Powerpointless is one of those words that, when you hear it for the first time, you not only know exactly what it means but also wish you’d invented it. (Thanks to Alan at The Media Coach for it!). The problem, of course, is that people never think their own powerpoint – or powerpoint trick (dissolve, fade, zoom, twist or other effect) – is pointless: it’s everyone else that’s the problem, they say.
Rubbish.
Less is more – because a presentation is not about showing off or showing how pretty you can make things. It’s about telling people things in the way they need to know it. The less distractions you have therefore, the better. Simple and elegant is preferable.
Of course, there are times when one does need to have some ‘flashy’ powerpoint
-
When your point is boring and/or irrelevant and/or weak and you need to cover that up;
-
When you’ve not structured you presentation well enough and you need to distract from a clumsy change of direction or topic;
-
When you’ve got a ‘hollow’ presentation (with no substance) and you hope you can hide that by using an overly flashy packaging;
-
When you’ve been very serious for a while and you need to lighten the mood etc..
As you can tell, I’m not a fan and I’d only count the last point as a valid one – although this too can easily be overdone if you’re not careful. A twenty minute presentation shouldn’t need to have more than one such occasion at the most.
Anything longer than 20 minutes, by the way, and you run into a whole other bunch of problems!
In short – keep it clean, keep it simple…. and don’t try to hide the inadequacy of your presentation’s content by hyping up the packaging. There’s no use having diamond-encrusted wrapping paper around a toy plastic ring!
A presentation is not about the package – it’s about the content. The act of presenting is the means to the end, not the end in itself
