I am enjoying my first-ever trip to Scandinavia, having been asked by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in Norway to give a one-day workshop on presentation skills. It stays light until past 11p in Oslo this time of year — which is just as well, seeing how it felt like I began the workshop at midnight, given the nine-hour time difference from California.

It was comforting to have found common ground with my northern European counterparts. When I began my introduction — remarking on how most people learn PowerPoint in about 30 minutes and then declare themselves proficient — many heads nodded with recognition, amid comments like "That's me" and "I know what you mean."

Too much text…slides doubling as printouts…templates too rigid…last-minute changes…misappropriation of animation — I felt right at home addressing the same issues that my clients in the States wrestle with. Having said that, many of the slides that I saw showed very good instincts for blending words and imagery. Those tasked with creating content for the government clearly feel as if there is more to life than title, bullet, bullet, bullet. If I'm being honest, this sense was more evolved here in Oslo than back home.

Then, a few moments later, I would enounter a slide with four full paragraphs and underlines and red type for emphasis and I would be snapped back to reality. <g>

All in all, I am enjoying my visit here very much — the people are gracious, accommodating, and full of life and spirit. They seem to know as much about American politics as we do, regularly wanting to engage in discussion about President Obama. And the seafood here is extraordinary.

I hope I'll be invited back…

Forgive the radio silence over the past four weeks; I have been busier than ever before. I was involved extensively with a defense contractor that I an not allowed to identify, a pharmaceutical company that I am (Bristol-Myers Squibb), a foreign country that I cannot name, and an upcoming trip to one that I can (Norway).

In all cases, I note two phenomena that have a potentially profound impact on how our professional community moves forward:

1) Few of my clients understand what the word "design" means.

2) Most of them equate the set of slides that they create with their "presentation."

I accept and forgive the first tendency; I bristle at the second. And together, they comprise a healthy challenge for those who hope to advance the state of the art within our profession.

Most of my clients confuse "designing a presentation" with "making slides look pretty." If something is well-designed, does that mean that it is attractive? Maybe, but not neessarily. Design should refer more to function than appearance. If something is well-designed, it should mean that it is properly constructed, has benefitted from forethought, and is part of an effective system. A well-designed presentation is one that delivers the right message in the right way. A pretty slide can guarantee neither.

An equally common occurrence is the client who gives me a printout of their slides and says "Here is my presentation." This grates on several levels, most notably how willing these people are to denigrate their own value statement. What does that say when presenters thinks that their slides are more important than their words? Where is the priority when the product of PowerPoint rates higher than the product of a person's thoughts?

Pretty slides = a good presentation. That is the simple equation that these two misconceptions create. It is incumbent on all of us to raise our consciousness around these points to a higher plane.

With my daughter’s all-consuming bat mitzvah now in our rear-view mirror, I will return, with renewed vigor, to semi-regular blog postings. Let’s see if I can actually accomplish bi-weekly…

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For the second edition of what we affectionately refer to now as my Sucks book, I would like to hear from PowerPoint users who are preparing content for presentations outside of the conventional notebook / projector / screen environment.
Webinars
Mobile Devices
Blackberrys
iPhones
YouTube
SlideShare
FaceBook

If you have had any experience with these or other mobile environments and would like to share those experiences with our readers, I would love to hear from you.

Email me at thebook@betterppt.com

Or comment here and we can discuss. Many thanks…