The PowerPoint fail

A simple reason why 90+ percent of all PowerPoint presentations are crap: The presenter thinks that PowerPoint exists to make the presenter’s life easier.

It doesn’t. It exists to make your audience’s life easier.

For example …

  • To make a point that’s quicker to see than to hear.
  • To make concrete what would remain abstract using words only.
  • To give depth to an argument that would be hard to follow using words only.
  • To illustrate subtleties that would be hard to spot using words only.
  • To visualize complexities that would be hard – sometimes even impossible – to visualize in our minds.

Or, in short: to make life easier for your audience.

There’s not much more to know about PowerPoint. It’s a tool to serve your audience. Everything else follows from here.

Can you draw it?

Because when you can draw it, it means you can see it.

And when you can see it, it means that it’s concrete.

What you think can be abstract, but what you see (or even draw) is concrete. Which is a huge bonus when you want me to see it, too.

When you think “We’re innovative”, it can mean very specific things to you. At the same time, it means nothing to me. Or at least something completely different than you think it does.

But when you show (or at least tell) me what innovative looks like, we can look at it together. And I can much more easily tell whether I see the same as you do … and whether I like what I see.

What does it look like when you “improve the process”?

What does it look like when you “increase production quality”?

What does it look like when “we perform better as a team”?

Can you draw it?

Will it break?

Quite early in our lives we learn that porcelain breaks when it drops onto the floor.

A fact, that one of my clients used to great effect in one of his presentations. He was speaking about their new sensors which were made of porcelain – as opposed to metal.

You might wonder how durable porcelain as a material is.

Well, quite durable.

His presentation was right after the coffee break. So, he brought his (empty) cup of coffee with him. He spoke a bit about the drawbacks of metal surfaces.

Then he took the cup. Told the audience that the new sensors were made out of porcelain. Walked a few steps towards a table.
And. Smaaaashed. The cup. Against. The. Table.

BAM!

The whole audience held their breath. Did he really just smash that cup?

Well, no, he didn’t! Because the cup endured. Porcelain is, in fact, quite a bit more durable than we intuitively think – if you know how to handle it.

You can imagine that afterwards, the audience was quite eager to listen to the facts about the new material and how to make it work for them.

What are unexpected properties of your product? How could you demonstrate them?

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Dr. Michael Gerharz