When I or anyone else tries to offer some guidelines for how to do this effectively we always bump up against the many various needs that PowerPoint is trying to fill. Two basic and often opposing needs are 1) to offer support or feeling or human interest as a component of a speaker’s presentation and 2) to convey data and other detailed information.

Many of the new wave of advocates say that PowerPoint is best as a support for a good speaker — to graphically illustrate or add emphasis to his or her presentation. Large images with sparse text supplement the podium skills and provide emotion, passion or additional right-brain communication. This is most appropriate for a dramatic or keynote-style presentation and depends a lot on the presenter’s skills to craft and deliver a “good” speech. The visuals support and enhance but don’t distract. Two great examples of this type of presentation are Steve Jobs product roll-outsand Garr Reynolds and his PresentationZen blog.

The other side replies that most PowerPoint presentations are conducted to deliver data and details to an audience that wants “just the facts.” These are often technical, business, academic or scientific presentations. Touchy-feely slides with warm, fuzzy pictures of people and huge 1 or 2 word headlines just get in the way and cloud the issue. They insult the audience with sterilized and simplified information.

I think both of these seemingly opposite points of view can take a lesson from each other.

The technical talk can certainly benefit from the concept that only a limited bandwidth of information can be conveyed from the podium or slideset. Details are often best left to handouts if data depth and verification are necessities for the presentation to be credible. Data can be referenced from the podium. Large fields of data can be displayed on the screen but the critical information should then be focused in on. It is important to both show the audience the data and then hone in on what you believe is most important – helping the audience understand what you know or feel.

If photographs of people or teams or other “human interest” subjects are appropriate it might work to include them in title slides or at transition points. Make sure you don’t give the impression of “dumbing-down” your presentation to a technical audience even though you want them to focus in on the 1 or 2 important points.

There are dozens of other ideas that could help the often dreadfully boring technical or fact-filled presentation from good design principals to a basic understanding of how audiences respond to presentation techniques and visuals. Perhaps the one point to remember is embodied in this question: If your could only tell your audience one thing about this topic what would it be? This is your big idea. You can present all the data you want but they probably will only take away 1 or 2 points. Makes sure they leave with the right ones.

For the keynote presenter, the one who offers the audience the big picture already, there is often a need to display and reference supporting data. The same techniques apply. Show the data set if you must, religate it to the handout if you can and then drill down in your presentation to the critical numbers or points.

There are some seemingly immutable laws at play here. 1) As audience members we can only absorb so much of what a speaker tells us. It doesn’t matter that the speaker needs to deliver 15 important product features. We will only remember one or two. Which ones do we want to offer? 2) Visuals are just as bad at data communication. A series of text- or fact-filled slides soon reach information overload and nothing is recalled.  3) Handouts may be a bad way to create interest and emotion but they are wonderful for showing the supporting data-rich information that a serious listener may want access to.

As a presenter the trick is to know your tools and as my great-grandfather, the cabinet maker, would have said, “Use the right tool for the right job.”

o o o   Copyright © 2012 Tom Nixon Design   o o o

Tom Nixon, works with people who want to use visual business presentations (like PowerPoint) to connect with and motivate their audience. He has over 30 years experience as a graphic designer, writer and photographer working with clients of all sizes, ranging from 1-person entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 corporations.

Tom speaks and coaches about all aspects of presentation skills with a special emphasis on the combination of verbal delivery plus visuals (PowerPoint and Keynote). Contact Tom at tom@tomnixondesign.com or 770.289.0752.