Entertainment For Lively Minds
Death by Powerpoint
Posted by Hawkfall on 27 May 2011 - 1:18pm.
Apologies if a post like this has been done before, but I was sitting in a awful presentation recently and I thought it would be nice to hear everyone's worst Powerpoint stories. So, what do you say? Naturally, extra points are awarded for:
Anything else?
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Reading the slides.
There's a temptation for people to think that everything they want to say as part of the speech element of a presentation has to be in the slides. From there, it's a short step to a situation where they're pretty much just reading the slides out to us - often with their back turned to the audience so they make sure they don't miss a point. I sit there thinking, "E-mail the slides to me and I'll stay in the office and read it. Saves on the travel costs, too..."
They don't seem to realise that when you put slides up, the natural tendancy is to read them. While we're reading them, we're not paying full attention to what is being said, and this gets even worse if the slides are hard to read or contain howlers. Presentation slides, by and large, should be bullet points (ask: "what do I want them to remember about this point?") and simple, clear graphics.
(I think this problem arose when people started writing reports and such like on PowerPoint. They thought they were saving time by combining the report and the presentation. Now, there are times when this works but it's usually when it's a peer to peer presentation. When it's a more general audience, you really ought to seperate the report and the presentation. IMHO.)
The French
I work for a French company and there is a huge cultural difference between France and the UK when it comes to presentations and slides.
We are always told (though too many people weren't listening) to be sparse and follow the arbitrary maximum of seven words and seven lines rule. The French believe that every piece of information MUST be on the slides.
I have seriously considered printing them out on A3 paper to be able to read them all properly,
In some of the more formal meetings, like senior management briefings to union reps at the European level the slides are distributed by email in advance of the meeting. I have heard of one meeting where the management tried to introduce a significant topic that was not written on a slide and the French union refused to allow it until the slides were updated...
Christ, that's completely hat-stand
If the point of the exercise is to convey dense information, surely the best way is to, erm … write a report, send it out in advance, then spend the meeting discussing it.
One of the criticisms of Nasa after the Challenger disaster was that important information regarding risk had been buried within sub-bullets among a slew of PowerPoint slides.
As Mark alluded to above, the brain can't process speech and text at the same time. As it can read much faster than the presenter can speak, it will almost always read the slide and ignore the speaker.
I don't think a lot of people realise there's a notes view in PowerPoint. If you must do a presentation, use it to present the big picture, keep the slides as minimal as possible, write detailed information in the notes and give the audience handouts after you've delivered it.
Oh man, where do I start
My company have what's called a kick-off meeting at the start of each year. Two days of death-by-PowerPoint. Unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps) I ripped my calf muscle skiing the day before and had to miss it.
I looked over the slides when I got back. One presentation had 120 slides. Bloody hell.
Ani-flippin'-mated transitions!
For me the major crime has to be the person who has discovered the Custom Animations menu but not discovered good taste. I've lost count of the number of presentations I've been to where each and every bullet point swooped, or spun or exploded or boinged or whizzed or dematerialised or flew or twizzled or wiped or corkscrewed or stretched onto screen in a different manner. And each time it just gets more and more and more aggravating!
Aaaaaarrrrggghhhhh!
All the crimes mentioned in the original post grate too but it's over-use of animations that really does it for me!
I know exactly what you mean,
that said, it can be unintentionally highly amusing and at least relieves the tedium...
Hmmm... for the first three minutes maybe...
But from then on in every boomerang and bounce is another little dagger in the soul!
Animations and
the handshake picture. Cue vomit. And any presentation that ends, "Thank you for your attention."
'The handshake picture'
Known in newspaper offices up and down the land as the 'grip and grin'.
Any Questions?
Of course accompanied by clip art of a yellow circle with a quizzical expression and a question mark over it.
Guilty
but I only ever use it to illustrate the importance of ... the handshake, in "preparing for interviews" talks.
I also get everyone to shake the hand of the person next to them, to find out if they've got a bone crusher or a limp lettuce, the stuff their best friend's never told them. Even in a lecture theatre full of pointy heads, it never fails to get them over-excited and takes 10 minutes to calm them down - but they remember it, far more than any bullet points or watching some animation of a handshake.
Absolutely
And so often accompanied by a pause and a "get a load of THIS!" facial expression from the presenter.
No.
The inverse ratio
Generally the more animations presenters use, the less they have to say of any value.
Bottom left hand corner of the screen:
"Slide 2 of 96" - seriously. The guy even said he'd already cut it down from 150. It was a technical presentation on Video compression to commercial sales guys who couldn't work a video. I had a wank.
Regular presentations from a supplier's sales director who would helpfully read every word on the screen and feel no need to add to what was already in front of us. He had very small hands. I invented the internet.
"This is not my presentation, this is somebody elses prsentation" Well either get them to present it or fuck off and let me get on with modelling this huge replica of Sepp Blatter's ego out of buffet vol au vents and mini pizzas.
"English is not my first language" Kill me now.
"The Group Effort"
You know the one. Everyone in the project team is told to prepare 2-3 slides for a 30 minute review. They all come back with 2-3 slides of densely-packed text, and the review lasts one hour.
St Steve of Jobs
Now credit where credit's due: Stevie does do good presentations these days.
Thing is, if you look at his slides, you'll notice there's hardly any text on them. There are certainly no bullet points. If only the rest of the world would follow suit …
Meanwhile, over at Microsoft HQ:
Comic
Sans.
http://bancomicsans.com/
I've occasionally
used Comic Sans. It does have its uses.
No!
I'm sorry but it does not.
Granted that I don't have a budget to buy typefaces
I've used it for text in speech bubbles.
Absolutely!
(Dons black polo neck and stick on 'soul patch'.)
I'm a typographer, that's what it's there for. Poor old Vincent Connaire designed it for lettering in comics, children's media and associated uses. Not for restaurant menus, Powerpoint presentations or gravestones. I feel for him.
Comic Sans
is to fonts what managers are to productivity.
I will permanently associate it with badly photocopied missives from people "upstairs" who worried more about office space, meeting agendas and time spent away from your desk and who cast phrases like "success is a journey, not a destination" upon you as if they were deigning to bless you with a Confucian level of perspective on life.
May I offer this?
May I offer this?
Death by PowerPoint
Oops, beaten to it (see above)
The Chief Exec. of a company I worked for...
...was just getting into his second slide of a long and tedious presentation when there suddenly appeared a message on screen.
"Your updates are installed. This computer will restart automatically in 60 seconds. Close all programs and do not switch your computer off during this process."
Or something akin to that. Strangely, there was no delay key or cancel key - I was later told that this was something our I.T. department had insisted on to prevent people from postponing the anti-virus software from updating. (They'd had a pretty major virus infection shortly before I'd joined.)
Whatever the update was, it took more than 10 minutes to regain normal service, in which time said CEO had a heated chat with the head of I.T. and we were eventually allowed to go walkies for a coffee and a fag. In all, it took about half-an-hour to get everybody back into the room.
The irony is that the slide on the screen at the time was titled "Forward Planning." Pity he didn't plan for I.T. to temporarily disable automatic rebooting for a couple of hours. The tit.
And don't forget to log out of Communicator
I can think of a few people who have given presentations, only to be interrupted by a message popping up from someone asking if they're up for a coffee.
I'd have loved to have seen that, but
one of the things I'm thankful for is that I very rarely have to experience Powerpoint presentations these days.
I work
for a company where we have Norn Iron people in different facilities around the world. A workmate was in the middle of a presentation when an IM popped up from a colleague in the states:
'bout ye wanker'
Ouch
An Icelandic ex-girlfriend and I keep in touch on Gchat. When that volcano went supernova last year, I sent through what I thought was a pithy, mildly saucy note to her about it to her Gchat, the kind of message that pops up in an unmissable coloured bubble on the screen.
She was in the middle of a presentation in front of her entire company, using her laptop.
A few months later whe, like the volcano itself, she had calmed down, she claimed she could see the funny side of it.
Please remember to personalise your company's
standard presentation because you will feel a bit of a tit when another company's name suddenly appears on the, "What we will do for just for you..." page. Especially if it's one of my competitors.
Oh, and if you're going to download a copy of our logo from the internet and put that in the presentation, please remember that we have a large manual about corporate identity so make sure you download it with the strapline and you don't play with the sizing or colour.
And if you do download the logo ..
..make sure that the resolution is no greater than 50 x 50 pixels, so that when blown up on the screen it looks like a Space Invader with a corporate vision.
"Our strengths:
"1. Our proven proffessionalism...."
I always snigger at that
On signs, in presentations, mission statements, brochures and prospectuses; proudly declaring how "proffessional" they are.
The idiots.
Slide 5
Group activity
*collective groan and unease*
Group Activity
Which is always denoted by the 'group huddle' clipart that suggests we are about to go for a passing play at 1st and 10.
In our suits.
A cartoon duck assaulting a computer
with a big hammer.
It was never funny in the first place and has got progressively less funny in each of the 20 years since it first turned up in some clipart collection.
And throw in
the stick men for good measure.
The antidote
Is Powerpoint Karaoke - in which participants give a presentation backed by a random powerpoint downloaded from the net. It may be significant that this originated in Germany.
Or you can play Bullshit Bingo.
Write out some lists of management jargon du jour and tick off the words and phrases as they're spouted out. Warning: think carefully about whether you call out "Housey housey" or simply compare notes at the end of the meeting. The former option doesn't always play out too well...
Great Fun
I did that at a conference. The next speaker didnt turn up so I did his as well - with no idea what it was about or what was coming up next. Quite a laugh really. I did ask the audience at several points - "ok, why do we think he has a picture of a cloud?"
Anyone who has worked in HE recently
Will probably have seen a lecture on learning and teaching begin with this video, usually with the feedline: "Do we set our students up to fail like this?"
It is usually followed up with this total rib tickler, with the feedline: "Or do we help them along?"
Oh my, how did my sides not split, every single time since 2004.
Unfortunately, what follows is usually 50 minutes on blended learning throughout every single minute you want to garotte yourself.
I have done loads of them
I can't be bothering with them any more. Why? Because the best speaker I have ever seen, Donald Dewar MP (RIP), turned up and spoke to us for an hour with no powerpoint and very few notes. He was engaging, concise, professional and sincere. This was because he knew his subject and he really enjoyed talking about it. When he left the room, all 100-or-so people there thought he was terrific. He wasn't flash, just very natural.
The other top-notch speakers have impressed for various reasons, but never, ever, because they have a well-put-together powerpoint presentation.
The only time I use them now is the rare occasion when a powerpoint is expected, and not having one might be seen as arrogant.
And when I do use them, the slides are generic and don't mention the thing I am talking about. Why? Because if it does, the presentation needs to go through internal sign-off processes involving several areas that have far more pressing things to do. Once, one of my slides showed a drawing of a coin. Legal fretted for two weeks over who has rights to the Queen's image. Overall it took 5 months to go from one end of the organisation and out of the other.
It's a real relief not to use them. No technology to worry about and the people there looking at you and listening to what you are saying.
It's just talking to people, like we do with our friends and families.
And finally, given the mood of threads like this and the fact that everyone, including me, winces at the very thought of a powerpoint presentation - isn't it time to take the hint and stop?
I sort of agree, but...
The Donald Dewer point is well made. I might say the same about John Kay who spoke for an hour on the financial crisis with no notes or slides and was gripping. But my recall of that is limited because of the venue and limited capacity to take notes.
I think the best I've seenw as Frank Dick the athletics coach who did a thing on teamwork. He also talked without slide,s but had some fabulous video clips to make his point that I still recall about 4 years later (both around people doing jobs, fotball and motorracing, to allow the star to either score a goal or get out a car that was on fire).
My guess is that I have a veyr visual memory, so wiht nothing to look at or recall for an hour I'm struggling.
Agreed
The best presentation I saw recently lasted about 30 minutes and had two slides.
The issue here is that you either have to be a naturally talented presenter or you have to practice a lot. The vast majority of PowerPoint abusers fall into neither category.
The question you should ask is 'could I do a useful presentation if I arrive to find the projector is broken?'.
Similarly
I once saw Carl Chinn give a lecture on the history of Birmingham. For those who don't know, Professor Chinn is, to all intents and purposes, "Mr. Birmingham." Essentially, what he doesn't know about the history of the city isn't worth knowing.
Professor Chinn MBE, to give him his full title, talked engagingly for over an hour about the past development and redevelopment of Birmingham, The Bullring and the University, aided only by a very occasional photographic slide to illustrate his presentation. He had notes, but he he kept these on the lecturn while he stood at the opposite end of the stage (next to the screen) and only appeared to refer to them once - he made a deliberate joke about this when he did it. What could have been an incredibly dry, boring talk was brought to life by Chinn's engaging personality.
Prof. Chinn was followed by the Vice Chancellor of the University, who proceded to deliver what could have been a fairly interesting short talk about the work of the University over the next 45 minutes. A good orator could have got the same amount of information over in less than half-an-hour. He was a very awkward speaker: he stumbled, he mumbled... and he read every single word out from a printout. As if we couldn't hear him through the ums and ers, practically all of his text was also shown on PowerPoint slides.
In fairness, I should point out that I don't know of the Vice Chancellor's background, but I would have thought that he'd have had some lecturing experience. Professor Chinn is a professional broadcaster as well as an academic. Seen back-to-back, the contrast between their talks couldn't have been more stark.
Watching other peoples presentations
Is an occupational hazard for me. Worst offences are:
Crowded slides with tiny text. When you're creating it, take a few steps back from the laptop screen. If you can't read it then neither will your audience.
Reading every word verbatim from each slide.
Twenty bullet points per slide, all needing a click.
Talking to the projection screen rather than the audience. Either you have a laptop screen in front of you or I put a comfort monitor out for you. Besides, didn't you prepare for this?
If you must use your own laptop then turn off the screen saver and power management so it doesn't go to sleep.
If you bring a Mac then BRING THE BLOODY ADAPTOR WITH YOU! People who spend the sort of money a MacBook Pro cost can surely afford £25 quid for a mini display port adaptor.
Bring the power supply, don't rely on the battery
You Tube videos always look shit. The bigger the projected image, the more it will show up the grainy pixelated quality.
Don't just turn up and expect it all to work immediately. Getting your laptop to connect to a projector is much better than it used to be but still occasionally requires a reboot and the resolution often needs to be reset.
Worst animations ever? The typewriter letters flying in and the screeching car tyres bullet point, both with sound effects.
IMHO, although you can create PowerPoint yourself a good show graphics operator will do a MUCH better job, even if they only tidy up what you have sent them.
Phone conference with slides
I worked at a French company with outposts all over the world. We'd frequently have voice conferences where people were theoretically hugging the phone whilst staying in sync with a PPT slide on their PC by symbiosis. In really I suspect most of them were asleep. I know my mate Dave wasn't though - mid conference he texted me to say he'd bought a Fender Strat on eBay.
Beware of the powerpoint
Beware of the powerpoint presenter who really doesn't have much to say but really wants to impress his colleagues especially if they are new to the team or company.
I have seen people spend hours knock together a load of slides which don't really say anything but which will be emailed around and treated with great reverence. It shows what they are doing unlike say a set of minutes or a completed milestones.
And as well as being an ego trip (plus a demonstration that you have joined the powerpoint users club), they can also be a great excuse to do the things you like doing - rather than concentrating on the important tasks - that should be completed.
Keynote
I'm surprised none of the fanbois on the board have mentioned Keynote.
Despite being one of the alleged Mac-haters on the board (we'll ignore the MacBook Pro currently sitting on my desk at work because that spoils the narrative), I've been doing some work on Keynote of late. And despite a couple of annoyances, I do prefer it to PowerPoint.
Now, if you're determined to produce crap slides, Keynote won't stop you, but at least it subtly encourages you to make visual slides (whereas PowerPoint just encourages you to produce endless bullet points). Some very nice transitions, but then again, it's easy to overdo it and have too many objects flying around.
ooh whizzy
i've recently joined a large electronics company and have had the misfortune to sit through a few horrendously dull powerpoint presentations! i'm a graphic designer who still cant believe what people do with slides to make them "jazzy", makes me dry heave!
was in a global conference presentation afew weeks ago, where other offices around the globe were dialled in too, and i swear to god i heard someone fart on one of the conference lines - i feigned needing the toilet as i nearlywet myself trying not to laugh out loud - tears were in my eyes and one of my colleagues was so bright red faced stifling a laugh it made it worse everytime he looked my way!
think we burst collective guts once finished!
... and the ppt slides had a handshake picture, clouds and a pile of coins - i nearly had a full house!
Not so much a PowerPoint presentation,
but this is REALLY how not to do it.
Essential viewing:
oldie but goodie -the gettysburg address in powerpoint
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
Now here's a political party
whose manifesto I could sign up to.