***

To your Speaking Success

Paul M Johnstone is a Public Speaking Coach, who helps people Overcome the fear of Public Speaking a Communications skills mentor,Executive Coach and Public Speaker. He is the founder of the On The Money© an easy to master presentation system allowing you to deliver Killer Presentations every time.

Let’s stay in Touch 😉

Please Add Paul M Johnstone as a “friend” to your Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/PauMJohnstone
Follow Paul on Twitter https://twitter.com/pauljohnstone
Get Speaking Tips to your inbox http://wp.me/pvb0F-aE

Follow Paul’s “Networking” BLOG at: http://networkinginanutshell.wordpress.com/wp-

You can contact Paul through his websites at http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk or http://www.pmjohnstone.co.uk/

10 Reasons Your PowerPoint Presentations May Annoy Your Audience

Have you ever sat through a PowerPoint presentation and drifted of with your thoughts to another place? If you have, you are not alone, lots of us have.

But you know it shouldn’t be like that, presentations are supposed to engage , educate and even enlighten us.

Have you seen anyone ‘nod off’ during a presentation?

I once sat next to a woman who completed her to do list in a PowerPoint pitch! I bet you’ve seen people checking their watches or looking for texts on their phones.

By now you should be picking up a theme. PowerPoint is a great tool but used incorrectly it can damage your presentation to the point of disaster. So you see becoming a great public presenter doesn’t happen overnight!

You can avoid sending your audience off on voyages of self discovery by ensuring you don’t make any of the 10 mistakes I have listed here. Next time you create a PowerPoint presentation, check it against this list to make sure you’ll captivate your audience rather than irritate them.

1. Clashing Colours

The first thing your audience pick up on is your colour scheme. Before you start to design your PowerPoint slides, consider how your audience will see them. Then choose a colour scheme that will be easy for people to see and read. For slides my preferred colour scheme is a light text on a dark background. White on Black/Dark Blue, white/yellow on Dark Green for example. It’s also good to keep in mind that too many colours can be overwhelming and distract from your message.

2. Unreadable Fonts

Your audience needs to be able to read the text, so use typeface and font that are legible. For example a big room means you need to use big text so the people in the back can read it. A tip for you is once you have created a page get up from your seat and see how easy your message is to read from the other side of the office.

3. Too Few Images

Steve Jobs, one of the best presenters always used more images and less text. My suggestion to you is simple copy success and does what he did. Please don’t fall into the trap of writing long blocks of text! When your change slide, the audience will not listen to you, until they have read the slide. A strong will allow you to speak clearly on the topic.

4. Too Much Information

Your PowerPoint presentation annoys your audience when it has too many slides (see point 9). Stay focused, then follow the Steve Jobs Rule of Three: discuss three main points in your presentations and nothing more. One of the goals of any presentation or speech is “Direct your audience’s attention to what is important and only that.” You’ll be helped here by cutting down on information you use on each slide. DO you remember the mnemonic K.I.S.S? Stands for Keep It Simple- Stupid. Less is always more in PowerPoint presentation design.

Related Blogs:

5. Death by Bullet point

In research by Professor Kosslyn at Harvard suggests that the moment bullet points hit the screen 20% of you audience switch off! And they are only there because it is a factory default setting. Two tips here; you can uncheck the bullet point feature and use the same text. Secondly see points 3& 4 and use less text and more quality images. Oh and bullets are used to kill people!

6. Spealling ant tippping errosses

As you will see from this heading I did not use the spell checker ;-(( It a great help if you get someone else to check your work. You’ll often find you ‘read’ your own errors and miss the typos. By using someone else, a fresh pair of eyes is far more likely to catch little errors. This stops you annoying the audience members who hate these inaccuracies.

7. The Power of Silence

Knowing when to say nothing is powerful. You have just brought on a new slide with a powerful image. Then give it time to sink in. If you resist the urge to speak your message will have more time to burrow into your audiences memory. Allowing your audience time to remember is after all one of our objectives. In professional speaking circles there is an expression “Pause till it hurts.”

8. Ditch the Template

The Marketing and branding people get het-up over this point. The objective of any visual support,ie PowerPoint, is to support you. The problem with templates is they get in the way of your message, because you have to ‘shoe horn’ your presentation into a pre-prepared slide. And when all is said and done the slide is there to support you. A trick I picked up a few years ago was to use the front slide with who you are and the subject your talking on. And the last slide repeats your details and provides contact information.

9. PowerPoint 101 = 10-20-30

It may help if your presentation follows this simple formula 10 slides for a presentation of 20 minutes using a minimum of 30pt font. This formula is easy to follow. A) 10 slides has been researched as the optimum number, so that you hold your audience’s attention. B)20 Minutes, try to stick to this as this is the average adult’s maximum attention span. C) Finally 30 point font should be the minimum size. This is so everyone, no matter where they are seated can read it.

10. Give them what’s advertised

While it’s important to make your PowerPoint slides look great. Your presentation will do nothing more than annoy your audience if you’re not giving them information what you say you will. For in house meetings, if you are speaking on the progress of a project, Don#t be tempted to get side-tracked and talk about things outside the project. If your presentation is on Plumbing make sure it is and it’s not about other building trades – Simple

What will you change next time you use PowerPoint?

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PowerPoint Help Me. What is the Best way to use it? ~ Paul M Johnstone

Lets get this out up front. PowerPoint used intelligently will greatly improve your presentation.

Used wrong will send your audience of on a voyage of self discovery…….

So what’s the best way to use PowerPoint and the other slide software programs?

Think of Opera or of musicals. A character breaks into song when the emotions are too strong for mere words. Songs mark the high points of the story – when the characters fall in love, or discover the truth about each other or make a life changing decision – they belt it out in song.

So should your slides cover the same ground? If you’re talking about a person, a picture of that person will bring them into the room in a way that words just can’t. If you’re discussing some part of the world with enormous visual impact, then go for the visual impact.

When someone you know does something extraordinary like climb Mount Everest, It’s likely I’ll be the first person demanding pictures. Because those pictures are the closest I’ll ever get to that mountain. SO when you talk about your experience they have to be in the speech.

However on a subtle note, if you’re talking about a situation that invokes human emotion. One of great happiness or sadness, then pictures can bring that emotion immediately into play in a way that words just can’t. Ask any charity about the importance of pictures of children to the success of their appeals!

More prosaically, use slides when you’re illustrating complex numbers or numerical relationships. Professor Steven Kosslyn and his great book Clear and to the Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations shows you just how to use charts and graphs to get your point across an a way that makes your words more powerful. And yes people still put everything they have to say on their slides, and expect their audience to listen to them read it! Please Don’t, your audience can read a lot quicker that you can read to them.

It’s the speaker’s job to sell an idea, this could be a story or a proposition. You are promoting your argument. So you should have a clear point to make in a way your audience can follow. By using slides to help reinforce that point and your story is a good thing. Don’t use slides as agenda points or your notes, or bullet points of things you couldn’t be bothered to narrow down to the important one.

And whatever you do, don’t make the audience work hard to get your point. Your job is to make a persuasive case for a point of view. Everything else is unimportant and surplus to requirements. Please do not drown your audience in data, and that goes for your speech and your slides.

For your free “How to Overcome The Fear Of Public Speaking” report please email me at paul@paradigmshakers.co.uk. To be sure you get the information quickly please use “Send me my Free speaking report “in the subject line and it will wing it’s way back to you.

I like it when people give me feedback after all you can only improve when you have the facts, so please leave a comment or mail me with your thoughts.

About the Author

Paul M Johnstone is a Professional Communicator, B2B Networker Network Mentor and Networking Coach. He has built two successful businesses using only the power of the network to market them. A Keynote Speaker; He works with companies, charities and individuals, helping them improve their communication skills.

Paul can be reached at +44 (0)7711 324362 or through his websites at http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk & http://www.pmjohnstone.co.uk/

Stop Press: Tips on how to improve your face to face networking you can always take a look at anothere Blog I write on networking and how to get the most out of the time you spend networking. Paul M Johnstone©

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Filed under PowerPoint, Presenting

Tagged as Death By PowerPoint, How to use PowerPoint, PowerPoint

Tag Archives: Death By PowerPoint

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Death by PowerPoint

1 Presentations Start with a rehearsal

2 KISS

3 How many words a minute?

4 Images and Movie Clips

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5 Engage with Your Audience

6 Direction

7 Knowledge Transfer

8 Tell A story.

9 Silence is a great Tool

10 Your Win – Win

11 Well why not!

Recap –

Have you seen awful PowerPoint presentations?

To your Speaking Success

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1 Design

2. Slides with Charts

3. Readable Slides

4. Animation good or bad?

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5. Quickly locate the slides

6. Hide your pointer

7. Short cuts when presenting

8. Time out to a blank screen

9 Automatic slide change

A Recap –

PowerPoint is BS

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Countdown to Boredom

1) Lets start with Me then a bit more Me and guess what even More Me

2) Always Mix your Messages.–

3) Show your audience your superior knowledge at all times

4) Death by PowerPoint! Go on you know you can

5) Hey its a presentation why the heck should I practice?

6) Making sure of the Agenda – Sorry the Boredom slot.

7) Give then so much information their little brains won’t notice when you screw up!

Tell us what you think!

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Tick Tock

How Many Slides is Too Many Slides?

Is your Message Complex?

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Your most important Section?

Timing Check Points

How Many Slides Do I Need?

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Share this:

Why do PowerPoint presentations put you to sleep?

A few guide-lines

1 Presentations Start on Paper!

2 One Concept Per slide

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3 Bullets are used to Kill People – Don’t be tempted

4 Use Quality Images

5 Discernability

6 Lose the Logo

7 Cut down on the animation

8 Slide That Support You

9 Ten- Twenty- Thirty