Lee Davies

What is a presentation?  Sounds like such a daft question, doesn’t it.  Let me tell you what it is not.  It is not a PowerPoint slide set.  Yet this is where most people start when confronted with the need to get a new set of messages across to an audience, as if ploughing through a dozen or so PPt slides will get the creative juices flowing.  For me, this is the very essence of death by PowerPoint, not for the audience but for the presenter.  PowerPoint is not and should never be your storyboard; it should only be the medium through which you share elements of your story with the audience.

Storyboard?  Yes, that’s what I said.  A presentation, at least in my eyes, is a story.  A carefully crafted experience where I take an idea or a theme and bring it to life and where the most important medium is me, the storyteller.  Everything else, from what I wear through to how I stand, is my theatre, my presentation.  The challenge is in getting the story right, and you can’t do that through PowerPoint alone.  My storyboard consists of post-it notes and a flat surface and is informed by the brief I have for the presentation – my own brief or from the conference/session organiser. (more…)

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Let me get one thing clear right from the start.  This is not about PowerPoint, though I will mention it from time to time.  I use PowerPoint a lot, because it is simple and allows me to achieve the effects I want to enhance my presentations.  But I could equally use a range of digital images in a slideshow or an alternative to PowerPoint such as Prezi, BrinkPad, Adobe Presenter, Preezo, Google Docs or PreZentit.  Yup, there are that many and a whole lot more.  I’m not going to compare and contrast the alternatives here, you can readily do this online and this Mashable article isn’t a bad place to start.

Right – that’s the techie stuff put to bed.  How often have you heard the muttering “oh no, death by PowerPoint” at the start of a presentation, even when the presentation medium isn’t PowerPoint?  It is, however, a criticism of the style of presentation not the choice of medium – when PowerPoint is used as little more than a visible autocue.  Sadly, however, it has become synonymous with the software and will often be chanted before giving the presenter a chance.  I have someone particular in mind at this point, an individual who always mutters this phrase but who couldn’t give a presentation if his life depended on it, PowerPoint or no PowerPoint.

I know I am not a bad presenter; I get enough positive feedback to know that I must be doing something right.  I suspect it is the teacher in me (or the performer).  (more…)