{"id":1870,"date":"2013-01-02T09:15:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-02T09:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/presentation-skills-blog.co.uk\/?p=1870"},"modified":"2013-01-02T09:15:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-02T09:15:24","slug":"the-agani-of-bad-presentations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/the-agani-of-bad-presentations\/","title":{"rendered":"The AGaNI of bad presentations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bang\"

Big bang... but no real meaning.<\/p><\/div>\n

All the Gear and No Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll bet you know them – people who have expensive hobbies one after the other… Maybe they are into digital photography but their pics aren\u2019t interesting, no matter how technically perfect they might be. Maybe they have a mountain bike with full-on suspension but don\u2019t do all that much riding.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about their AGaNI (Sorry, that\u2019s best acronym I could find! It works well when you say it out loud! :) ) So what does it stand for?\u00a0 A<\/strong>ll the G<\/strong>ear a<\/strong>nd N<\/strong>o I<\/strong>dea.<\/p>\n

Maybe they\u2019ve got the latest version of PowerPoint – or Keynote, or whatever.<\/p>\n

They know how do all the magic tricks.<\/p>\n

They can do any of the wizz-bang stuff anyone for could ask for.<\/p>\n

And still their presentations suck.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Because they\u2019ve got All The Gear and No Idea!<\/p>\n

You see, it\u2019s not about the technology – it\u2019s about the way you use that technology. I\u2019m an Apple fan but it doesn\u2019t really matter.\u00a0 What matters is that I use Keynote to give the audience what they want – not to show off. Windows fans can use PowerPoint to do almost exactly the same things. (In fact for some of the technical issues, PowerPoint is actually better than Keynote! Not as many the other way around, I\u2019d say, as a side issue. :)\u00a0 )<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I advocate planning your presentation using pen and paper – no technology at all… and then add the technology you need as you discover you need it.\u00a0 Assume you can do the technology and add it when-ever you need to as you design the presentation – but by designing using paper, not software, you avoid the temptation (to a large extent) of using gimmicks because they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n

To cite one of the presenters from one of my favorite blogs (preneurcast): \u201cJust because you can, doesn\u2019t mean you should<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n