As a tool to illuminate and add sparkle to your presentation, the Power Point Presentation has come a long way. In days gone by it was the last crutch of the unprepared or nervous speaker who would look frantically between the presentation on the screen and the paper on the podium, trying to connect the dots between the two and sometimes failing miserably. It was us, the audience members, who would suffer in silent boredom.

Today, the PowerPoint presentation has morphed into a gloriously effective tool for the those who would care to catch the magic to help their presentations shine. I got a glimpse of some of the ways in which we can beef up our presentations and leave our audience as satisfied as one of those Chilean miners emerging from underground after day 69. In a presentation last week at the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Southern Region Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, speaker, Michael Schwartz helped to shed some light on ‘how to ignite your presentations’. Michael is the President of Business Power, an Atlanta-based presentation design firm. His bio informs that he ‘specialises in sophisticated powerpoint presentation designs that are clear, impactful, memorable and powerful’ and that ‘he gives his clients an unfair advantage when they communicate, sell, market or train’.

So, as a victim and a likely perpetrator of crimes of malevolent powerpoint slides I was a happy listener to Michael’s presentation. If you are honest too, you will admit to the many times you have padded your powerpoint slides with 12-point words that over-flowed as dangerously on the screen as the floods on Flat Bridge last month, and wondered why some members of your audience fled horror-stricken as you meandered through slide number four. Unfortunately too, the person who builds the PowerPoint slides is usually not the one who delivers the presentation so unless there is real collaboration it can be a disaster.

Less is more: The Powerpoint presentation was not meant to hold all your speaking notes for the presentation so do not overload it with too much written information. Schwartz suggests that we use one idea per slide. I learnt that minimizing the number of words on the screen and using strong, appropriate images makes for a more effective Powerpoint presentation. How many times have you sat in a session and read through the speaker’s presentation sometimes finishing them before s/he did? Some of us are even brazen enough to ask for a copy of the presentation in order to make a swift exit, choosing to read the presentation at our leisure rather than to sit through the event itself.

There are many different suggestions as to the point size of text that is effective and preferred. Schwartz suggests that we use 40-point size for the title slide and 36 point for the slide headline and for consistency of layout and design, the San serif font. Many of us are guilty of experimenting with different fonts throughout our presentation with the hope that this will add the pizzazz that the content lacks. So, the stately Times New Roman greets our audience on the first five slides and later we assault them with Algerian Font in all caps. Finally, Britannic Bold lurks at the end of the presentation to deliver what we image to be the coup de grace. It is expected that this font will bring our audience to its feet delivering for us a rousing encore. Sadly, that scenario only plays out in our imagination. In front of an audience you have to ‘bring it’ with your delivery. The fonts are only there to give you support.

If your audience wants more facts and figures from your presentation (there are the greedy ones who do) there is a notes section on the templates that will accommodate this. You can e-mail that out if you are asked for more information.

The death of clip art: No serious speaker who uses Powerpoint uses clipart anymore. Clipart is dead. Bury it please. It’s just not funny anymore. I am a lover of all things cartoon and ‘cutsey’ drawings but not when it comes to serious presentations. They really look, dare I say it, ‘lame’. Schwartz said that clipart is not a good way to illustrate your business presentations and he suggests the use of one good strong image. I agree. The internet is a wide open space with images that can be used without permission. And if you have to ask the artist for permission it is only fair, especially if the image punches home your point. While we are on the subject of clipart let me take a swipe a the sounds and moving images on the screen. Can you say distracting? And amateur? I just did. If you want to be taken seriously, unless you are pitching for the Ity and Fancy Cat Show, I would advise getting rid of these distractions in your presentation. You will get asked more serious questions.

Breaking away from boring bullet points: No one really likes lists during presentations – mainly because it just means that there is just one more thing you have to remember and you need that as much as Jamaica needs a long, strong shower of rain. There are at least twenty one ways that you can dress up your lists so that they do not look boring on the screen. When creating lists, go wild and unleash your adventurous side. Experiment and use different shapes, colours, simple lines and space. You would be surprised as to the difference a space makes.

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson, (MBA, ABC) is a Business Communications Consultant with ROCommunications Jamaica, specialising in business communications and financial publications. She can be contacted at: yvonne@rocommunications.com. Visit her website at www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.