Never Give A Boring Presentation Again: PowerPoint Tips from a Late Adopter |

by Geetha Gangireddy

Never Give A Boring Presentation Again: PowerPoint Tips from a Late Adopter

August 21, 2012 | Posted in Government, Military, Professional Education

These days, many of us take PowerPoint and other slide-sharing tools for granted. Presentations that feature slides have become so commonplace in colleges, boardrooms, and professional training environments that the phrase “death by PowerPoint” is not unfamiliar to those who feel inundated with slide-centric lectures.

But how can those of us in the military and government space ensure that we aren’t boring our audiences to death with slides, but are instead using PowerPoint to make presentations more engaging and memorable? A recent post by Federal Computer Week’s Steven Kelman titled “Confessions of a PowerPoint convert” offers some insights to help answer this question.

As a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, author of several books on public policy, and former Administrator at the federal Office of Management and Budget, Kelman can speak from many perspectives on the ways we learn and teach in the government space. Kelman offers the following tips to government readers on delivering engaging, informational PowerPoints:

Minimize text on slides and use concise bullet points instead of paragraphs
Use different colored text to draw focus to specific content
Try animations (such as text zooming into view) to grab viewer’s attention
Focus on appealing visuals such as photos and charts – and don’t be afraid of image-only slides!

And what results did Kelman see when using PowerPoint for the first time in his classroom while following the guidelines above? He states:

“I saw the first results while I was teaching, which was a dramatic increase in the amount of student notetaking. But I just got more detailed results — my students’ evaluations of the first classes where I used the PowerPoint presentations. My overall teaching ratings went up. But there was a very dramatic increase in one specific area: “Clarity of the main ideas presented in class.” With the slides, participants were able to absorb main points and themes better.

This has been a real eye-opener. I know some people believe slides inhibit learning. I am now inclined to think that, used well, they really do help learning. And this is with executives who are not part of the videogame, text-message generation. I haven’t even tried this yet on my twenty-something master’s students; this will happen when the semester starts in a few weeks. There is something here, I think, not just for professors, but for managers or anybody else trying to get messages across.”

Be sure to read the rest of Steven Kelman’s “Confessions of a PowerPoint convert” for his full thoughts on adopting slides in his presentations, and please share any additional PowerPoint tips you have with us in the comments below!

Nawab Husain

Besides preparation material for slides, avoid reading from slides thus showing your behind to the class etc., but face the audience.
MA

Very True
andy g

I taught a 7 hour course on Presentations on Saturday here in Taiwan. My tips are: 1 colored pens is an admission your slide is boring and you should not use these or any animations and clip, art as this says the same thing. 2 No lists please. These are presenter prompts and are a waste of time as audiences will not remember them. 3 Present slides with missing information as then they will have to listen to you to get the full picture. (the idea of progressive slide disclosure is useful here). Use slides to give a problem or set up a situation to make the audience think and guess what you are saying. 4 Avoid the word summary as you are just repeating yourself and wasting the audiences time. Tell them what you want them to do next with the information. I taught 7 hours and only used 8 slides all class I did use other visuals, such as video, as this is also a visual. Kelman clearly doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Thanks

John Franz

I respectfully disagree with a lot of the above. I am a visual learner…having a bulleted list of points to look at while the speaker addresses (and hopefully expands upon) each point is a valuable way for me to follow the flow of the presentation.
Oh, and that bit about leaving out stuff? Wow, that just drives me completely crazy. To my mind, the purpose of the slides is to provide a logically complete framework for the verbal input I’m getting from the speaker. The slide should contain the core material the presenter wants to get across..supplemented by extemporaneous comments, clarifications and live interaction with the audience.
Paul D

Really like these tips, but I think that the judicious, limited use of animations is OK. Also love the suggestion about having missing information and progressively revealing it – this can help you and audience. I think asking questions on slide to provoke discussion amongst audience is also great.

http://twitter.com/techincal_fool Ankan Saikia

Very nice article. Will help people like us a lot! thank you
andy w

you can also use prezi. powerpoint was born ugly
andy w

oh and lists can be very helpful mister andy g.
Linda

Are there any examples of PPs the author can share with us? I’m a first-year teacher and would love all the help I can get!
eetom

Can the writer please present a slide presentation on this topic?

http://www.facebook.com/elpeso.nuestro El Peso Nuestro

Indeed, a one slide presentation of this article should have proven effectiveness of the information

Madhu j

Powerpoint is an incredible modern tool of
Lecturing. I found smart art graphic more useful in making better slides
http://twitter.com/the_rantingpony Grethe Koen

“Minimize text,” “try animations” How is this at all new information? Seems like the same old tired pointers we’ve been getting for years
zaizix

Using animated imagery and text is something you should avoid at all costs! Same goes for wordart… it’s very cheap and 90′s looking! I’ve lost count of how many time classmates have giggled at the horrendous powerrpoints our lecturers give us.. It’s all about being minimal and selecting a theme and sticking to to it! Having the same layout for each page also works wonders!
PPKnowitall

1. If you’re using animated anything, you’re just showing you’ve got too much time on your hands.

2. Never show a slide you personally didn’t make.

3. Don’t use any slides unless absolutely necessary.
Freke

Here it is….
holly cole

I teach Communications and have been calling for students to break the habit of using all the gizmos, the moving images, letters falling out of the sky, and other PPt tricks which, at first amaze, then annoy an audience. Clear, crisp slides, minimal text, backing up what the presenter says is most important. The visual show should not steal the spotlight from you.
Brielle Hanafin

Teaching is an extremely hard job whether people
want to believe it or not. Regardless of how much the Professor enjoys the
subject, usually somewhere in the syllabus comes a topic that may not be as
interesting as others. The biggest concern, as Steve Kelman clearly expressed,
is how to present the information in an appealing manner and keep the students
engaged in note taking without holding a boring lecture. Kelman hesitantly introduced
Power Points into his lecture, keeping them short, colorful, and using alluring
visual content. While I agree Power Point is a great program to help in
presentations, I believe if Mr. Kelman and teachers around the world read the
book, or even just the introduction, of the book Made To Stick by the Heath
Brothers, their student evaluations will sky rocket. Heath and Heaths’ book addresses
businesses, teachers, and others and explains six easy techniques that will
help make a presentation or classroom lecture interesting, and stick. The key
to remembering these techniques? SUCCESS. Principle number one; Simplicity.
Using proverbs in order to create a simple and profound lecture. Here they
express keeping the talk (or in Kelmans case slide) short is not the key.
Instead, the trick is to find a one-sentence statement “so profound an
individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.” Rule number two; Unexpectedness.
Using a slide for every lecture for instance, will eventually be expected.
Their argument here is to surprise the audience, grab their attention by
creating interest and curiosity. Next is Concreteness, making ideas
clear by using human actions, such as concrete images or using recent news
stories (Heath and Heath use an urban legend about a bathtub filled with ice
and a mans organ was stolen) . By speaking concretely students will be on the
same page throughout the lecture because it will mean the same thing to
everyone. The fourth is Credibility, making the students believe ideas, or in
Kelmans’ case the information. Come up with a sticky idea, such as asking simple
questions, to force students in testing the material/or ideas for themselves.
Following this principle is Emotions. Presenting a slide with images may spark
an interest in students, but how about making them feel something by coming up
with an interesting, unexpected twist in the lecture that will be surprising
and stimulate students’ emotions, thus helping them remember the topic.
Finally, is Stories; instead of just lecturing or relying on power points, tell
stories. The Heath Brothers argue stories create a mental catalog or mental
stimulator by getting students to respond more quickly and effectively. Every
professor has their own method of teaching, but if they are going to take the
time to create Power Points, why not take the time to come up with a SUCCESSful
lecture and change class up a little bit? I strongly suggest people read the
book as Heath and Heath provide useful tips and information for businesses,
teachers, presenters, while incorporating humor and following their own advice
to keep the readers engaged and help remember future info, just like students
will if teachers follow S.U.C.C.E.S.S

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Never Give A Boring Presentation Again: PowerPoint Tips from a Late Adopter

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