How to Make Your Powerpoint Presentations Shine!

After sitting in on scores of Powerpoint presentations, and after giving scores of such presentations myself, I can most emphatically declare that Cliff Atkinson is right.

We need to move BEYOND bullet points.

I mean, when was the last time that you were truly moved, or inspired, or educated, or persuaded by a deck of Powerpoint slides?

Just the mere mention of the word "Powerpoint" makes your eyes glaze over and your mind wander.

It's no wonder, 9 out of 10 Powerpoint slides that I see seem to be deliberately designed to overwhelm and confuse you. In fact, the more information that you can pack into your slides, the more effective MANY in the misinformed corporate ranks think your presentation is.

Whether the audience captures, engages with, or even understands your message is beside the point. Dump the information on them and after that, they're on their own.

But that's not communication, in fact, it's quite the opposite. It's MIS-communication.

And I'm NOT suggesting that Powerpoint is a BAD tool, or that you SHOULDN'T use it, simply, that you should learn how to use it correctly.

That's what Atkinson's book "Beyond Bullet Points" is all about.

Atkinson's message is simple: the human brain has limited bandwidth. Neuroscience seems to bears this out. As sophisticated and infinitely complex as our minds really are, our working memory- the memory your brain uses to make sense of what you're seeing, hearing and perceiving- is SCHOCKINGLY limited. We're talking bits here, NOT megabytes!

To put a not-so-fine a point on it, a person simply CANNOT read your overstuffed Powerpoint slides while simultaneously processing the message that's coming out of your mouth.

The point of the Powerpoint presentation is NOT to have your audience sit there and read (couldn't you have sent them a PDF or Word file instead)? No, the point of Powerpoint is for you to wow and dazzle them with your message. The slides are visual cues that help reinforce and add impact to what you're saying. They help make your message "stick."

Here's some more of Atkinson's invaluable advice:

1. Before you launch your copy of Powerpoint, sit down with pencil and paper and decide what the structure of your message is going to be. Think of your presentation as a story divided into Acts. Atkinson provides many "Story Templates" that you can use to determine the core message you want your audience to understand, or what specific action(s) you want them to take? Stories help people remember and connect with your message.
2. Sketch out your slides on paper before working in Powerpoint. This technique will help you clarify your message and free-up your creativity.
3. Keep your slides simple. A simple headline that can be read in a few seconds and a simple visual image that helps your audience instantly grasp what you're communicating make for a POWERFUL combination.
4. Pick your graphics carefully and make sure they set the right tone. Powerpoint clipart makes your slides look amateurish and cookie-cutter. Subscribe to iStockPhoto to download affordable, professional quality stock photography and clip-art. Make sure that whatever images you choose will resonate with your audience.
5. Don't be afraid of white backgrounds, but whatever color your choose, make sure it doesn't clutter things up or make your text unreadable.
6. Use a navigation system to show where in the presentation your currently are. If your presentation has 3 parts, make sure you at least have a large 1, 2, or 3 somewhere on the slide to let your audience know which part of the story they're on.
7. If your audience is highly technical or heavily business oriented, resist the temptation to over-clutter your slides with charts, tables, numbers and other left-brain work product. Your Powerpoint is about wowing and dazzling, remember? It's not about putting people to sleep. To placate hard-core left brainers, use hand-outs or supplements with all the mind-numbing hard-data their hearts desire. Hand these out at the end or email it to them afterwards to make sure they pay attention to you during your presentation.

So there you have it. Let's take back PowerPoint and restore it to it's rightful place in business. Let's move beyond bullet points and into the realm of creativity. Think razzle. Think dazzle.