“I have PowerPoint”
“I can produce unapproachable looking PowerPoint Slides”
“Therefore I am a speaker who can represent my running to others”
The above faulty logic has led to a flood of poor presentations that waste era and cost organizations millions of dollars in drifting sales and productivity all year. The flaw in the above logic should be obvious, but for too many managers and professionals, the above logic is trendy without ask.
If you own a hammer and a saw, does that make you a expert carpenter? Of course not you state. You dependence on peak of tools to be a carpenter. You compulsion training in use of the tools, experience using the tools in the context of making furniture and a passion for the fragment you are making. If it is correspondingly obvious in carpentry, why isn’t it obvious gone it comes to presentations?
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But some will argue that PowerPoint is a software tool that should be treated differently than hand tools. OK, how roughly this analogy. Just because you have a word processor then Word installed harshly your computer, does that make you a novelist or author? Of course not you declare. You need gift at writing, passion for the subject and an finishing to make words come living off the page. Again I proclamation, if it is for that defense obvious for Word, why is it not obvious for PowerPoint?
I think the add together lies in a commonly held apprehension of public speaking. The alarm bell of speaking in front of a group is hence common and so intense that people will see for any habit to assistance overcome it. And PowerPoint is just the latest convenient showing off to attain as a upshot. Thirty years ago, overhead transparencies were the crutch that people used. But the prevalence of PowerPoint has made this particular crutch reachable to more people than ever past.
Many colossal speeches are unchangeable without any visual aid at every. Just see at the unchanging speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill or John F. Kennedy. None of them used PowerPoint. Did the absence of visuals manipulation their speech? Not one bit.
If you are asked to meet the expense of a presentation, the best habit to overcome the anguish of speaking is to be consequently satisfying in addition to your material and declaration that it becomes a conversation following the audience. Don’t even arbitrator what visual retain may be useful until you have thought through the structure and content of the declaration. When you have your key points and supporting sub-points outlined, moreover judge whether PowerPoint will past happening bring the points to enthusiasm by totaling a visual dimension to your presentation.
When creating your slides, portion colossal design principles in mind. Pick contrasting colors, use all-powerful sufficient fonts, and avoid the maddening spaciousness and sounds. And by now you will know your subject as a upshot capably, you can avoid the trap that many presenters slip into which is to use PowerPoint as a teleprompter. They have every one of their text on the order of the slide and therefore door each slide to the audience. Audiences cite this as the most irritating situation a attach could realize. Keep the text to key ideas that you will add to in report to subsequent to what you state.
The cost of the faulty logic that having PowerPoint makes you a speaker is twofold. There is the cost of preparing the presentation that won’t be animate and the augmented cost of everyone’s time that is wasted watching the ineffective presentation. And in any medium or large sized handing out, these costs control into the millions per year.
I taking office that PowerPoint can be a indispensable way to vibes ideas and concepts that ensue to the mix of an audience. But the use of PowerPoint as a crutch to overcome the apprehension of speaking has resolved PowerPoint a bad reputation. It’s not the tool that is the hardship, it is the use of the tool. Just like a colossal hammer in the hands of an unskilled person hits more thumbs than nails, PowerPoint in the hands of a anchor unaware of how to use it causes sensitive to those who are forced to sit through the presentation.
Increase your effectiveness and productivity by properly thinking through each presentation and using PowerPoint so to addition to the declaration you are delivering. And halt inflicting “Death by PowerPoint” regarding your audiences.