Sacred Cow #10: Web Site Addresses Are Helpful
PowerPoint's been around longer than the World Wide Web easily by a country mile. When use of the Web became popular, URLs started invading slide decks. Sometimes they were inserted so the audience could write them down later, or if the slides were abused as handouts, the thought was they could be copied into the browser. Some presenters used them to launch demos of Web sites.
The problem with putting URLs in your slides is that though the intent may be noble, the end result is the opposite of what was intended.
Take, for example, the slide deck I made over recently:
On the second slide, we have a list of URLs. The intent here is that the audience could either click on the links when they received the electronic copy after the presentation or they could copy them down (and possibly visit them) while he was talking. Instead, what we, the audience were presented was a distraction. They were a visual distraction that took our attention away from the important points, even if they were in mind-numbing bullet points. If any of us had the wherewithal to copy them down or even go to those sites on our phones or laptops, then we're even more distracted. There would be no hope at all for our paying attention to the presentation.
If the intent was for the speaker to click on those links and demonstrate the sites, then it's an invitation to disaster. Granted, there are plenty of examples where the web page launched successfully, but this practice is just inviting Murphy to make a grand entrance. Rather than clicking on a link on your slide, instead have the page already loaded in your browser. That way, the audience won't have to wait for any HTML, graphics, Flash, or any other components to load. If you lose your Internet connection, you'll at least have something to show. Another thing to consider when launching links from within your slide is that it takes time for your computer to switch to your browser, open a new window (or tab), and start the page load process. Granted, it may take only a few seconds, but that's enough time for your audience's attention to be commandeered by something else. You also want them to be focused on you, not what your computer is or is not doing.
So, what to do? Leave the URLs and links out of your slides. Instead, put them in your handouts. The purpose of your slides is to function as a visual aid, and not a detailed information resource. That's the purpose of your handout.
Top Image credit: frankfarm, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #7: All You Need Is An Afternoon
"Get your presentation, complete with slides done this afternoon. You need to present tomorrow morning."
I'm sure we've all had this thrown on us. Slap something together and deliver it. PowerPoint's easy to use, so why would you need more than an afternoon, right? How about a whole day to make a slide deck "more attractive?" It's this perceived efficiency of PowerPoint as a tool that feeds this particular sacred cow.
As Miracle Max said in The Princess Bride, "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
Jan Schultink has a good post on quick slide make-over tricks. There's some very good ideas in there. However, it's one thing to make slides attractive and another thing all together to make them effective. Deadlines be damned, I strive for effective slides first and foremost. Pretty slides are of no use if they don't help your presentation.
Take, for example, a deck full of bullet points, excessive text, and overly-complex, yet information-sparse (as opposed to dense) diagrams. You can readily make those slides more attractive, but to make them effective, you need to understand the presentation. You need to know which of the points and ideas in the slides are those that actually need to be driven home. You need to know what the salient message in those diagrams are. You need to know this information if you're going to not only redesign the slides, but also architect the information in an effective way.
Doing it right requires more than just better scheduling of your own time. It requires a change in the office culture. Management needs to understand the difference between attractive, yet effective slides and attractive distractions. Management needs to learn that slapping together some bullet points together is not enough. They need to learn that old assumptions about PowerPoint slides have been discredited. Management needs to learn that practices that they employ, such as last minute slide design assignments, simply because that's just the way it's "always" been done make it a sacred cow. As we know, sacred cows are better off dead...and on my plate.
Image credit: Aeioux, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #6: The Audience Wants A Detailed Agenda
We’ve all seen slides like this. It’s your standard title and bullet list slide. The title is “Agenda” and below it is a detailed list of each topic that will be discussed. Oh, don’t forget the Q&A at the end.
Why do we see these slides all the time? They’re not really helpful. They encourage us to read and not listen. Many times, they practically tell the story or enough to give you a false impression of what the story actually is. What we have here is the sixth sacred cow of presentation slides: The Detailed Agenda.
This qualifies as a sacred cow because the only reason people seem to waste our time with these slides is because that’s the way it’s always been done. That, as we know, is what defines a sacred cow. And like all sacred cows, this too needs to be turned into hamburger before the charcoal goes out.
Now I’m not suggesting that you ditch your agenda slides. It’s important to let the audience know what you’re going to be talking about. A couple effective ways I have seen this done is when Steve Jobs tells us he’s going to show us 3 cool new products. There’s no slide saying this or even what they are. He will, however, have each product introduced by a big number (1, 2, or 3), followed by the product or a series of suspense-building slides (think the intro of the iPhone). The beauty of this is that the agenda is simple and memorable. By not using slides, it helps build suspense. Alternatively, you can tell your audience the three things you will be talking about and proceed. This works if they’re simple, logical, and almost obvious.
If you are going to put your agenda on slides, try an approach that doesn’t turn your audience off just as you’re getting started. Stay away, if you can, from the unimaginative agenda = title + bullet x (n). Of course, it should be visually consistent with your deck’s overal all design as well as be content-appropriate. In the embedded slide deck below, consider the following possibilities:
Conversational Style. Instead of just saying “Agenda,” try something like, “What we’re going to talk about today.” Being rigid and stand-offish can alienate your audience and discourage them from giving you the attention you want. This is a time to focus their attention on what you want to share with them.
Pie Chart. Yeah, this is a bit off the wall, but go ahead and create a pie chart with the pie values being the amount of minutes you intend to spend on each section. The pie slices give a visual representation of how much time you intend to spend on each topic, which would be more effective at facilitating storing this information in memory than using text alone would be. Don’t display the values, but rather the labels. Make each pie slice come in one at a time. Oh, and despite how bad 3D charts are for data, this is a time where you should feel free to go 3D.
Call-outs On A Timeline. Create a line across your slide that represents the intended length of your presentation. At the appropriate times along the timeline, insert call-outs for each topic. Again, bring them in one at a time. Because time is linear, this is by far more effective than the pie chart approach and infinitely more effective than simple bullets.
Blocks On A Timeline. Another timeline-based approach is to take boxes and add them to the timeline one after the other, each representing a topic.
There is no one way to share your agenda, but displaying a detailed or even a simple, yet unoriginal agenda slide does you no favors. Get creative. Try any of these ideas or come up with your own creative way to let your audience know quickly, simply, and effectively what you’ll be talking about.
Image credit: xcode, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #5: If the Audience Is Technical, They Want To See Detailed Diagrams
This sacred cow is roaming the halls where I work. It's old. It's loud. It smells. It's abusive. It's obnoxious, and it rudely disrupts nearly every technical presentation I have to sit through. Unfortunately, we're not unique in our suffering. This parasitic bovine is present everywhere you have technical people. Fortunately, there are treatments for this affliction if you know where to look. This is a sacred cow that must die else the brain rot that follows it will infect management, sales, and, oh... too late.
Well, rather than letting the technical community continue our sacred cow herding, we can be good citizens and slay this beast. Trolling SlideShare for some good examples of bad examples, I came across a gem. Complicated diagrams, despite protests from worshipers of this sacred cow, do not enhance the presentation. They do not aid comprehension. In truth, they harm and inhibit comprehension. Slides such as the example to the right can introduce what's called "map shock," a form of information overload. The Information Design Handbook by Jenn & Ken Visocky O'Grady describe this as:
"...also sometimes called visual shock, is a phenomenon experienced by individuals when encountering complex maps, diagrams, or pictorial representations. Information processing stops as the person tries to orient themselves to the overwhelming quantity of data. Users describe a sense of being lost, and of not knowing where to start, often accompanied by a physical and sometimes even audible, reaction."
(p.75) emphasis mine
All too often, people delivering technical presentations are doing this to their audience while expecting them to retain this information. It's just asking too much of the audience, no matter how technical they are. Even though the audience may be technical, the same guidelines that many of us who are passionate about great presentations write about still apply. We may have different aptitudes, but we all have brains that all operate under the same principles. Attention is attention. Retention is retention.
If you absolutely need to get that message across with a diagram that, by its very nature, is technical, try applying these guidelines:
Build it slowly. Rather than overwhelming your audience with all of that complexity at once, gradually build it one piece at a time. Don't display the next piece until you're ready to talk about it.
Keep it simple. Keep each build stage simple enough that someone in the audience can absorb it quickly (3 seconds or less). Ask yourself, "Would this work on a billboard?"
Consider the folks in the back of the room. Don't forget the people in the back. If there's text and they can't read it, you're not helping them at all. They're either going to ignore you as they try to figure it out or give up and lose out on this important visual.
It is important, right? If it's not important for the comprehension of your message, leave it out. Otherwise, it's just noise.
Take it easy with Visio. Copying and pasting visio drawings into your slides may be the easy way out, but rarely is doing the right thing easy. If you can't draw your diagram within your slideware itself, take several snapshots of your diagram in each logical build stage. Don't just throw up a fully completed diagram unless your purpose is to observe first-hand the effects of map shock.
Observing these principles will require extra time and effort, but the results are worth it. Educate those around you. Let's put a long overdue end to this sacred cow.
mage credit: Automania, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #4: Using {feature} Or {plugin} Will Make Me Look Savvy.
This sacred cow is such a no-brainer that it begs the question of whether it is in fact a sacred cow or that it's just poor amateurish judgement. It's one of the reasons why many people hate slideware. The answer to this isn't so clear-cut. In many cases it is the latter. In those, it's just someone who merely didn't know any better and could easily be talked down from the ledge.
In some cases, though, it's dogma. It's the manager who wants "cool." It's these people that see it as gospel that to wow your audience, you need to wow them with your mad PowerPoint skills. It's these people who are more concerned with you having slides that "look good" rather than slides that get the message across effectively.
You'll also find that people who hold onto these sacred cows get excited about new transitions and animations in the latest version of PowerPoint (or Keynote). Walls of flame, sparkles, anything that glows, glitters, flies, slides, or makes noise is considered progress and essential to that next great presentation.
This sacred cow is even represented by unbridled excitement for upcoming tools like pptPlex and Prezi. While they do have that "wow" factor and they could in fact be used to make highly effective visuals, they'll more often than not be used inappropriately. Not too long from now, we'll see these tools used with the frequency and in a manner such that the daily stream of cursing of PowerPoint that I see in Twitter will also be directed at these tools.
I'm no luddite. I truly believe that these features and tools, if used with restraint and the effectiveness of the message as the prime consideration, can be very powerful tools in our tool box. However, it's those believers in this fourth sacred cow who take it as a given that flash and shock and awe are the keys to great presentations. What these people need to learn is that the secret to this sacred cow is that pig with lipstick is still a pig.
Image credit: emilylt, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #3: My Slides Need To Function As Handouts
I've discussed this particular sacred cow before, but it bears repeating. All too often, meeting organizers distribute copies of the slides ahead of time. Many even consider slides an official record of what was discussed. The former competes with your presentation and the latter is just ludicrous. In either case, this is a sacred cow in need of slaying.
By handing out your slides to your audience ahead of time, you're letting them get ahead of you. During your talk, they'll know where you're going, what points your going to hit, and because they've seen and read your slides, they'll be waiting on you to catch up throughout your presentation. It can even discourage them from paying attention to you because, well, they've already read your material. If they do that, they miss out on the content that's not on the slides at all.
If your slides could stand on their own as your presentation (they can't), then there's no need for you to get up and speak to them. Since your slides aren't your presentation, providing your slides as handouts, even after your presentation, does not truly benefit the audience. You can't possibly fit all of your content on slides. However, you can all too easily put too much on them. With that said, they do need something to take away with them, right? Maybe. If they do need handouts, providing them with a document after your presentation formatted specifically for reading. You can put the necessary amount of content on this document and if you hand them out after your presentation, you can avoid competing for attention with your handouts.
Image credit: libraryman, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #2: It’s OK If I Sit Over There…
Public speaking can be terrifying. Many fear standing up and speaking before an audience more frightening than even death itself. Many people in my neck of the woods, and I'm sure yours too, make the conscious decision to speak sitting at the conference table as a way of coping with that fear. Sure, it could be out of laziness, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the former. In many circles, sitting while delivering a presentation is accepted practice. In some, it's the standard. The belief that this is perfectly fine is one of those pesky sacred cows and the 2nd on my list to be sent to the slaughter house.
The thing is, our presentation is what we're saying. At that point in the meeting schedule, what we're saying is the focus. If you're not using slides, then you're giving the audience the impression that what you've got to say isn't all that important. Standing in front of your audience suggests that you and/or what you're saying is important enough for people to pay attention to you. When you were young, how much authority did teachers who lectured from their desk appear to have? Contrast that with teachers who stood before the class where they had a good view of every student.
If you are using slides, then not standing up in front with your slides shortchanges your presentation, your visuals (the slides), or both. If you are physically separated from your slides, then you're forcing the audience to split their attention between you and your visuals. Your audience will likely take the path of least resistance and either focus on you or your slides. The few that bounce back and forth will find themselves missing out on information along the way as they are constantly changing the focus of their attention.
If it's fear that is making it difficult for you to stand in front of your audience and by your slides (if you're using them), be sure to get plenty of practice before showtime. You might want to consider joining your local Toastmasters club.
Image credit: Amy Kearns, used under a Creative Commons license.
Get the A1. It’s Time To Kill Some Sacred Cows!
Lately, I've been having a blast reading Death To All Sacred Cows
Well, it's time to get the steak sauce out and have ourselves a feast, because we're taking the cows to the slaughter house. It's kind of a gruesome way to put it, but it has to be done. This is going to be the first of many sacred cows that we will send to their timely demise. First up:
Presentations Need PowerPoint Slides
How many times have you been told by a superior, "Put together a PowerPoint presentation for that meeting next week!" What was the reason for the requirement for PowerPoint slides? Chances are, that boss of yours is riding a sacred cow. You don't have the heart to tell him it's not that Harley he's been fantasizing about, but someone's got to take Bessie from him and put her out of her (and our) misery.
When presenting, your slides aren't your presentation. It's you and what you've got to say. Your audience is there to listen to you (You hope. We'll get to that at a later date.), not watch a bunch of slides. If all they wanted or needed were the slides, then there's no need for the meeting. So, where does that leave your slides? They're visual aides; not for you, but for them. If simple visual aids won't help you convey your message, or if your message doesn't translate well to simple visuals, then don't use slides at all! Your business isn't going to fall apart just because you didn't use slides. Heck, you just might yourself more effective delivering your message and/or call to action.
What if it does make sense to use slides? Well, another way to approach this sacred cow (and peacefully end its existence) is this: Why use PowerPoint? If you have control over the technology, use what makes sense. That could mean Keynote, SlideRocket, 280 Slides, OpenOffice, or Google Docs. There is no holy scripture that commands use of Microsoft's slideware.
One Down...
Well, that's one sacred cow. I've got a bunch more lined up ready to be carted off and turned into juicy steaks, one at a time.
Image credit: Jennifer Buehrer, used under a Creative Commons license.
