The only thing worse than having
to sit through yet another awful medical conference
Powerpoint presentation is knowing that the next presentation
you attend will be no better. In fact, it may very well
be much worse: you could be the one at the podium committing
the crime. They call it "death by Powerpoint."
When used inexpertly, Powerpoint
- that omnipresent slideshow software program - can
rob your presentation of any value it may otherwise
have. It's a common problem you've almost surely encountered
before: just set the slides in motion and within moments
your audience's eyes glaze over.
What's the solution? Just follow
the three maxims of Dave Paradi, who runs the Toronto
presentation consulting firm Think Outside The Slide:
1) prepare, 2) target and 3) jettison your notes.
PREPARE
TO PRESENT
"Set aside time to properly structure and prepare your
presentation," says Mr Paradi. "That is the number one
thing." That may sound obvious, but it's not as easy
as you think.
Make sure the text is in a font
large enough for the guy in the back row to read. Next,
make sure what you've put together — words, charts,
images — actually makes sense. Also, don't get
carried away with the bells and whistles that come with
the software — the pretentious fades and wipes
you can use to cut from one slide to the next. They're
distracting and annoy a surprising number of people.
This, too, may all sound obvious
but regular conference attendee Dr Kishore Visvanathan,
a Saskatoon urologist, can't count the number of times
he's heard a presenter say, "Sorry about this slide."
He calls it the Powerpoint Phrase of Doom.
A couple months back, after a Grand
Rounds presentation marred by a nightmarish Powerpoint
presentation, Dr Visvanathan sat down and deconstructed
the Phrase of Doom on his blog. Here's what he thinks
the poor presenters are telling their audience: 'I understand
the principles of appropriate construction of audiovisual
aids. I realize that this slide does not satisfy those
principles. I couldn't be bothered to redesign this
slide to make it more valuable to you, my audience.'
Your preparatory work should take
Dr Visvanathan's complaint into account so you don't
find yourself uttering the Phrase of Doom.
TARGET
THE TALK
Consider who your audience is before you copy-paste
your latest study's regression diagnostics calculations,
for instance. "Sometimes [doctors] know so much that
they think everybody else wants to know all of it,"
Mr Paradi says. "Sometimes it's hard for them to step
back, especially when speaking to colleagues, to think
that maybe they don't have the same background and interests
that I do."
Photos, graphics and cartoons can
really benefit a presentation if they illustrate one
of your points. But don't go overboard and try to show
off your sparkling sense of humour. "A funny cartoon
can be great if it specifically relates to the topic
under discussion," says Dr Visvanathan, "but if it's
just 'This is my kitty. Isn't she cute?' then that's
annoying."
JETTISON
YOUR NOTES
The idea behind a presentation is not only to talk at
the audience, but to initiate a dialogue with them.
According to surveys of slideshow
audiences, reading out loud the same text that's on
your slides is the worst thing you can possibly do.
Much better to display a diagram, chart or image alongside
a couple of key points and then explain them.
That advice is supported by years
of research: recent studies say optimal learning occurs
when different but complementary information is processed
by your eyes and your ears at the same time. That conclusion
is supported by cognitive-load theory, developed by
Australian professor John Sweller, PhD. "The problem
is the technology encourages a particular type of presentation
in which people put walls of text and then present more
or less the same information orally. The result is an
overload of working memory," Dr Sweller told NRM
by email. "But in the first place, consider why text
is being put up in a 'talk.' Why not talk instead?"
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