Trade-offs

The most common trade off people seem to make in university presentations is visuals for text. Less visuals, but more text.
Why is that?
I hear the argument: "Well you can review your slides better for recap." so often. I think this is harmful for a presentation. In university, the content should be presented in a visual way, so that concepts are understood more easily and academic literature becomes more engaging. For recap, there should be a handout with text, which can be reviewed easily.
How about that for a counterargument?
Let me know what you think.
Have a good week.

The Big Picture

In her book "Resonate", Nancy Duarte puts a presentation into the perspective. If you take a report as one extreme and a story as the other, a presentation should fall in between these two extremes.

She describes reports as exhaustive, informational and factual. The structure is usually hierarchical. They are delivered in a plain, direct, and precise manner. I think about an academic thesis or business report. Mostly text paragraphs, few graphs and tables, and some bulleted lists.

On the other hand there are stories. Novels & movies. Emotional and dramatic.

Now as reports need all your focus and attention in order for you to grasp the underlying message, a movie tries to touch your other senses and emotions to get the message across.

Now presentations should fall somewhere in the middle.
Where they are placed depend on the presenter and the environment.

In a university setting I see presentations put right next to reports. Paragraphs put into bullets, if at all, and then onto slides. Maybe decorated with some pictures and then presented.

I think presentations need to be pushed more towards the middle. A presentations purpose is to explain the detailed data from the report as visually as possible. If you take the format from the report and put it onto slides, it's still a report. In oder to become a presentation, there need to be some elements from a story incorporated.

Prevent a disaster in a group presentation

Among so many things that have to be considered when delivering a group presentation, the worst case scenario is someone not showing up. Your presentation is rehearsed perfectly, you agreed on meeting an hour early to prepare, but there are some instances where someone could not make it somehow.

Now you need a plan B for this kind of scenario.

For once, all presenters should be familiar with the topic of each one. But it might be to complex for everybody to know every part. Here is what you could do:
- partner with one of your team members and exchange notes on the presentation at least one day before
- at least read through the notes of your partner a couple of times and ask any questions that are unclear

This won't take much time and nobody will expect you to know the others part perfectly, but you can impress anybody by stepping in and delivering the part.

So take a couple of minutes to exchange each others notes and familiarize yourself with each others part. If it should happen that someone can't make it, your presentation won't be at stake.

Have a good week!

Rules of Simplicity 5

Rule No. 5

Less bullet points and more visuals.

I mentioned it more than once already, I suppose. Bullet points are great for outlining topics. They belong into a word processing tool or notepad but not a presentation. You can provide your audience with a handout comprising your bullet points. Use meaningful visuals portraying your bullet points instead. I talk about this in my post about visuals. 

I hope this week provided you with a simple framework to make your next presentation great. These rules are not to be confused with a universal truth but rather guidelines you can utilize. There are still many other factors to consider.

Rules of Simplicity 4

Rule No. 3

Create a simple structure.

A complicated plot is for a mystery thriller. Presentations need to be easy to grasp, regardless how sophisticated your audience might be. Reveal the structure at the beginning or make it obvious by referring to a key concept throughout the presentation.

Rule No. 4

One point or argument per slide.

Anything elso wouldn’t make senso, honestly. If you talk about one thing and then about another and the visual representation is the same is just confusing.

I encountered some feedback from one of my presentations by one of my lecturers who said, it was a very good presentation, but there was kind of two many slides.

I reviewed other presentation, with about as many bullet points total as I had slides. Now it takes me about the same time to talk through the points with one point per slide as with ten points per slide. I argue that so many people can follow along more easily when they see one visual representing one point.

Rules of Simplicity 3

Rule No. 2

Craft a message for your target audience.

This comprises two things mainly. First you need to define your audience. Jot down all aspects you can think of. Ask others to brainstorm with you. Once you know your target and aim. I mean craft a message that will appeal to your specific audience. This could be your thesis for example. Now all you have to do is to support this message throughout the presentation. You can see at this stage it becomes difficult if you have more than one message. If that is the case you might want to thinks more broadly and outside the box. The topics you want to cover should’t be that far apart logically.

Rules of Simplicity 2

Rule No. 1

Define the purpose of the presentation for the presenter and the audience.

There is a reason why you make a presentation. Don’t take it as a mandatory assignment (it may be) but as a chance to communicate something important that will give you and others value and purpose themselves.

Now what to you want to achieve? Write it down.

What’s in it for them? Why should they listen? This is your ultimate goal, and you need to check afterwards if you succeeded to attain that goal. If you have trouble defining a goal, try the SMART approach. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. What exactly should your audience take home from your presentation? How could you measure it. I admit this is not always possible and easy, but try. Do you have a chance to attain that goal. Don’t be a dreamer but an inspirer rather. And lastly is your goal achievable in a certain timeframe.

Rules of Simplicity

During my research about presentations I came across a lot of great minds that supported my initial perceptions and paradigms of presentation creation. While drawing up some rules I follow and I want to share I was certainly influenced by people like Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds just to name a few.

So here go my five rules.

Rule No. 1

Define the purpose of the presentation for the presenter and the audience.

Rule No. 2

Craft a message for a targeted audience.

Rule No. 3

Create a simple structure.

Rule No. 4

One point or argument per slide.

Rule No. 5

Less bullet points and more visuals.

During this week, I will explore each rule a little more in detail. Come back tomorrow to find about creating a purpose and goals.

Make Visuals Meaningful

Visuals must be meaningful towards the point you want to make. Easily pictures can be confusing or distracting your audience.

I see that a lot. Images and photos are a kind or decoration for your slide. Something to make your slides more attractive.

I argue that visuals play an important part in your presentation and that images and pictures do not serve the purpose to make your slide more attractive.

They purpose is to get your point across and to convey your message more meaningful.

Now with that being said, it is the challenge to find the appropriate images for your presentation.

My rule is one visual per slide and one slide per point. Now, a visual doesn’t mean that there can’t be more than one image on the slide.

Here are some suggestions:

If you want to use an metaphor or other stylistic device to portrait your point, there might be one photo or image that brings exactly this across. Blow that image up fullscreen to capture your audience in the feeling.

If you want to show any kind of process or organizational chart, use multiple graphics and build the as you talk about them. Too many boxes and arrows at the same time can be very confusing and the audience might get lost.

If you used to have 3 bullet points on your slide supporting an argument you were making, you can use a visual for each point and give it a short and meaningful caption.

There are many more examples and I will mention it when they come up in future posts.