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300 slides!?!? Even 30 seems way too many (how LONG are these presentations? Do they go on for days?).
I'm fortunate that I don't have to sit through too many blah blah meetings; nonetheless, I've never seen a PowerPoint presentation that was in any way interesting or useful.
What's the point in bulleted statements that just summarize/repeat the most basic (and therefore painfully obvious) themes behind the verbal presentation? Graphs and charts could be useful, but typically you can't tell what they're showing or what overall relevance they have, even if the speaker explains them.
Ultimately, if the content and speaker are dull, rambling, and unfocussed, no slides in the world are going to stop people from mentally drifting off.
It seems PowerPoint just gives people something to stare at while they slowly die inside of boredom. I'd rather people just showed slides of dogs or desserts, so I'd have something worth looking at.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+lynne -dot- wright=kronos -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Chris Morton
Sent: September-14-16 5:49 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: PowerPoint From Hell
I could use your expert input.
I made my living (in part) from PowerPoint in the '90s, playing a key role in a traveling Great Oz show. The two companies for which I worked spent a great deal of time in researching what constitutes an effective presentation. This included such things as color schemes, typeface choices, font sizes, handout generationâyou name it.
I've let my client know that their decks are abhorrent, supported by a weblink I sent them:
No doubt we are trying to convey a lot [read: WAY too much] of information in our slides. The deck I delivered last week was 180 slides based on the client's scope (our presentations range in size from 30 to 300 slides).
Therein lies the problem: Our slide presentations are for myriad clients with different needs but the central requirement is that [they] convey information to readers beyond our verbal presentation.
Decades ago, our reports were done exclusively in Word in a standard business report format (complete sentences and paragraphs, supported by charts, graphs and figures, with footnotes). We switched to PP at the request of clients, but the need for a lot of detail didn't go away. We tell a market story in complex specialty <*redacted*> markets, and people pass our slide decks onto their colleagues months later.
Given our additional background, I am open to your suggestions for improvement to our process. Is it simply a matter of your revising our template, according to best industry practices for PP? Or should we rethink the way we are presenting?
So... clearly they need a method of supporting (not delivering) a live presentation, which PPT(x) does well. But what about three months later?
Record the presentations and offer them on disc (cloud)?
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