Accomplished presenters use PowerPoint sparingly
Churchil once said “If I have to make a two hour speech, I may spend ten minutes in preparation, if it is ten minute speech, then it could take me two hours.” Presentations need lots of study, analysis and preparations. Good presenters rarely use PowerPoint or other presentation tools, unless of course it’s a business presentation.
Research has shown that speech/presentations can be divided in to three parts.
- Verbal (words)
- Visual(what is being viewed)
- Vocal ( your tone, pitch, pauses etc)
Though each of the three parts has its importance but the least important part, from the perspective of impact on the audience, is Verbal. Out of the total impact which a good presentation can make, 93% of it comes from not what you speak rather how you speak. Only 7% of the total impact can be attributed to verbal part.
But worthwhile to add here that it is the 7% verbal content which is the the base on which a good presentation is built. If the base is ineffective, then visual and vocal won’t be able to help much.
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Quick tips for better presentations:-
- Too much of data put in to PowerPoint slides with running sentences can take audience off.
- Use as little number of slides as possible.
- For a general presentation of 20 minutes, number of slides should not exceed 10.
- Use bullet points to lay emphasis on.
- Use creative ideas and images to make your slides lively.
- Dark backgrounds with light fonts.
- Not more than six lines per Power Point slide. Font size ideally should be 30.
- It is criminal to repeat any point which has already been covered before in your presentation.
- In slide show mode, use press “B” option on keyboard to blank the screen and press “B” again to bring back the slide show. This effect can be cleverly used to draw attention towards the speaker.
- Last but not the least, don’t read PowerPoint slides verbatim
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