The crime of bad Power Point and how to avoid it.

Styczeń 9th, 2011

Welcome again to the BEM blog!

Did you ever have to design or deliver a presentation, or even worse, listen to one that is extremely boring? Unfortunately, most of the times organisations suffer fromthe „death by powerpoint” syndrome, illustrated in the picture below:

How to avoid being on either side of the problem?

There are a few solutions:
1. Avoid making the same mistakes that others have made.
2. Think like a designer - is 100 words/per slide really not enough or way to much? How about 0 words and a 100 images?
3. Just like location is essential in the real estate market…so is communication in business!
4. Simplify, but dont dumb down your message.
5. Ask for feedback, take notes, improve on your mistakes,
REPEAT.

Here are my favorite resources on effective business presentation design:
1. „Think like a Designer” - by Garr Reynolds
2. „The Guy Kawasaki Method” on Presentation Zen (blog by Garr Reynolds)
3. „What is Presentation Zen?”

And last, but not least, always put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Will they understand and pick up your message and in effect do what you want them to?

Chris Dargiewicz

Useful vocabulary:

1.  Extremely - szalenie
2.  To suffer from- cierpieć; tracić
3.  To avoid - uniknąć
4. Either - jeden lub drugi; którykolwiek
5. Side of a problem - strona/perspektywa problemu
6.  Solution - rozwiązanie
7.  To simplify - upraszczać
8.  To dumb down - upraszczać; „ogłupiać”
9. Put yourself in the shoes of - spójrz na to z innej perspektywy (kogoś)
10.  Last but not least - ostatni, choć nie mniej ważny punkt
11.  In effect - w rezultacie

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