I recently attended the Search Engine Strategies 2010 conference in New York City. While I was only able to attend for one day, I still met some great people, learned a lot, and ate lots of free food.
Like nearly all other conferences, every presenter utilized PowerPoint, and this one was no different. Not surprising, most of them were bad. Very bad. I even tweeted during one of the presentations claiming I was being shot to death by bullet points. It’s also quite interesting that I’m writing this post off the heels of a related post about a conference that is actually banning PowerPoint.
I’ve sat in on numerous presentations, both live and online, in the past year or so but haven’t attended a conference like this in nearly two years. For some reason I was under the impression that with the success of Presentation Zen and Slide:ology, the T.E.D. conference, Pecha Kucha and Ignite conferences, along with Steve Jobs’ incredible keynotes that the presentation landscape has changed for the better, even if ever-so-slightly. After seeing Thursday’s presentations, I guess I was wrong.
I realize that I’m working with an extremely small and unscientific sample size (7), and effective PowerPoint design isn’t on the forefront of everyone’s radar as it is on mine, but I was expecting more. I was expecting even an attempt at less wordy, more visual slides. I wanted to outline some of what I saw.
- Bullet Points – Surprise, surprise. Nearly every presenter used bullet points in abundance in their presentation. One presentation used ONLY bullet points. I walked out of it. The rest of the audience may not have walked out, but their minds definitely did. Most people were watching the Twitter stream, updating their blogs, and I saw one guy definitely sleeping.
- Glaring Errors – This one surprised me. Not only did most presentations travel to Snoozeville with bullet points, some presentations had glaring design mistakes. That’s insulting to me as a paying audience member. You couldn’t even proofread it?
- Poor Graphs and Charts – Slideware like PowerPoint and Keynote are great tools to help show systems, cycles, and processes that are difficult to vocalize. I saw a couple graphics depicting processes that were not only incredibly complex (for concepts that weren’t complex) but used font sizes so small that I couldn’t read them. Note that the PowerPoint was being projected onto approximately 15-foot screens. If I can’t read it at that size, what’s the point of having it on there?
- Crazy Fonts – One presentation in particular was all over the place with fonts. I’m not one to shy away from using multiple fonts within a presentation, but you might want to stop after 2 or 3. Not only that, but you don’t need to outline the font and add a colorful glow or a 3D effect. If nothing else, don’t use Comic Sans!
This post is coming off quite negative and possibly a little pretentious, so I want to make sure you understand that they weren’t all bad, nor do I think I’m perfect. Actually, one presentation by Robyn Raybould about Microsoft’s proof-of-concept tool, currently called “Looking Glass”, was very impressive, especially the way she kicked it off. Her first slide was a simple picture of a sunrise as she flew over the clouds on a red-eye back to NYC. By itself, the picture [while nice] had no context. Not a problem. That’s why the presenter is there – to add context! Robyn proceeded to tell us a short personal story about her 14,000 miles she has flown over the last few weeks, tying it into how her fellow passengers are always eager to connect to their social profiles once they land. I was so impressed. She grabbed the audience’s attention with a beautiful, solitary image and complimented it with a personal story. No bullet-points necessary!
I won’t forget the story Robyn told, nor will I forget the image. More importantly for Robyn, I won’t forget her presentation about her product, even down to some intricate product specs. On the other hand, I don’t remember the name of the session I walked out on, nor what they were presenting about exactly (something about marketing mix), who was presenting, or what company they were from. Their non-engaging presentation style and poor supporting visuals actually made them more forgettable, if that’s possible, and it cost them.
Presenters, especially those getting paid to present to those who are paying to listen, need to understand the powerful effects of the way they design, prepare, and practice their presentation. This is first-hand proof that an effective presentation can resonate with your audience, while a poor presentation will be forgettable and aggravate the audience, leaving them with a bad taste in their mouth (and possibly a hold in their wallet!).
Author’s Note: Mari Luangrath, Head Cupcakeologist at Foiled Cupcakes, had a fantastic presentation as well. She was so authentic and it showed. No wonder her gourmet cupcake bakery has seen so much success simply by utilizing social media tools.
Image courtesy of Toothpaste for Dinner
