I’ve been talking a lot in my presentations class about how important it is to make sure that we do more than dump data on a PPT slide, that it is our responsibility to interpret the data, ask what its meaning is, and then frame that core meaning in a memorable way.
So my colleague Richard Miscovich and I been working on a before/after example using the following graph, which shows how our university has been trying to improve student quality by tightening up admission standards. While working on this, it occurred to me why this kind of interpretive activity doesn’t happen on a more regular basis in presentations: it’s hard and it’s a lot of work trying to dig your way down into the core meaning of data. It is SO much easier to just deposit the graph on the slide and be done. But as Seth Godin says “Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic, or whatever else you are). If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.”
So the first slide shows the original graph on a typical templated logo slide and the second showa our first effort at a revision. We’ve tried to zero in on the core message in our revised slide, answer the SO WHAT? question, interpret the meaning of the data for the audience and we’ve tried to eliminate unnecessary clutter on the slide. It’s still a work in progress, but I think we’re on the right track.
LESS IS MORE PPT SLIDE EXAMPLES
In class we have been discussing the idea of how to make appropriate and effective slides. Many of us have had previous courses which either required or at the least suggested slide format and order. They all included the typical overused bulleted style with a speckling of clip art. PowerPoint and similar programs have been part of our education for awhile so its requires us to break old habits before we even enter the business world.
In Professor Sisco’s courses and the reading associated I have been introduced to new ways to present. My next struggle then becomes with finding the balance between having no information versus too much. I want to keep my audience interested so I clearly don’t want to fall into the trap of reading the slide verbatim. But then what do you put on the slide and how many should you have if they are only an accessory to your speech?
I have learned a lot from Garr Reynolds site and the Presentation Zen text. One particularly clear example is #2. Limit Bullet Points and Text as found http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/ slides.html. The bold 72% does not mean much by itself but it is clear from the previous incarnations the speaker would fill in the blanks.
I tested this technique in another course with a presentation I gave yesterday. I put very limited information on the slides and kept them to only 4 for a 10 minute presentation. I could see the sigh of relief from some students in that I was not reading the slides. However, I felt like maybe it was too sparse which caused some students to stop looking up at the slides and me in turn. Is it possible this theory can only be used in certain forums?
Less is more
Great presentations are those that are leading, influential and stick in the audience minds’ for a bit of time. Such presentations are good because the speaker is able to effectively reflect his/her emotional state or enthusiasm towards the topic being discussed to the entire audience. Besides, the speaker may use visuals and be very careful to choose the most powerful and meaningful ones so as to convey his/her message. The choice of visuals is very important to transfer the message in a very lucid way, but what kind of visuals should the speaker use? Videos? Power point slides with bullets points? Pictures? Graphs? The answer is to choose the simplistic way to get the message conveyed. The use of power point slides can be very effective if the pictures are well chosen and have an emotional effect, the crowded charts are replaced by colorful pies showing percentages instead of numbers and the bullets points are changed into one or two meaningful statements. Thus, the fact of keeping the presentations less complicated can be more powerful and has a negative mirror effect based on “less is more!” approach.
I will never forget what Professor Thomas J Rossi had said once he talked about in-class presentation: ALL PRESENTATION I HAVE EVER SEEN SUCKS! He said this is why he seldom ask students to do final presentation in his class.
Honestly I feel the same way as he dose (including the presentation of myself). Most of the time, all power point slides are full of data, which make the audience feel bore or sleepy; the speakers read or recite the texts on the slides, where you can find no surprise; some speakers feel a little bit of uncomfortable or nervous in front of the class (including me), which make the audience not relax in turn; finally, after each presentation, I bet 90%of the presentation will be forgotten by the listeners in no more than one week.
Probably this class— Advanced Professional Communication— likes a doctor helping finding and judging the problems of presentations of ourselves so that we are able to make changes and improvement afterwards. After these three weeks’ learning, one cure I find for solve my presentation problem is to be simple, which can surprisingly enhance our narratives. As stated in the textbook: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Simplicity lies in both our power point and our speech, which means we need to keep our PPT creative and short, we need to share the core ideas instead of every points, because “if you say three things, you don’t say anything”.
Here is one link I want to share, it has some good example of simplicity:
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2005/09/visual_simplici.html
In today’s world we are bombarded with new and exciting things every day. There is always something new that is the next big thing. We are surrounded with the idea that bigger is better and we forget that sometimes the smallest or least exciting product or idea can actually be more powerful.
Remember years past when the smallest treat was the greatest thing in the world. Now there is always a new toy or gadget that we must have. When I was a kid my mother made bubbles by mixing dish soap with water for a day filled with fun. Today however, kids not only need to have the store bought bubbles, but bubbles that come with a machine that do the work for them. There is even a new product that has 3-D bubbles. I ask you, weren’t the original bubbles 3 dimensional.
This example can be used to illustrate how today presentations are trying to get the most bang for their buck. All too often slides are filled up to the brim with pictures and words trying to distract the viewer with pizzazz. However, the overload may distract the viewer from the actual presentation. In the end it is import to remember that not only is less more but simplistic is empowering.
Yes, we should be more effective at PowerPoint. More specifically, if we want our presentation is interesting, entertaining and engaging; we have to suck less the data at PowerPoint. If not, we will lose. Meanwhile, how to clearly communicate the meaning of the data is become our challenge and inspirations.
I still remember Professor Fountain’s financial class. In his class, no one felt bored, because he put whole data in the case, gave animation to the data. Suck less and mean the data. Be careful, “Don’t confuse audience”. Trust yourself you can do it. Winston Churchill said “never was so much owed by so many to so few” Let’s do it on our informative presentation.
It’s not really about what you are saying; it’s all about how you say it.
Yes, we don’t need dump data on a PPT slide, but don’t forget that we are MBA students; we do need clear images to help to understand and accept what the speaker is persuading about simply because figures speak for themselves!
I do understand that kind of feeling of being confused by a stake of unanalyzed data, but in the same time, I also believe that putting data on PPT slides is vital for a more persuasive and efficient presentation. In order not to confuse your audience, you need to paraphrase your date into a more intuitive image. If you ever looked at PPT templates from international consulting firms like McKinsey or Boston, you will be amazed by how human being can use PPT to create such a clear analysis out of all those complicate data.
Language, sense of humor, gesture is not international, but numbers and pictures can be. And that is exactly why PPT skill is very important for a successful business presentation! Use your JWU slide for example: instead of just putting a short conclusion on the slide; you can use another type of data comparison (see the picture below to show) that: while the number of admitted students is declining, the overall retention is climbing at a certain speed. Just a thought!
(I actually created a sample for your slide, but I was not able to upload it here, so I’ll send you an email and print out a hard copy in the same time.)
The concept, “Less is More”, has been in my mind all the time when preparing any of my presentations, since there were a number of discussions related to this in the classes. However, I found out that the concept is kind of easy to understand, but difficult to make it effective. I totally think that in order to make this concept effective and create the presentation memorable, it needs a lot of work and efforts through the process.
First, data analysis and interpretation is one of the most important steps to get correctly started. As the concept says “Less is More”, speakers need to select the most important and essential main idea of the data or figures to present to the audience. This step is difficult since there normally are a number of data, figures, graphs and information in any reports. Thus, to select the most important information without leaving or ignoring other important points needs very much analysis and interpretations; sometimes not only what the data show in the reports, but also what they really mean.
Second, after selecting the message or information, the most important to deliver to the audience, speakers must not only dump the information to the slides. They need to consider what is the most appropriate and powerful way to present the information. Sometimes, the data, figures or graphs presented in a report is very important, but they are showed in very difficult, misleading, or unobvious ways. Thus, to convert data, figures, or graphs to a very easy-understanding number or message is necessary.
The last step is to develop your slides or approaches to most appropriately and powerfully present the message to the audience. Images and animations are very memorable. They are most frequently useful ways to deliver the speaker’s message. However, do not only choose an image, choose one which is the most appropriate, powerful and memorable.
“Less is More” seems easy to understand and utilize. However, “LESS WITH QUALITY IS MUCH MORE”, difficult and takes a lot of times and work to achieve.
I did put a lot of information and data in my slides when I studied in Taiwan, because of culture. However, after I attending this class, I like the American presentation style. It is more vivid and interesting to make our audiences care about our topic. We need to keep “Less is More” in our mind, therefore we should make our data become more efficient to audiences. I can understand how confusing it is when audiences get data or information without organization. Presenting data to audiences is very difficult especially for inexperienced presenters because presenters not only provide professional date but also need to design interesting slides for their audiences. Presenters should research and try to understand what audiences have to know before organizing and analyzing data. Professor Sisco used a quote from Seth Godin that says “Communication is about getting others to adopt your point of view, to help them understand why you’re excited (or sad, or optimistic, or whatever else you are). If all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, then cancel the meeting and send in a report.” I believe this quotation and I am also trying to become a good data presenter.
I took Professor Satterthwaite’s Organizational Behavior class and he doesn’t like his students to use PowerPoint slides to do his presentation because he realized students will put a lot of data and read that information in his class. He wants our presentation interesting and vivid, therefore we did perform a short story, show a video to our audience, and sit on the table to present our presentation. That was a good experience because we did deliver our data and information to our audiences.
Presenting data to audiences reflects the belief, “Less is more” because this sentence looks simple but exemplifies a very profound truth to every presenter’s understanding.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my Advanced Communications course, it’s that “less is more!” It has often been the norm for students and teachers alike to overload PowerPoint slides with an abundance of facts, figures, statistics, and other meaningless and forgettable pieces of data in both verbal and pictorial forms.
But isn’t it true that the less information you’re given, then the more you remember? Our quantitative speech assignment was a great way of “proving” this notion. Just think: if you had two slides – one with a labeled, multi-colored bar graph and the other with one piece of data (statistic, fact, etc.) and a compelling photo – which would you be more likely to retain? To take it a step further: the graph shows the reported domestic violence cases in the US between the years of 1999 and 2009, and the photo is of a battered woman with the statistic “There were 348,721 domestic violence cases reported in the US in just 10 years.” Which would you remember?
It’s easier and safer to create a “busy” slide, to just throw all the information up there for the audience to read and decipher. But the truth is that you’re audience doesn’t want to do any unnecessary work—that’s our job as presenters. It’s our responsibility to cut out the lard and get straight to the meat.
Furthermore, PowerPoint is a tool that should support our discussion, not dominate it. As presenters, we—as opposed to our PowerPoint slides—need to “do” the presenting; for we cannot hide behind our slides. Garr Reynolds articulates this in his blog on presenting naked: “We want it all to be so safe and perfect, so we over think it and put up a great many barriers” (http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/10/make_your_next_.html).
Laura: I think it’s safe to say that all of your questions have been answered throughout the duration of our course. You used so many simplistic slides in your persuasive speech yesterday—making your presentation both memorable and entertaining. What a difference from our first presentations! You should be very pleased with the progress you’ve made!
A terrible nightmare had been in my mind since I threw myself into the business field: customers were crowded in a small conference room, listening to my boring-to-death presentation, and over half of them were falling asleep…
Fortunately, yet it has not happened in my real life, but I do see some long and boring presentations during my work years. Especially the industry I engaged was information technology, you probably can imagine how awfully attending a presentation filled with all kinds of IT jargon to more than one hour—what a torture! The audience murmured against the presentation, but the weird thing was that next time they would do it the same way while turning to be the presenters. “It should be an inspiring idea and meaningful information …should it deserve the suck way to be presented?” I always ask myself sort of questions while listening to these business presentations. It is hard to come out a proper answer to my question until an idea we got in class flying into my head: simplicity.
There is no doubt that the notion of “less is more” is the best solution for those long presentations I had joined. For business people, time means money, and simplicity means efficiency. I totally agree with the viewpoint of Seth Godin that a presentation should not be a file of facts, but should be a way to help the audience understand what the presenter concerns about. I found an article which shows some useful tips while making an efficient business presentation: “10 Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations: Give Your Audience the Best Business Presentations”, http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm. Through all the tips, the conclusion I got is still simplicity. It does not seem like a profound knowledge, does it? However, seldom people can really realize the art of simplicity and apply it into presentation things.
I remembered Dr. Sisco once mentioned that all professors in the school should improve their presentations like those succinct ones we had seen in class. Frankly speaking, I think ALL the business presentations should be improved in a more concise version instead of the form of a long report.
I think ‘Simplicity’ is the the most under rated concept in the world today.Yet, I feel it is the most powerful of all ideas.I feel the idea of ‘Less is more’ is deeply connected with the idea of simplicity.When you are simple and decide to communicate less and to the point ,it creates a very powerful impact.That I feel,Is because Simple ideas stay with the audience much after they have they have been spoken about beacuse they are concise and uncomplicated.This is especially true for powerpoint presentations.Powerpoints with complicated,difficult to understand or wordy data are an eyesore.If you adapt ‘less is more’ and simplify it, the audience is defenately likely to get what you are trying to communicate.
Unlike most classes, in the advanced communication course this has been a very important think I have tried to adapt .As Prof. Sisco emphasizes that there should be only one idea per slide that too in a very simplified manner,I realize that this actually works extremely powerfully.As you are not bombarding the audience with too much information,the audience grasps the single idea you are trying to potray and it sticks with them.
In the powerpoint example above,the first slide is complicated with the A’s and B’s and so on.The second slide simplifies the huge idea ,makes it short and simple and the whole action makes it so easy to understand and powerful.”Less is more” is certainly a concept I beleive in life too but after this term it is something I will always practise in my powerpoint presentaions in my career ahead.
Actually, I learned this concept “Less is more.” from Strategic communications class with Sisco. That was my first class in this program and I was shocked with her first PowerPoint presentation. Dr. Sisco’s slide was simple, unique, and effective. I never experienced with that kind of presentation in my undergraduate and work experience. Therefore, I tried to follow her way to make a presentation with simple, unique, and effective. During that class, I did my persuasive speech with “Why people hate Yankees.” For the presentation with the sports team, it is really hard to not put any facts sheet or graphs. However, I just put one word or one number to make that presentation keep it simple and unique. And, that presentation was effective. Even, I did not get the prize from the class; I heard so many good comments from my classmates. That was 3 minutes presentation and first time to make that way. That was my first presentation with no bullet points and I love it. Of course, during that time, I don’t know how to use fonts wisely and which background is effective for my presentation.
Nobody wants to see the presentation with tons of numbers, bar graphs, and pie chart. I would like to remind you one more time with “Make it simple and keep it simple.”
For my classmates, I found one good article from Nancy Duarte blog http://blog.duarte.com/2010/01/your-data-wants-a-makeover/
I really want to share with you for more effective PowerPoint Presentation.
You think that the concept “less is more” would be something easier to understand. But, i feel that although someof us may understand the process, we all tend to sink back into are same old rut. As presenters there is so much you want to share with your audience that its hard to filter through all the information. How do you decide whats the most important?
A theory I have is that when we choose a topic that we either are passionate about or a topic we no little of; we tend to partake in information overload. When you are passionate about something you often want to share that enthusasim with anyone who is willing to listen. You know so much about the topic that you are a database full of material. On the flip side, when we have a topic we no little about, are research becomes a manual. We search for information so that we as presenters can become more comfortable with the topic. Our research that should become a guide becomes our manuel and in the end we can’t pull out whats inmportant…so we share it all. Before you know it you become a slave of your own slides because you can’t seem to graps all the material.
So is there a middle ground? Professor Sisco shared a quote today from Leonardo Da Vinci. The quote read: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. The idea that simplicity lies somewhere between passion and uninformed has not been able to leave my mind.
When referring to “less is more” many of you have instantly thought of our PowerPoint and why you wouldn’t. They are the accessories to our speeches and if they are cluttered and incomprehensible the idea that an audience member can retain information because a forethought. For many of us in the past, our PowerPoint’s were our storage bins. Holding all the extra junk we couldn’t talk about.
If I have learned anything at all is it about restraint and in the end I guess that the concept “less is more” is exactly that… personal restraint and making sure that we don’t share it all.