Last week reminded me how far the industry has to go in consistent presentation quality. I wish I could say it was only a problem with junior people, still grappling with research, story telling and ppt. Over drinks last week, a friend who works as in a global insight role did tell me a horror story of a presentation so bad that she had to apologise to each attendee from marketing individually. No story, lonely data charts and poor presentation skills. At the other end of the continuum, i have also experienced “death by prefabricated boxes”, inflicted by people who have spent way too much time with consulting tools.
This YouTube clip by comedian Don McMillan, ends perfectly on the use of Times New Roman font and what that says about you:
3 more ideas on How not to use ppt…
Create your own ppt with no thought to visual impact
You pretty much know in the first five slides if this presentation whether this will be good; or whether being anywhere else on earth would be preferable. Mix up the fonts, put pink and red together on the same slide, and add in some ppt effects or clip art.
Tell the story in the same order as the discussion guide
Qualitative findings are not always insights. In fact – findings are rarely insights. They also do not add up to a story when they follow the structure of a discussion guide.
Tell the story as if the audience has all the time in the world
Sometimes qual researchers can be guilty of what a colleague calls ‘death by striptease’. This involves slowly unfolding the story bit by bit as if the audience are fascinated by the research detail, and can wait for 59 minutes for some new news.
So what makes for an evocative story? In powerpoint?
The problem w/powerpoint is that people think of it as a tool for creating documents, which it’s dreadful at. To use a slightly embarassing hip-hop analogy, people treat ppt as their rhymes when in fact it’s their beats.