PowerPoint gets a lot of stick from presenters and audiences alike. The old cliché “death by PowerPoint”, we’ve all been there! It’s not the software’s fault or the presenter who hasn’t got the time, skills or resources to assemble a cracking animated PowerPoint slideshow.
Creating great speaker support is not about cramming information onto every frame; slides illustrate your message and bring a subject to life. Our advice is to keep it simple and creatively use multimedia, video, animation, illustrations, and photography! Good clean layout, minimal text, and clear, simple charts emphasising the data and imagery that counts! Build-up information – even if it’s just bullet points, it makes it more visually exciting and will reinforce your spoken words. Above all, don’t use slides as your notes – remember, your audience can’t read as fast as you!
Structure your presentation into clear sections; use short video clips to break up speech to create variety. Animation is excellent for highlighting complex diagrams or schematics. Always summarise the critical points at the end.
It makes sense to create a presentation that can be utilised more than once, and that’s where it is essential to get it right – as your investment will pay dividends. You can top and tail slides to make them event-specific, but having a good set of readily available presentation slides is a real plus when that last-minute conference opportunity arises. There’s no excuse for a shoddy presentation; please don’t blame PowerPoint, as it’s a powerful communication tool when used creatively!
