There is No Such Thing as a PowerPoint Presentation

• 00:05 PowerPoint!
• 00:07 I love PowerPoint presentations.
• 00:09 It's a fantastic technology.
• 00:11 It dramatically helps speakers, audiences,
• 00:14 it improves so many presentations so often.
• 00:18 It's a fantastic invention, right?
• 00:23 Well, it can be.
• 00:26 The problem is, in my experience and I assume yours,
• 00:30 that about 99.999% of the time, PowerPoint is awful.
• 00:36 Now is it because that the technology of PowerPoint is somehow flawed, or
• 00:41 awful, or bad?
• 00:42 No.
• 00:44 That's like saying all television is awful.
• 00:47 You might think The Jerry Springer Show is awful, but
• 00:50 you might love The Daily Show, or you might love World Cup soccer.
• 00:55 Believe me, there's something you probably love on TV.
• 00:58 So not all TV is bad, even though there's a lot of bad TV.
• 01:02 There is a lot of bad PowerPoint out there, but
• 01:08 it's not because of the PowerPoint.
• 01:09 It's the way people use it.
• 01:11 I wanna give you tips and tricks now on how to use PowerPoint effectively.
• 01:16 But before we even start on that,
• 01:19 you gotta have kind of a clean sweep with your mind and get over something.
• 01:24 And here it is.
• 01:26 There's actually no such thing as a PowerPoint presentation.
• 01:32 What do I mean by that?
• 01:33 I know that sounds weird in a course on how to give presentations and
• 01:38 a lecture on PowerPoint, but here's what I mean.
• 01:43 There are only two types of presentations in the world, I believe.
• 01:46 From the standpoint of the audience.
• 01:49 Audiences don't differentiate between PowerPoint presentations,
• 01:53 formal presentations, financial presentations.
• 01:57 We as speakers have all these divisions in our mind.
• 02:02 The only thing an audience is thinking of is this.
• 02:06 It's either a good speech or a bad speech.
• 02:09 It's either interesting, or it's boring.
• 02:12 Now, that sounds glaringly obvious,
• 02:15 but why is it important to start off reinforcing that?
• 02:21 It's because when you are a speaker and you're preparing a PowerPoint slide,
• 02:25 any sort of presentation, you always have to look at the big picture.
• 02:30 The big picture is, are you making this an interesting,
• 02:35 memorable, relevant presentation for your audience?
• 02:40 The answer is yes, you're on the right track.
• 02:42 If the answer is no, take all your slides and throw them in the trash can.
• 02:47 Start over again.
• 02:50 Everything you do as a presenter, as you create your presentation,
• 02:56 as you put together your slides, outlines,
• 02:59 notes, handouts, everything you do has got to be done
• 03:04 from the perspective of how does this help my audience?
• 03:09 How does this really help the audience understand my concepts better?
• 03:15 And remember my concepts better, because it's not a PowerPoint presentation.
• 03:21 It's about ideas you have and making them understandable,
• 03:27 interesting, and memorable to your audience.
• 03:32 Power Point can do that, it also might hurt your ability to that.
• 03:39 It all depends on how you use it.
• 03:43 But if you mess up this relationship, if you think it's somehow about the deck,
• 03:48 or the slides, and it's not about my ideas I'm trying to bring alive,
• 03:53 you're gonna be awful at this.
• 03:54 You're going to be terrible.
• 03:57 So the first you gotta do is tell yourself,
• 03:58 you're not giving a PowerPoint presentation.
• 04:03 You're giving your presentation.
• 04:06 Right now I'm giving a TJ presentation.
• 04:09 Slides may or may not help the audience, but it's my presentation,
• 04:14 my ideas that I'm trying to bring alive to you.
• 04:17 You've gotta have that same mentality any time you are giving
• 04:22 a so-called PowerPoint presentation.
• 04:25 Cuz if you don't get that relationship right the next thing you know you're
• 04:30 thinking of it as you're little slides.
• 04:33 This is your Powerpoint.
• 04:35 This is to help you.
• 04:37 Oh great, I don't have to rehearse.
• 04:38 I can just go through the slides.
• 04:40 I can look at the slides.
• 04:41 I can just sort of turn my back to the audience, and
• 04:45 halfway read, and read to my audience,
• 04:48 because we all know everybody loves it when they're read to, right?
• 04:54 If you're like most people, you hate that, and yet we see people do it all the time.
• 04:59 And, some of us do that.
• 05:02 That only happens if you lose sight of the relationship of the PowerPoint.
• 05:09 PowerPoint isn't for you.
• 05:10 PowerPoint is for the audience.
• 05:13 It's to help them understand your ideas better than you just saying it, and
• 05:18 to remember your ideas better than you just saying it.
• 05:23 You frankly,
• 05:23 should never use the PowerPoint slides to help you remember what to say.
• 05:28 As you recall from earlier lectures, you already have a system for doing that.
• 05:33 It's called a sheet of paper.
• 05:35 Notes, large font.
• 05:37 So, you don't need the PowerPoint to tell you what to say next, or what to do.
• 05:42 The slides are just for your audience.
• 05:45 Once you get that relationship straight your PowerPoint presentations will be
• 05:50 great, because you're not giving a PowerPoint presentation.
• 05:54 You're giving your presentation, and you're using every tool at your disposal.

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