Laura Bergells’ Maniactive blog is a load of fun and as full of sensible stuff as you can reasonably expect! I want you to remember that because a lot of this post is going to sound rude (and I’m not being: I really, really like the blog!). I usually end up being pleasantly surprised that I’ve agreed with her too, which helps! :)
Recently she blogged (ranted? ;) ) about the “Less is more” school of thought with regard to PowerPoint slides. In a sideways swipe at the whole Presentation Zen philosophy, she points out that people are complicated creatures and require both emotion and information in their presentations – and accuses the pictures-not-words approach of several sins (many of which are even real! :) ).
Unfortunately there’s an irony implicit in the post. Laura doesn’t back her point of view up with any data to support it, just assertions. Shooting in the foot, anyone….? ;)
Note that this doesn’t mean she’s right or wrong – and I happen to largely agree with her point. Personally though, I think she over-states the case by setting up what we’d call in the UK an “Aunt Sally”…… that is, pretending (or assuming) that slides which are visually simple are automatically associated with simplistic presentations. That idea forgets that the slides are less than the whole of the presentation and in a good presentation they’re less than the whole by a long, long way. In reality there’s nothing to say that a simple, clean visual slide with a picture and only one or two words at most isn’t going to be accompanied by erudite, thorough and comprehensive spoken words and/or handouts.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I use Jungian theory a lot when I’m working – particularly the ideas of “Introversion vs Extraversion” and “Sensing vs Intuition”. The latter concept is that some people are orientated around fact, figures and their senses. They like and trust what they can see and feel. Alternatively, Intuitive people (like me) are more orientated around concepts, potential, links and patterns. I’m not good on detail and procedure – about half way down a shopping list I begin to lose the will to live. (If you need/want more information about this, search for MBTI and be prepared for more sites than you can read in a lifetime.)
If you provide all the facts and figures necessary to satisfy those people with a Sensing (detail) preference, you should know there’s a serious risk you’ll bore the hell out of those with an N preference (concepts and patterns). Unless your audience consists entirely of one type of person (and I’ve never known that happen to me!) you’ve got a bit of a problem there as a presenter because you have to present things in two, mutually exclusive, ways.
The research I’ve read (reference to follow when I can find it, honest! :) ) suggests that presentations aren’t good at providing your audience with detail that they can remember. If you need to give them details (facts and figures) your best medium is what a friend of mine calls “dead tree format” – ink on paper. What presentations are good at however, is allowing the presenter to interpret the data, to explain the data and to get his or her audience excited about the data. The data itself should be in your handouts – the job of the presentation is to get people interested enough to want to read the handouts (if they need to).
As Einstein said: if you really understand something you can explain it to a ten year old. That’s what your presentation should be doing. Those who need to know it at a more ‘data intensive level’ should be signposted to where they can get that. Handouts therefore should not be your slides (and sometimes not even based on your slides!).
Your article is far from rude, very respectful and thoughtful.
And I quite agree with you!
I held off on putting up specific examples and proof, thinking it might be more appropriate for another post, or for someone else to expand upon in his or her own blog!
The part I love about blogging is the “continuing conversation” part of the program. There’s time for another post. There’s room for commenting, disagreeing, and growing the thought.
No swipe at P. Zen intended! I appreciate the spare design aesthetic! But I also appreciate Tufte’s approach. Often, there’s room for both approaches within one presentation.
Thanks for visiting, and for continuing the conversation.
Hi Laura – and thanks for visiting.
I know what you mean about holding out on examples sometimes. If a member of my audience is somewhat more literal-minded than is helpful (!!! :)) giving them examples is sometimes counter-productive: they hook onto the specific example, and sometimes discount the whole bigger picture just because the example doesn’t apply to them, specifically.
“I can’t use your techniques, Simon, because I’m a baker and you used the word butcher in your presentation’s example.”
S
Hey Simon
Hope you don’t mind me getting involved in this conversation…?
On a similar note we, as presenters, need to also take into consideration an audience’s learning styles. Here’s one source on this subject: http://www.chaminade.org/inspire/learnstl.htm
We all learn in different ways, so perhaps we should take this into consideration when we create out speeches and presentations. It could potentially help to actively involve as many of our audience members as possible.
that’s just my 2 pence worth anyway
cheers
Jason
Hello again Jason! Welcome.
I totally agree that people learn in different ways and the VAK model (the basis of what you have signposted) is one way of helping we get as much as we can to as many people as we can. (As an asside, some of the evidence behind the VAK model is very far from definitive – but in terms of helping us make better presenations that’s not really important.)
I tend to get my audiences involved whenever appropriate in various ways – even just raising their hands is better than sitting on them! :)