In the last 6 months I have seen a variety of presentations, most delivered with PowerPoint. Here are some ideas on how to make communicating with PowerPoint so difficult and so baffling that it doesn’t happen at all and, like the SAS, leaves no trace. Because that appears to be very popular!
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Don’t consider whether anyone can actually see what you have written on your slide until you get half way through the talk. Highlight the fact that your audience can’t see by saying “you probably can’t see that”. Audiences love this because up until that moment they weren’t sure whether they could see or not.
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Put loads and loads of text on to one slide. Then, to really perplex your audience, read out only bits of the text. This is great for confusing a brain that is trying to match what they are seeing with what they are hearing. This way they wont get any of the meaning at all – brilliant.
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Read with the most monotone voice possible. If you read from the slides without adding anything else, with practice you can take out all light and shade from your voice. This has the added benefit of putting your audience into a stupor.
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People don’t read reports they aren’t interested in, so don’t bother sending it to them. Instead, put the whole report on PowerPoint slides for them not to read. Saves time.
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Similarly, never give the information in a useful handout; this only allows your audience to be able to refer to it later – what’s the use of that?
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However, do print out all of your slides as a handout of tiny thumbnails. That shows your audience that you really can’t be bothered to think about what they actually needed. Excellent.
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Reuse someone else’s slides for the same reason. Preferably complain about the fact that they are someone else’s slides, thus absolving yourself from responsibility.
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Run out of time. Particularly important is to tell your audience that you are running out of time and then demonstrate that you aren’t going to adjust your talk to deal with this. Use up even more time by repeating that you don’t have enough time.
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Don’t finish with anything remotely suggestive of aplomb or finesse.
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At some point during your presentation, irrespective of what it is about, include the line “communication is key”. That’ll really stump ‘em.
Where Can I Find Some Real Help?
Thoughts on using PowerPoint can be found here.
Help with giving presentations can be found here.