Death by PowerPoint – How To Keep Your Presentations ALIVE

June 11, 2009

I’ve always had a bit of a love and hate relationship with PowerPoint presentations. Despite their effectiveness, many people still perceive them to be cumbersome and old fashioned. I recently read a book by Cliff Atkinson, author of ‘Beyond Bullet Points’ who says that PowerPoint is the software tool associated more with boredom than brilliance. Yet they seem like such a necessary part of education and learning. So, in order to avoid death by PowerPoint, let’s take a look at a few things you can do to keep your presentations fresh, vibrant and above all alive!

Think of each of your presentations as if it was a website.

Shape the structure of your PowerPoint presentation like a website. We all take a great deal of care with the branding on our website – your presentation should be the same. Design is key and your presentation should be professional looking and pleasing to the eye. Use a theme going throughout and avoid the use of bright contrasting colours, as they will distract your audience from what you’re trying to convey.

Abandon the ClipArt!

Use high quality graphics from popular stock photography sites to create the feeling that there is life in your slides. There are several sites where you can buy photos for as little as $1 – a sound investment! Some personal favourites of mine include Stockxpert, Shutterstock and iStockPhoto, however there are lots more out there, so if you are curious, do a search on Google for “Royalty Free Stock Photography”.

Less is More

Don’t crowd your slides with irrelevant text – make them very clean and very simple. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. With PowerPoint, your primary goals is to convey these actions through your images. Your presentation is a visual representation of what you are talking about – not an alternative to the presenter. Even if it’s a simple line or quote, less is often more.

Use 3D

Give your diagrams added interest by making them 3D, and they will visually hold the viewers attention far more than flat, uninteresting diagrams. This works really well with pyramids, and it will make your objects leap off the page, instead of being static and boring.

And Finally… Don’t Over Animate

Going animation happy and overdoing the movement on your template is a definite no no. Having things zooming in from all directions and flying out, rotating around and jumping up and down – will only confuse people. If you do want to use animation in your presentations, stick to simple, no fuss, elegant fading in and out. Leave the zooming around to the road runner!

Follow these simple steps and your presentation should be a pleasure to watch, rather than an uncomfortable coffee break, and if you decide that all of this sounds like too much hassle – hire a virtual assistant to do it for you!

Have your say and leave a comment, I personally review all of the comments on this site, and I would love to read yours ;)
Thanks so much!
Michelle

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