PowerPoint sans bullets

I cannot agree more with Seth Godin's riff redux on Really Bad PowerPoint .

One of the most startling and altering things that I learned during my first semester of MBA school was how truly bad my PowerPoint presentations were.  Not only that, but how bad most other people's were.

Fortunately, Tracy Thirion over at Bamboo shook some sense into me and pointed me in the right direction.

The principle is simple.  Bullet points are b-o-r-i-n-g.  If you're marketer (and who isn't, in some form at some time), you need to sell your idea.  Bullets don't sell.  They drone.  There's no emotional kick to a screen with 7 bullets points of three lines each.  Furthermore, with a screen full of bullets, nobody's listening to you. Why should they?  Everything you have to say is on the screen, or at least it looks that way.  They can probably read faster than you can (or should) talk.

Just think about it...when is the last time you stayed interested in a PowerPoint presentation for more than three slides?

I've seen the difference.  After my first major presentation post-awakening, people actually came up to me and said they had FUN.  And they were EXCITED about the ideas I presented.

Seth outlines some simple rules that make a HUGE difference:

1. No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.
2. No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
3. No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
4. Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
5. Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.

I said simple, not easy.  I'll admit, I'm a transition groupie, though I like to think that my careful application of fades adds to my presentation by keeping content off the screen until I'm talking about it (but don't we all like to think that?).  And sometimes I break my rule of "no bullet points," but only occasionally.

It's hard to stick to the guidelines all the time.  PowerPoint makes it so easy to ignore them and do Very Bad Things.  But keeping them around and using them most of the time makes a huge difference. I promise.  Go on, give it a try!

Want more?  I highly recommend I See What You Mean by D. Joel Whalen and Say it With Charts by Gene Zelazny.  The first gives insight in how people process your message and common pitfalls for speeches and presentations, and the second provides pages and pages of ideas for creative visualizations to add punch to what you are saying.

Comments

[Stanton Champion]

Edward Tufte rants about Powerpoint in this 2003 article in Wired.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

[Sam]

PowerPoint is a great tool if you know how to use it. If this is your case you might be interested in iSpring Pro (http://www.ispringsolutions.com), PowerPoint to flash converter.