It happened again.You think I'd get off the soap box.
I attended the Toledo Human Resources Association, Diversity Day event on Tuesday morning. I take my hat off to the group that put it together in getting some really good speakers, including Matt Roloff, the man whose
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mily appears in the TLC reality show Little People, Big World. He happens to be a dwarf, so he talked about his work in helping the world to know the challenges that Little People face in the world.Only one speaker used PowerPoint. And used it badly.
I don't understand why presenters think they have to read their bullet points to us as they show us their backside. On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd give this presenter a 4. She presented a lot of facts and figures, and a few stories to back up the facts. That is the only reason I marked her so high.
The other two speakers, spoke from the heart. One was just as "learned" as the PowerPoint presenter, but he had two stories for each point he made. It made it easy to understa
nd the abstract principles he was using.As I have said before, lose the PowerPoint. Make contact with your audience members. Technology can be toxic to the relationship you want to develop with your audience.
P.S. The only person I have seen use PowerPoint well is Scott Ginsberg and that's because he DOESN'T use any bullet points and instead uses the screen as a backdrop for his presentation.
4 comments:
Now I can honestly say I haven't been in every church or listened to every preacher "preach" but I have never seen a powerpoint presentation during a sermon. I think it is because the preacher wants to connect with the congregation.
She used some bad punctuation to boot. And I thought she talked a little too much about herself, too.
Wasn't her name lasagne?
We teach in BNI training that if Power Point is used, you should have a technical person assist you. But I saw a presentation a month ago where the technical person present couldn't help the fact that the presenter's sequence and the slide sequence were out of whack.
Death to Power Point!
Someone else who also uses PowerPoint well is Seth Godin. As with Scott, though, he uses it as an accent or backdrop to what he is saying. It's not a crutch to make up for his lack of preparation.
Actually, I think this is the crux of the problem. PowerPoint presentations aren't inherently evil. The issue is that people don't know how to prepare for a presentation properly. Instead of practicing what they are going to say to the point that it sounds natural, they try to take a "shortcut" and end up reading their slides.
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