Changing the presentation culture

If you are reading this blog, you are probably already part of the tribe of people that want to change the way the world present ideas to each other. The problem is how to convert the other 99% of your co-workers. I see two routes.

Robust PowerPoint templates. Leaving aside the discussion of what is a beautiful PowerPoint template, and what is not (you know my preference for the white page), and assume that the design has been agreed. Usually, people stop here, but there is important programming work to do afterwards. Setting the fonts and the colors to the right default, removing the standard bullet point opening framework from the slide master, etc. This is a computer programming, not a design job that should make the PowerPoint template “idiot-proof”. This is the technical route.

Low-risk events. It is hard to experiment with a new way of presenting in a high-stakes external presentation (i.e, your next earnings announcement). Instead, pick an internal presentation. Maybe the annual sales conference? Have an employee who is converted to the tribe give his presentation in a new and unusual way. Give unusual restrictions for the slide decks to be used in the internal conference: instead of telling people not to exceed 5 slides, tell them that they are not allowed to use bullet points in their deck. As people get exposed to a different way of presentation, the confidence might be getting stronger for the next generation of people to join your tribe, and bit by bit, take the new presentation culture to external presentations as well.

4 comments

Andy Gurnett2011-09-28 10:13:52

That reminds me of when I got my first middle-management role. My manager (knowing full well what I would do)asked me to deliver our department's figures in the next monthly performance meeting. The meetings were well-meaning but turgid, unclear and uninspiring. They involved all the department managers verbally sharing their figures.

Having worked on our figures I did what made sense to me. I made graphs in Excel and printed them on overhead transparency. In colour! We did not have a PC in the meeting room at the time. I was oblivious to the impact but I think my manager was secretly smiling. The following month, all but the diehards had OHTs.

Over time everyone changed their presentation medium, we progressed to PowerPoint, we stopped using the automatically provided graph colours, the meetings became more interactive, more productive and more enjoyable.

A seed of positive change can work wonders.

Adrian2011-09-29 04:57:51

With my colleagues it is often more about getting over "it takes to much time" and "I am not good enough". I usually then go the extra mile and sit down with everyone and go with them over the whole creation process.
And now people (I am a PhD Student at the University of Victoria, Canada) are actually asking me how to pep up their presentations.

Jan Schultink2011-10-06 06:46:27

Good point

Marisa2011-10-05 21:34:40

I think a big problem in the "presentation culture" is that a lot of presenters are not making their own slides. I know that readers of this blog would never have somebody create a presentation for them, but in business it happens all the time. Without a script to go along with the presentation, bullet-less slides can be vague and unclear.