PowerPoint - Still Making Presentations Fun

 

The End Of An Era?

Did you know PowerPoint was originally called Presentation when released in 1984 and renamed to PowerPoint on April 20, 1987?  It was just around when I started my career a year later (April 25, 1988 for those keeping track)!

It was originally made for the Apple MacIntosh computer and currently there are over 500 million users with 30 million PowerPoint presentations daily!  The average PowerPoint usage from open to closing the file is 250 minutes.  The average slide has 40 words on it - no that's a lot to read off each slide.

So Can Making Presentations Be Fun?

In the past, my presentations included the standard PowerPoint deck.  I found the number of slides and content just was not the right fit for most audiences.  There were too many!  It felt right to skim some slides quickly and to skip others altogether.  In the last couple of years, I have almost abandoned the script and might glance at it to find a topic.

Theses presentations have been a lot more fun and the attendees are more interactive.  They ask questions and share their stories.  This makes the presentation livelier in the sense it is light, educational and not so dull.  Reading from your slides and scripts does not help make presentations fun.

With small audiences, I like to ask everyone to introduce themselves, share what they do and what they are looking for in the presentation.  This really helps to understand your audience to determine the areas of your presentation to spend more time on.  It also allows you to personalize it to the group.  You can call on someone in the crowd when you reach an area that a specific person mentioned and listen to them share their experience.  I find the audience enjoys this personal touch and they tend to open up a bit more.

The Risk Of Going Live

Going live on the Internet is the most fun part of presenting!  It makes you vulnerable sharing your personal social media channels. When you go live you never know what will happen or what you will find which adds to the excitement.  This also provides real experiences and valuable takeaways or nuggets as I like to call them.

I do not have all the answers, so I would love to hear from you!  How are you making your presentation fun and do you use PowerPoint? If you want a great example of our existing slides check out our Free Whitepaper download.

(Originally published on 04.17.19)