TJ’s Insights

There is an old Finnish saying, “Fire is a great slave but a horrible master.” The same is true of PowerPoint slides. The problem, of course, is that most people become slaves to their PowerPoint slides. They really, truly, do not want to be slaves to the PowerPoint, but, well, the slides are there, there’s not much time before the speech, and nothing can be done at this point.

Stop! It doesn’t have to be that way.

My best piece of advice on how to stop becoming a slave to your PowerPoint slides is to just not start your whole speech creation process by creating slides. I know, that’s how you probably do it now, and that’s the problem. If you start your speech process by writing bullet point after bullet point, and complex graph after complex graph, you are slowly but surely putting the shackles around your angles and wrists that will never come off.

Here’s a better way of creating a speech ensuring that you will be the master and the PowerPoint slides will be your servants:

1. Brainstorm on all the important ideas you’d like to cover in your speech, in no particular order.
2. Narrow your points down to the top five.
3. Put your top five points on a sheet of paper, or computer screen.
4. Think of a case study, story and example for each point.
5. Now (and not until now) think of a visual way you can make each message point more memorable and more understandable than simply talking about it. Turn that visual image, picture or graph into a PowerPoint slide.

And now you have your PowerPoint slides and a presentation you can deliver without you being a slave to your slides. This is your Projection PowerPoint Presentation. There are a few more steps:

1. Go back to your notes and look at the other 79 key messages, facts and data points that didn’t make your final top five list.
2. Create a second set of PowerPoint slides that cover every single message point, fact, data point, and chart you can think of.
3. Make this PowerPoint as lengthy as possible; make it 200 pages long if you like!

This PowerPoint is your Handout PowerPoint Presentation.

Now you have 2 separate, distinct PowerPoint slide presentations. Please follow the next 10 rules, and you are guaranteed to make a successful presentation.

Step 1. Give your presentation and only show your first Projection Presentation PowerPoint slideshow (the one that focuses on your five main points).
Step 2. Email your long Handout PowerPoint Presentation to your audience or hand it out after your presentation, but NEVER use your Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 3. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 4. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 5. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 6. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 7. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 8. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 9. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.
Step 10. Never use your long-form Handout PowerPoint Presentation during your live presentation.

Originally published as Don’t Be a Slave to Your PowerPoint Slides by TJ Walker for SpeakingChannel.TV

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 7:56 am and is filed under Corporate Communication, PowerPoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.