Driving the (Power)Point Home

by John J. Hagedorn

Pity poor Jeffrey.

Although Jeffrey got good grades in school, he was never a very popular fellow. He was shy and stand-offish. He had just a couple of friends. He was never very popular with the girls and didn’t know what to say to them anyway.

He graduated near the top of his class and got himself a good job. Even at work, however, Jeffrey never developed the social skills or the confidence he needed to approach the women he was interested in.

He finally decided that what he needed was a hot sports car, so he went out and financed a new Porsche. A red one. Finally, he began to turn heads. Attractive women would walk past as he waited at traffic lights and raise their eyebrows at him.

One day when Rose approached him in the office and told him how much she liked his new car, Jeffrey surprised himself by asking her if she wanted a ride home. She agreed, and they sped off together after work.

Rose asked Jeffrey questions about the car, about his family, and about the foods he liked the best -- all to which Jeffrey replied with a yes, a no, or a grunt as he looked out of the driver-side window. No surprise that when Rose finished her ride, the thrills ended with it.

Poor Jeffrey just didn’t understand that you can’t compensate for poor communication skills with an impressive surrogate.

You probably know somebody like Jeffrey.?You may even have someone like Jeffrey working in your office.?Except, he isn’t driving a red Porsche.?He’s presenting with PowerPoint.

Like Jeffrey’s Porsche, PowerPoint is an omnipotent piece of high-tech gear. It’s so powerful, in fact, that it’s often tempting to put together impressive presentations with the multitude of tools available to compensate for poor oral presentation skills.?

Most of the recent PowerPoint presentations I’ve seen have been quite impressive, technically speaking. It’s easy to see that the presenter knows the software and is quite capable of good design. However, once the presentation starts rolling, the presenter is off in the dark with a notebook computer, pressing buttons and reading the very text appearing on screen.?The audience, meanwhile, is focused on the screen and pays little attention to the presenter, who may as well not even be there at all.

Effective presentations, however, are delivered by a good presenter, not by a notebook computer and a multimedia projector. Visual aids, like PowerPoint, should be used to illustrate and enhance what the presenter has to say instead of speaking on the presenter’s behalf.?

It’s true that visual information is absorbed faster and retained longer than verbal information.?However, visual information from PowerPoint does not compensate for the visual information a good presenter can deliver – visual information like eye contact, facial expressions, gestures and body language.? PowerPoint can put the image on screen, but it’s the presenter that drives the point home.

PowerPoint can’t deliver a good joke.?It can’t pause and explain or answer a question.?It has no personality and cannot change the atmosphere in a room.?It can’t say hello and it can’t say thank you.?It has no EQ. Why, then, do so many users rely on PowerPoint to do their presentations in their place?

Okay, it’s impressive.?So was Jeffrey’s Porsche.?But just remember, when Rose stepped out of the car, there was little left to stimulate her once Jeffrey drove away.

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