When PowerPoints Attack!
PowerPoint is a wonderful business tool for conveying ideas. It is light years ahead of flip charts and overhead projectors with grease pencils.
At the same time, we are consumed by how much information we can cram on to a single slide. You ask, “What about the adage a picture is worth a thousand words?” It’s true, but that doesn’t mean the picture has to contain a thousand words.
The greatest PowerPoint graphic in the world does little to impress an audience. Conversely, a poorly created PowerPoint graphic will immediately turn off an audience.
Here are some warning signs that the PowerPoint could attack. If you encounter them, leave the room quickly.
- Small text you have to squint to read. This is a dead giveaway the presenter cannot condense information into salient thoughts that the audience will value. Which leads us to…
- Full sentences as bullets. By definition, they are not bullets…they’re sentences.
- PowerPoint Axiom #1: If a PowerPoint slide contains a full sentence, the presenter will read that sentence word for word.
- PowerPoint Corollary #1: The audience will be both bored and insulted if the presenter reads a sentence word for word.
- Charts and graphs designed to impress the presenter more than the audience. “Hey, look what I can do with graphics and this cool animation.” Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
- Too many acronyms. “The ROI from our CRM will have a direct impact on 4Q03 EBIDTA.” Ouch. When you use too many acronyms, you must “accept clear responsibility for negating your message.”
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