Powerless PowerPoint
If you've been to Secrets of Impact: the 2-Hour Event, then this will be a reminder: and a good one, because I didn't get a chance to explain it fully at the 2-Hour.
PowerPoint. Everybody uses it, yet it is one of the major no-no's if your intent is to keep the attention of your audience. If your intent is to look good to your audience by showing them how much you know, letting PowerPoint go is going to be a tough sell for you. However, as with any crutch, when you let it go, you'll find out just how far you can go.
Why not PowerPoint? Case #1: First and foremost, our brain does not process, or think, in words. Our brains process approximately 10 million bits of stimuli every second, compared to just 100,000 bits of auditory stimuli. Reading is an auditory function, and our brains are simply wired to efficiently process images, not words.
If you want your audience to remember what you're talking about, give them what their brains want: pictures, graphs, diagrams. Now, PowerPoint is excellent for this; use it to flash images on the screen?but not for long (see the next point). Better yet, get your audience physically involved in learning your information. When teaching people about the brain, I don't project bulleted points up on a screen. I show them a few images of the brain, and then they act out certain parts. Do you think this keeps them awake and interested in a way that a list on a screen never could? You bet it does.
Case #2: Short and simple: PowerPoint requires darkness for the screen to be seen: a perfect environment for snoring. Lighting in your room is a critical factor for attention and retention. Turn out the lights if you want them to meditate or sleep--not if you want them to learn and remember!
Case #3: This is a bit more subtle. Energy is a constant factor in any presentation. Your energy, the audience's energy, and focal energy--where attention is being drawn. Energy is either low or high; strong or weak. Your job is to direct and manage focal energy. You do this by carrying powerful energy yourself, and, when appropriate, navigating the focal energy to another energy in the room. This other energy can (and should be) the audience a great deal of the time; it could be another speaker; or it could be a demonstration, act, etc. If your intention is to lead your room, (hint: that should always be your intention), no energy (except the audience's) should be bigger than you. As a leader, perception is everything, and if you are perceived as small, you will get small results, you can be assured. At the 2-Hour, I say, Your energy = Your results.
So, here's the point, as it relates to PowerPoint: PowerPoint carries an intangible, almost indescribable, BIG energy that will dwarf yours. Not long ago, I watched a very physically BIG man (a colleague) lead a presentation (it wasn't an Experience) with PowerPoint. As soon as that projection appeared, he disappeared. It was quite remarkable to witness: suddenly he lost the energy of a leader. When you're in front of a room, you cannot afford to have anything shift energy away from you. PP is larger than life, larger than YOU, and an audience unconsciously says, "I don't have to listen to the speaker."
So what do you do? As I said, use images, get them into the action of the data you're presenting, and use a flip chart. A flip chart? You might be thinking that that seems so …amateurish. Remember: YOU lead the room. If YOU’RE amateurish, a flip chart will simply underscore that fact. If you’re powerful, your audience will follow you wherever you go. A flip chart is great because it allows you to create suspense with your audience. You’ll literally keep them on the edge of their seats as they await the next word you’re going to write. With a flip chart, you can also have them repeat what you’re writing as you’re writing. We know that twice as much circuitry in the brain is activated when we speak, versus when we simply sit and listen.
Another great asset of a flip chart: you can put the flip chart paper on the wall—something you can’t do with PowerPoint. Peripheral visuals have been proven to dramatically accelerate the learning of material, as human beings are always, unconsciously, processing the world around them.
If you get flack from your boss, or a colleague who’s working on your “presentation” with you, tell them why PowerPoint renders you and your material powerless--and lead them into the New Paradigm!
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