Speaking PowerPoint by Bruce R. Gabrielle is one of the best books on slide presentations I have seen in a long time because it is full of practical suggestions, solidly supported by evidence, and clearly and compellingly written.
But it’s not for everyone. If you want to learn how to put together beautiful slides with stunning visuals to inspire or entertain, buy a book such as Nancy Duarte’s Resonate or Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen.
But if you want to sell ideas to critical thinkers, Speaking PowerPoint will help. To see where this book fits and why it is so important, let’s first look at the situations where PowerPoint decks can be deployed:
At the extreme right of the scale are the ballroom style presentations, which are presented to large audiences. Think of Steve Jobs doing a new product launch. In these types of presentations, the speaker does all the talking, supplies almost of all the words, and uses compelling visuals to add to the emotional impact.
Moving to the left, you have what Gabrielle calls briefing decks, which are used in boardroom settings; the audience is much smaller, but still may include up to about twenty people. The speaker is still doing most of the talking, but there is some interactivity.
Discussion decks are used in boardrooms as well, but the audience might be in the single digits. The presenter still does most of the talking, at least at first, but the primary purpose is a full-participation discussion with a lot of interaction.
Finally, a reading deck can be used as a document, meant to be read individually either on paper or on a screen. In this situation, the deck has to stand alone and convey all the important information by itself.
When I was in high school, for some reason CB radio chatter became trendy. Urban middle class kids suddenly thought it was cool to talk like a blue-collar trucker, and began using jargon like 10-4, and “What’s your 20?” and “Put the hammer down”. But they really just sounded stupid, because jargon that does not fit both the sender and the receiver at the same time is useless and even harmful. On the other hand, it can be very effective if used properly.
You hear it all the time in presentations. It may be technical jargon, or cultural or even company-specific. Usually speakers use excessive jargon for different reasons than the kids used to use CB jargon—rather than using it self-consciously they are unaware that they are using it, because they and those around them use it all the time. The result is a presentation that is not fully understood by the listeners, who are often too polite, too indifferent or too intimidated to say anything. So they just tune out. A useful antidote is to give the presentation to a friend or a family member who is not familiar with the terms you use at work all the time.
Jargon gets a bad reputation because it usually only becomes noticeable when it leads to miscommunication, but it can actually be a very efficient and credible form of communication.
Numbers can be very persuasive–if used properly
It’s pretty hard to give a business presentation without numbers. But if you think words can be tricky, numbers present their own special challenges. It would seem that there could not be anything more definite than a number—after all, 100 is 100 no matter what language you use. Just like words, they mean different things to different people.
When you decide to use a number in your presentation, there are two important principles to keep in mind. The first principle is that numbers carry meaning beyond simply quantifying something. The mere use of numerical data in a presentation sends important signals to the audience. It tells them that you are competent—you have solid information to back up your sales pitch. It tells them you are prepared, because you have taken the time to gather the data.
A surprising statistic can make an impression on someone’s mind during your presentation. If they have to rely on memory a few days later to make the decision, they are far more likely to remember the impression than the number itself. In fact, researchers have shown that they may actually rely on the memory of the impression and then reconstruct a number in memory that matches what they felt when they heard the number!
The second principle is that numbers are meaningless except in relation to something else.
It’s hard to talk for long with one of these on your head.
We like to think that our fast-paced world poses unique challenges to presenters because of the audience’s impatience, but actually the need for brevity has been respected for thousands of years. One of the earliest stories about public speaking is found in Herodotus, roughly 2,500 years ago.
If you think senior level audiences can be tough, imagine being an official from the city of Samia having to ask the Spartan authorities for aid after being driven from their city by the Persians. The Spartans, besides being fearsome warriors, were also renowned for their love of brevity.
When the delegation first spoke, they spoke so long that the Spartans said they had forgotten what they said at the beginning and didn’t understand the rest.
The Samians tried again, this time bringing an empty sack and simply saying: “this sack needs barley meal.” The Spartans applauded their brevity and approved the request, although they did say the word “sack” could have been left out.
