{"id":155,"date":"2008-07-10T07:57:50","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T06:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=155"},"modified":"2008-07-10T07:57:50","modified_gmt":"2008-07-10T06:57:50","slug":"the-blank-sheet-of-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/the-blank-sheet-of-paper\/","title":{"rendered":"The blank sheet of paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

As pretty much any writing will tell you, the hardest part of writing is being faced with the proverbial blank sheet of paper. The potential for creating something is tremendous – and so is the sense of responsibility and pressure to create. So, too, do presenters sometimes feel the pressure to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjust start talking\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ready to deliver – or \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjust start writing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re preparing the presentation.<\/p>\n

And just like writers who have various techniques to help them get started, so too do presenters – the most commonly used one, of course, being PowerPoint. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so simple to use you can just sit down and start creating.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it.<\/p>\n

On our public presentation skills training days<\/a> we show people how using PowerPoint should be the last<\/em> thing you do, basically because once you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153think as PowerPoint thinks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll almost certainly only ever<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u0153think as PowerPoint thinks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Sometimes you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be lucky and that will be the best way to do your presentation – but often it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. The result will be like trying to play a game of football with a rugby ball… everything will be out of shape, feel wrong and not work.<\/p>\n

The tip? Decide – before you start filling the blank page – what the style and structure of the presentation would best be like. It takes some considerable self-discipline, I know, but you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll feel better for it. And so will your presentations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As pretty much any writing will tell you, the hardest part of writing is being faced with the proverbial blank sheet of paper. The potential for creating something is tremendous – and so is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-key-posts","category-powerpoint-and-other-packages","category-presentation-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}