One of the most neglected aspects of training, specially in advertising agencies is Presentation Skills. Very often I have found that senior people who are not natural presenters are thrust in front of an audience and simply fail to connect. They read out from the slides and hope like hell that because they are ’senior statesmen’ in the system they will be heard. Far from it. I would imagine that some topics - selling a concept, selling a company culture - require almost an evangelical zeal in presentation style. More often even these are written badly and presented er…badlier.

The problem is that we are never ‘taught’ how to structure, write and make effective presentations. More often than not, we simply rush into writing slides for any project. Usually these slides, varying in size (depending on the users ability to add graphics, videos, clip arts) and formatting don’t really amount to anything productive. They are emailed to bosses, colleagues and clients and then forwarded to those not on the original mailing list. These just sit there on servers or hard disks clogging up space.

More importantly, I don’t think they give the author any sense of achievement - any sense of having conveyed a fresh perspective or insight to another person.

As someone who sits through or reviews presentations on email, the annoying issues with presentations are:

• the author has no clue of the objective of the presentation. when one is not sure of the outcome one wants, the journey is bound to be painful
• brevity as a concept is non-existent. The bullet points are usually bullet sentences and the presenter reads them aloud without elaborating on them
• profound concepts are virtually read out, instead of being shared passionately
• the slides are formatted poorly and full of text. the concept of aesthetic visual appeal in Powerpoint slides is alien
• there is no joy in either preparing or making the presentation

The problem is that, as a starting point on any project, the advertising executive fires up Powerpoint and starts keying in bullet points. There is little or no focus on preparation (information gathering, structuring) and collaboration.

Powerpoint: activity vs. productivity

I had read somewhere that Scott McNealy of Sun had banned Powerpoint in his organization (way back in 1996!). Essentially it was to improve productivity.

The New Yorker magazine carried an article, “Absolute Powerpoint. Can a software package edit our thoughts?”. In that the author says: “Before there were presentations, there were conversations, which were a little like presentations but used fewer bullet points, and no one had to dim the lights’.

In a scathing article, ‘Powerpoint: Killer App?’, Washington Post writes: The soul-sapping essence of PowerPoint was captured perfectly in a spoof of the Gettysburg Address by computer whiz Peter Norvig of Google. It featured Abe Lincoln fumbling with his computer (”Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7?”) and collapsing his speech into six slides, complete with a bar chart depicting four score and seven years.

For example, Slide 4:

“Review of Key Objectives & Critical Success Factors

What makes nation unique

• Conceived in liberty
• Men are equal

Shared vision

• New birth of freedom
• Gov’t of/by/for the people.”

Moving, innit?

The article goes on to say that PowerPoint’s failings have been outlined most vividly by Yale political scientist Edward Tufte, a specialist in the visual display of information. In a 2003 Wired magazine article headlined “PowerPoint Is Evil” and a less dramatically titled pamphlet, “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint,” Tufte argued that the program encourages “faux-analytical” thinking that favors the slickly produced “sales pitch” over the sober exchange of information.

Click to add title, click to make an impression

All this is fair. But let’s face it, we can’t do without Powerpoint.

If handled well, it sets up a sales pitch in a structured manner… helps clients buy into your arguments. Well thought out, structured and delivered presentations make the presenter appear to be intelligent, articulate and full of gyan. Which, usually is the case any way. As they say, those who think better, write better.

Tom Peters, the guru, listed 56 tips for Presentation Execellence in 2005. Some of the great ones are:

1. Total commitment to the Problem/Project/Outcome
2. A compelling “Story line”/“Plot”
3. Enough data to sink a tanker (98% in reserve). (Know the data from memory; ability to manipulate the data in your head)
4. CONNECT! CONNECT! CONNECT!
5. No more than ONE point per slide! NO CLUTTER!!!!!!!!! (no wee print/charts/graphs). Good quotes from the field. (Remember you’re “telling a story”)
6. Energy! Enthusiasm! …. Enjoy it! This is a Hoot! Remember your Goal: Change the world! … A Presentation is an Act (FDR: “The President must be the nation’s number one actor”)
7. Becoming an Excellent Presenter is as tough as becoming a great baseball pitcher. THIS IS IMPORTANT … and Presentation Excellence is never accidental! (Work your buns off!)

One of the web’s favourite destinations for tips on improving presentation skills is Presentation Zen. In an interesting post, titled ‘Learning from Bill Gates & Steve Jobs’, the author compares the presentation styles of these 2 gentlemen.

But as the cliche goes, a picture speaks a thousand words. Just look at these:

Also in one of his popular posts titled “Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic” he places great emphasis on the aesthetic values.

Just going through the above articles would be a great starting point to improve presentations in our lives!