Presentation skills ~ tellingpeople

I found myself getting quite heated under the colour on a forum where I was giving some freebie advice (what other kind is there I hear you ask!) about PowerPoint templates. I know they’re a quick way of making your presentation look better than you started out (maybe) but they also have a few downsides you should consider

• People will have possibly seen them before;
• They won’t be personal;
• They’re often designed to look good.

Can I unpack those a little? Well actually I’m not sure the first point needs unpacking - it’s obvious. If anyone’s seen your template before it’s going to make you look less professional, not more.

The second point is interesting. What I’m getting at here is that they won’t be “just right” for your company. And if they’re not “just right” what are you using them for? Of course it’s possible to customise them but as it’s so easy to create your own templates and so on, if you’re going to spend some time customising, why not spend that same time doing rrriiiiight - from scratch - and getting something that really works for you, not just with you?

Point three sound odd doesn’t it? How can something designed to look good be bad? Of course what I mean by that is that they’re often designed to just look good - sometimes I even wonder if they’re just designed to make the designer look good by showing off the clever bits of what they (and PowerPoint) can do…. but all clever, coloured backgrounds do is make the slide harder to read for your audience - particularly if they’re got some kind of visual or cognative impairment.

Ask yourself this question - what’s the presentation for? For you to show off or for you to get a message over to your audience?

I alway (well, usually at least!) advise people to design their own templates - simple and clean. If you want to prove that you’re able to do the flashy stuff (rather than just not doing it ‘cos you can’t!) then put a really flashy, animated splash screen at the front of your presentation to give yourself a build up. For example, a big countdown to you when you stand up; perhaps an animated montage or something… all it’s designed to do is look flashy so that your audience is excited.. but then the presentation itself is clean, clear and easy to understand.

The best of both worlds.