Death by Powerpoint: A Singaporean toastmaster's experience

Many of you do presentations for work, community activities or volunteer activities using power point slides. But did you know that using power point slides in your presentation could be one of the biggest mistakes in your presentation?

To present or not to present, that is NOT the question
Presentations or public speaking opportunities are increasing all around you. In work, your boss may ask you to present a work-related topic to share with members of the team, department or even organisation. In school, you may have to do project presentations on assignments or class projects. Communication on a one-to-many scenario becomes more common when you start to acquire skills and knowledge that others would like to learn from.

To power point or not to powerpoint, that IS the question
When called upon to do a presentation, your first reaction is to reach out and fire up your powerpoint slides. Then you craft your presentation bullet-point by bullet-point, slide by slide.

Stop! Before you reach out for the powerpoint, may I suggest that you brainstorm on a piece of blank paper on what is your TOPIC or SUBJECT MATTER that you are dealing with and more fundamentally ask yourself WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR PRESENTATION?

Your purpose is NOT to string together slide after slide after slide of points or sentences that are so wordy that no-one can follow. In a typical presentation, you are making a presentation to:

• inform or educate
  
• persuade
  
• inspire or motivate
• call for action
  

Your purpose will determine how your speech should be crafted to deliver its message and purpose to the audience. If you are not clear of your purpose, you can be fairly confident that the audience will not be clear too. ;-)

Powerpoint should be one of the tools that you use to deliver your presentation. Other tools include using flip charts, transparencies, handouts etc. The trick is not to blindly push through using power point.

If you HAVE to use powerpoint
When you absolutely have to use powerpoint, do take note of some of the considerations:

1. Keep written points in the slides brief - Powerpoint presentations are not handouts for reading, this can be separately given to the audience as a full side of written notes in word
   
2. Use main headers and sub-points that are succinct (concise and precise)
3. Use relevant graphics to jazz up the presentation
4. Powerpoints are meant to support your presentation so do not READ OFF THE SLIDES
5. Make use of transition slides between one topic and another to give natural breaks to your presentation
6. For every main point to be addressed, use the PREP approach which is commonly used in table-topics to present i.e. make the Point, give Reasons for your point, give Examples or illustrations to support your point, and reiterate the Point by para-phrasing it.
   

Your presentation, their time!
It is important for you to make effective presentations not just for your own sake but for the sake of your audience. They have invested their time willingly (or unwillingly!) to listen to you for that period of time. You should be considerate and make it worth their while by adding something of value to their lives when you open your mouth to utter your presentation.

Speak well, live well.