Presentation Zen [8]
Audiences are so used to death-by-PowerPoint that they’ve seemingly learned to see it as normal, even if not ideal. However, if you are different—if you exceed expectations and show them that you’ve thought about them, done your homework and know your material, and demonstrated through your actions how much you appreciate being there and that you are there for them—chances are you’ll make an impact and a difference, even if it’s just in the smallest of ways. There can be great meaning in even these small connections.
Design. Story. Symphony. Empathy. Play. Meaning. Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind gives us the context of the new world we’re living in and why “high touch” talents—and that includes exceptional presentation skills—are so important today. Professionals today around the globe need to understand how and why the so-called right-brain aptitudes of design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning are more important than ever. The best presentations of our generation will be created by professionals—engineers as well as CEOs and “creatives”—who have strong “whole mind” aptitudes and talents. These are not the only aptitudes needed by the modern presenter, but mastering these talents along with other important abilities such as strong analytical skills will take you far as a communicator in the “conceptual age.”
A New Era Requires New Thinking
The skills necessary to be an effective communicator today are different than in the past. Today, literacy is not only about reading and writing text (though that is just as necessary), but also about understanding visual communication. Today, we need a higher degree of visual literacy and an understanding of the great power that imagery has for conveying important messages.
People who design visuals and use them in a live presentation typically regard PowerPoint as a kind of document-creation tool. Their principles and techniques seem to be largely influenced by conventional wisdom regarding the proper creation of business documents, such as letters, reports, spreadsheets, and so on. Many business people and students approach multimedia slides as if they were nothing more than glorified overhead transparencies that contain boxes for text, bullets, and some clip art.
If you want to learn how to become a better presenter, then look beyond the advice given in books about how to use PowerPoint or books on presentation skills (including this one). These books have their place, but you should be looking to other forms of proven, visual storytelling as well. Documentary films, for example, are a medium that tells a non-fiction story incorporating narration, interviews, audio, powerful video and still images, and at times, on-screen text. These are elements that can be incorporated into a live oral presentation as well. Cinema and presentations are different, but not as different as you may think. I have learned much about the use of imagery in storytelling from watching virtually every Ken Burns documentary ever produced.
The art of comics is another place to look for knowledge and inspiration. Comics, for example, are amazingly effective at partnering text and images that together form a powerful narrative which is engaging and memorable.
Comics and film are the two major ways that stories are told through imagery. A key point to remember is that the principles and techniques for creating a presentation for a conference or a keynote address have more in common with the principles and techniques behind the creation of a good documentary film or a good comic book than the creation of a conventional static business document with bullet points.
Letting Go
Part of the Presentation Zen approach to presenting well is learning to give up what we’ve learned about making presentations in the era of the PowerPoint deck and the cookie-cutter method of design and delivery. The first step is to stop letting our history and conditioning about what we “know” (or thought we knew) inhibit our being open to other