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When Death Seems Better

Sandra Hogan
 

You know the feeling. You're sitting in the audience of an airless, dimly lit room and the speaker is running an endless series of PowerPoint slides and reading them out word for word. You are making an agonising effort to stay awake but your head keeps jolting forward on to your chest. When the lights go on, you discover, to your horror, that you have been dribbling and you can't be certain you didn't snore.

The speaker hands out the PowerPoints at the end and you plan to study them carefully later on but, somehow, you can never make yourself read them. They rot away perpetually in that compost heap on the bottom of your in-tray.

If you are that speaker, you may have good excuses for presenting a speech like this - fear and time shortage are the most common. But remember, it would usually be better for your cause if you didn't speak at all than if you gave a talk like that.

When you speak, you are the star. PowerPoints should not distract attention from you. They should support and highlight what you say. Otherwise why not just send an email?

Here are some tips for writing PowerPoint slides that will make your audience want to live:

  • Start by writing your speech in Word or in handwriting or by recording yourself speaking - not by preparing PowerPoints. That will make sure you focus on what you want to say, not on formatting. And you'll think more deeply about the subject, which means you know more than is written on the slides.
  • Start, as with all writing, by thinking of what central message you want to deliver and what your audience wants to know. What are the three or four points you want to make?
  • Write your speech quickly and then organise the order so you have introduction, body and conclusion. Make sure you have a really interesting, lively introduction and you have some interesting stories to tell.
  • Now put it on PowerPoint. Start with a title slide, then an outline of what you're going to talk about.
  • Each slide should have a bold, one or two-line heading and then a point. You might only have a single word or phrase on the slides, like: 'Our conclusions' or 'Questions'.
  • Keep visuals simple and logical and avoid a lot of meaningless motion or clip art. Make the visuals tell a story.
  • Rehearse your speech as often as possible so you're comfortable speaking with the slides. You'll probably need to edit the slides when you've rehearsed and found some things don't work. Your goal will be to present without looking at your notes - and certainly without reading the PowerPoint slides.


Is this a lot more work than throwing down a speech on to PowerPoints and reading it off? Of course it is. But unless your purpose is to
deliberately bore people rigid, you will find this way of speaking will get you results - and you may even be invited to do it again.

About the Author

Sandra HoganSandra Hogan is a writer and editor, with a strong background in journalism and government communications. She is the director of WriteBusiness, which offers training, coaching and mentoring to people in business and government who want to improve their writing skills.



 

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