every great presentation is the product of its message (p1), the supportive media (p2) and the delivery of that (p3).
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.
Can you send me your presentation please?
Presentation is not data transfer
Your presentations don’t work. If you knew and accepted this, you would change. Why haven’t you?
Choosing wallpaper for a room involves decisions of colour, pattern, and density. Buying wallpaper before you have even bought the house it is going in makes no sense. But you probably decided on the template for your last presentation before you considered the content. Presentations are not about the decoration.
Everyone can toss a ball up and catch it. Many people can do that with two balls. When there are three balls it is officially called juggling. Personally, I can juggle three balls with lots of patterns. The world record for “toss juggling” that is balls successfully in a pattern, caught twice, is 11. The average presentation is like the Sonia Bravia advert of bouncing balls falling down the streets of Los Angeles. Our brains weren’t built for this. Juggling is fine for three balls (or facts).
The phrase ‘in a mirror, darkly’ comes from the Bible. It describes a first-century mirror, not made of glass but of polished metal. What that showed was a poor, dark reflection, not a true one. Blurred. Distorted. Partial. As a presenter at a conference you will have rehearsed your script, loaded the slides, stood in front of the mirror and checked your appearance before confidently walking onto the stage reflecting that everything was in place. What if the mirror doesn’t show what actually matters? What if the reflection is like looking in a mirror, darkly?
“Thank you.” That phrase you’ve been aiming to deliver for weeks now. You have finished your talk. There is polite applause, you smile gratefully, and maybe even someone congratulates you. You return to your seat feeling a deep relief, even pride. It worked. The slides were great, the timing was perfect, and you hit every point. It felt good, clear, like you communicated.
The presentation paradox is ubiquitous. Audience members, if questioned, will list the nature, content and delivery of a presentation that they dislike/hate/ignore. When their turn comes to produce a presentation, these same individuals will deliver a presentation with the same…
Read more
The purpose of a presentation is not data transfer. If you believe as though it is, you will be disappointed. This fact should change how presentations are constructed, delivered, and received. Data transfer simply does not work; we cannot broadcast…
Read more
The perception that presentations should deliver large quantities of data downloaded by the audience is deeply ingrained in both lecturers and recipients. This is driven by institutional expectations, (perceived) academic norms, and misconceptions about learning effectiveness. It does not happen….
Read more
Your PowerPoint is not the presentation. If you believe that it is, then you have entirely missed the point of every single presentation you have ever “delivered” or “received”. You are not alone in this erroneous belief but you are…
Read more
One more time… please stop using bullet points and text in presentations. Ask any audience member what they hate most about presentations and you will receive the same answer. There is an overwhelming volume of research data on why text…
Read more