science of fail

Presentations in their current form fail. This failure is due to construction and delivery. They are the result of a failure to understand psychological principles.

 

Hysteron proteron

The slideument

Can you send me your presentation please?

Chicken or egg?

Hypnotised, like a chicken

 

 

 

Don’t put the cart before the horse.

To develop presentations, one must move away from the concept of looking at the text on a slide and asking how can this be improved by reduction and illustration. This is putting the horse before the cart. Change will only come…
Read more

It’s not a powerpoint, it’s a presentation

When we talk of hoovering the lounge or of closing a package with selotape we are (frequently) using the generic name instead of the specific product;  it might be a vacuum cleaner made by Dyson or the ubiquitous “sticky backed…
Read more

Welcome to the 21st Century

Holding the door for a lady, dial up internet access, travellers’ cheques and a limited number of slides in your deck are definitely remnants of times past. Some of the behaviour of the 20th Century however still persists in 2013…
Read more

Hypnotised, like a chicken.

When presented with written data, audiences will read. They can’t help themselves. This is due to complex neural issues of having to make sense of images. Whilst a picture can be examined at the same time as listening, this is…
Read more

On why people defend bulletpoints.

I was lucky enough to attend Garr Reynolds PresentationZen workshop in London last November and met some amazing people from all round the world. What struck me was that  powerpoint (type) presentations are ubiquitous, there isn’t even an Asiatic or…
Read more

If I could make just ONE change to improve, what should it be?

It’s clear that when a speaker steps off stage having giving an excellent presentation that a lot of work has gone into the finished article. Whether that is a business case to 5 people or oration to thousands, it takes…
Read more