Micropresentations
March 11, 2006 at 1:42 pm by Will Crawford in MBA | 4 CommentsThe best presentation may not be much of one at all. Seth Godin points out most presentations are given to large groups of people who aren’t very good at presentations. Maybe we’d all benefit if the people giving those presentations had access to an alternate methodology. Specifically, walk up on stage and ask “Any Questions?”
It’s an interesting idea, although I’m not sure that I buy it. I tried an experiment in my MIT Communications for Managers class, which backfired rather dramatically. Since PowerPoint feels artificial and enforces a linear view of events without a whole lot of nuance, I gave a presentation backed with only a few PowerPoint slides that I pulled out at various points. My theory was that narrative, punctuated by a few visual aids, would be more effective.
I got marked down because I didn’t include a slide with an agenda.
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“although I’m not sure that I buy it.”
Wasn’t your experience a question of you teacher not buying it? Most people who are in a position to grade or rate stuff usually stick to what they know and (think they) like. A “real” audience is something else entirely.
Don’t base your opinion on a sigle experience in an artificial environment, but then again – there’s a time and place for everything… corny but true. Let what you are presenting, and to whom, be your guide. On a final note – it’s also about who YOU are – some people just don’t work well with various types of presentations. See http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/11/the_zen_estheti.html as a clear example. I would *love* to be able to do what Jobs does, but without a lot of practice I know I’d fall so far short of the mark that it would just confuse the audience, so I stick to my middle ground between the two for now, but I’m getting better at the Jobs’ style, because *I* like it and I find the times I pull it off, so does the audience.
Comment by Thomas Watts — March 12, 2006 #
Actually, not quite. In this case, they base their assessments on what they expect other people will absorb. Structure is very important if you’re trying to communicate with audiences that don’t have the background to absorb complex concepts on the fly. Classic PowerPoint does have its time and place–as does a speech before questions. What I’m not buying is broad applicability of this particular way out.
The funny thing here was that my the topic of the presentation was about why PowerPoint drives an artificially linear approach to presenting. Hence, irony.
It’s also funny because I do this all the time – in my career I’ve probably given hundreds of talks with nary a slide behind them, often in front of audiences of several hundred people (the record is probably a thousand or so).
Comment by Will Crawford — March 12, 2006 #
You’ve almost certainly seen it before, but in case you haven’t, Edwarde Tufte (www.edwardtufte.com) has long spoken about the plague of PowerPoint and how it reduces the impact and data density of presentations. He has a famous booklet about it:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint.
Comment by Charlie — March 17, 2006 #
I actually used one of Tufte’s examples in that presentation!
Comment by Will Crawford — March 17, 2006 #