2 reasons why presenters always default to PowerPoint

Give a business person the task of making a presentation of any kind and they almost invariably turn to PowerPoint or a similar presentation software program.

Why?

Two reasons – one good and one bad. And the second reason cancels out the wisdom of the first reason.

Reason one: PowerPoint allows information to be presented in a manner that accords with the learning styles of a large percentage of your audience. This is a good thing, though it’s usually an unconscious factor in the presenter’s decision.

Reason two: Most people are uncomfortable with public speaking (if not terrified by it) and they use PowerPoint as a means for defraying the intensity of an audience’s gaze. This is a bad reason because it means the advantages offered by PowerPoint are largely nullified by the instinct to hide behind the slides.

Let’s dig a little more deeply into these two factors.

Some people are auditory learners while others are visual learners. Still others are tactile/experiential learners. PowerPoint, when properly used, conveys information in a format that is easily absorbed and retained by auditory and visual learners. (Add some interactive objects or other handouts to your presentation and you can engage the tactile/experiential learners as well.)

For these reasons, using PowerPoint for your presentations makes very good sense.

Unfortunately, far too many people use PowerPoint for the latter reason, to defray the stage fright that often comes with public speaking. The natural inclination in this circumstance is to direct as much of the audience’s attention as possible to the slides. This throws the presentation out of balance by placing too much emphasis on the visual (whether written or visual images appear on the slides) and too little on the auditory, the presenter’s narrative.

PowerPoint becomes a crutch that dominates the presentation, rather than a tool that assists a presenter who is fully in command of the proceedings. Presenters should never play a subordinate role to their PowerPoint deck. Doing so diminishes the effectiveness of the presenter, as well as the effectiveness of the PowerPoint slides.

So how does a presenter maximize the visual impact of a PowerPoint presentation while also overcoming their anxieties about playing a dominant role as narrator?

We’ll deal with those questions in future blog postings.

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