Death to death by PowerPoint

Part of our Best Employer initiatives is regular communication across the business on what and how we are doing and where we are doing it. We recently had the past quarter company update that is a morning session comprising of about 8 different corporate and divisional presentations, supposedly for an hour but some quarters long past are remembered for their record breaking overruns!

It was not unusual for these sessions to turn into "death by PowerPoint" and you all know what I mean by that. Over the last couple of years a brave group of pioneers started to change the way they built their presentations. Rather than a slide buried in bullet points there would appear a single topic along with a picture. Now when I say "picture" I don't mean a graph or a logo, I mean a genuine photograph or cartoon of people, places or situations that was in some way evocative of the topic in hand. The presenter then talked to the topic whilst ideally drawing in some reference, however obliquely, to the picture. Very novel. Mind you, this was skunk-works, nothing officially mandated.

It had two outcomes, these presentations started to be rated as the "best" in the following online survey, they also tended to stay within their allotted time - no bloat. The message to all? people like pictures. Last week the presentations were riddled with pictures and it only ran marginally late - possibly a record breaker. Purely through exposing everyone to different ways of doing something the mass had adopted the change as a norm.

So strip out all the bullet points in your next presentation, put one key message on the slide and support it with picture that ties your message up in a memorable package. Give it a try, you might find it fun.

Now, where to get the pictures? The Internet dummy! There is a raft of stock photography suppliers online that sell low res images at very affordable rates. I'm not going to favour any one over another by naming them. I have really been delighted with the kind and generous nature of many of the amateur photographers that post on http://www.flickr.com/. There are millions of images here and I have found that generally the owners are delighted for you to use an image of theirs at no cost as long as the source is referenced and the presentation is not something that is being sold as part of a commercial offering. Find one you like and ask the owner - you may be surprised. The world is full of givers just waiting to be asked.

The presentation virgin

Another session in last week's Corporate Performance Management seminar was a case study by the Melbourne Cricket Club. A venerable Australian sporting institution that coincidently I am proud to call an iPOS eProcurement for SunSystems client. The speaker introduced himself as "a presentation virgin" being his first presentation to a body of this nature. He performed admirably, his talk was on topic, his presentation was well considered and some of his graphics were simple yet brilliantly representative of a point (something a lot of presenters could learn from). Well done Ivan.

However it got me wondering what sort of guidance and support the seminar organisers gave this "virgin" in the lead up to the day. I hope he wasn't left to work it out for himself - that would have been a little discourteous.

Having given a presentation or two myself, and having also been the driver of some in-house events, I recently published the following tips and tricks on our corporate portal. These may not work for everyone, indeed some presentation experts may consider them amateurish, however they have helped me build a fragile confidence over time in the black art of public speaking.

In the interest of sharing, here they are:

Preparation

• Use the correct PowerPoint template presentation. And a simple one too please- nothing too busy.
• If there is a keynote speaker, dove-tail some of your focus points to that topic and if you can talk on the fly, try to weave some points from that session into yours.
• Use pictures wherever possible.
• Read it over and over and remove every word that doesn't add clearly to your message.
• Shuffle points and slides around to get the best sequence.
• Don't use someone else's presentation unless you are very confident - build your own with trigger words that mean things to you.
• Develop a presentation model of “objective, benefit, feature”, e.g. “Driving down maverick purchasing [objective] will generate cost savings and reduce risk [benefit] – the delegated approval controls in iPOS eProcurement for SunSystems [feature] ensure only valid purchases are generated onto supplier orders.[objective achieved]”.
• There should be a re-focusing conclusion and a call to action for sales/next steps at the end.
• Workshop your presentation with your peers/the sales team/the seminar manager.
• Less is more – thin it out and stick to the core message. Averaging one slide every three minutes is a reasonable pace.
• Do a full dress rehearsal with the projector etc in front of an audience (the weekly team meeting perhaps).
• Backup your presentation on a USB key or similar.
• Practice your presentation at home in front of the mirror (I also use the ironing board!) – try out different phrases and word combinations to find what works well when spoken - very different from when being read - get confident in these phrases.
• If possible get some background on the interests of the attendees and relate information in your presentation appropriately.

On the day

• Get a good night’s sleep and get to the event early.
• Dress appropriately – suit & tie/business wear normally (better to be a little over than under dressed).
• Setup and test any hardware before people arrive especially including microphones/speakers.
• Bring plenty of business cards.
• Introduce yourself to some of the attendees as they arrive and engage in conversation – ask them what they are looking for from the seminar – later try to relate that in your presentation – “Sally from company XYZ was telling me over coffee that ….” – and please don’t pick on poor Sally every time.
• If you are being introduced to the floor by someone give them the details of how you would like that to happen i.e. “Here is John, he works in the basement” leaves a completely different impression to “Today John will talk to us about xyz. John has worked with Acme Company for 4 years and his current role is as such-and-such with prime responsibility for so-and so. John brings great passion to his topic today and will be available afterwards for further discussion”.
• If using a microphone, please don’t tap it, discreetly ensure it is switched on and start talking. Talk in only a slightly louder voice than normal, microphones do not amplify your voice clearly if it is not already somewhat amplified to start with. Do not shout.
• Start by introducing yourself and thank the attendees for their time.
• If you can involve some sort of personal experience with the topic you are speaking to, it can warm up the audience very well, particularly if they can relate to it themselves – keep it short though, no life stories.
• Don’t read every point on the slides – they can do that themselves – talk to the focus point. Telling stories with a relevant point can be very effective.
• Stop pacing around like a caged lion (I used to be an Olympic class pacer - very hard to stop).
• A stage actor gave me a tip to get into a slightly uncomfortable standing position pushing your toes into the front of your shoes, it may feel uncomfortable but it actually looks good from the audience.
• Use your hands for restrained emphasis, don't wave them around and don't shove them into your pockets gentlemen and fiddle with your keys.
• Make eye contact with people and smile.
• Talk slower.
• If a question threatens to derail the presentation, suggest that it can be addressed after the seminar one-on-one.
• If someone throws up a horrer story about your company or product/service try not to be drawn into a battle. Perhaps you could express amazement and disappointment that such an event has happened to them and welcome their feedback directly after the seminar. This is a rare occurance but can happen - think disgruntled shareholders.
• Encourage and thank people for filling out the feedback forms at the end of the session.

Now, that's not too much to remember is it? All you have to do after this is actually speak about the topic - easy - that will be your passion.

20 June 2006 - having just given another presentation last week there are two very important extra points:

• Urge all attendees to fill out the feedback form ther and then
• Take the feedback as constructive suggestion on how you can improve (rather than personal and hurtful abuse!)