Addressing New Technology

• Author: Faith Dianne Pincus
• Profession: Attorney and former Federal Law Clerk
• Pages: 107-122

107

CHAPTER NINE

Addressing New

Technology

These days, speakers have a lot of help. From software programs to

videoconferencing to online venues, the world of the presenter has changed

dramatically. But make no mistake, even low-tech realities like the humble

printed handout require a little strategy, if you don’t want to end up losing an

audience’s attention. For that reason, I’m going to talk in this chapter about not

only how and when to distribute handouts, but how to best present yourself

on teleconferences and webinars. But first, I have to lead off with—and spend

a lot of time on—a software program that is often billed as The Visual Aid

You Can’t Live Without. But that’s not what I call it. I usually call it ...

PowerPoint—The Devil’s Software Program

Let’s make something clear: PowerPoint is evil.

This may strike you as being an overstatement. PowerPoint is evil?

Seriously?

Seriously. PowerPoint truly sucks. It has single-handedly ruined

hundreds of thousands of presentations, if not millions, and has corrupted

just as many otherwise intelligent speakers.

My advice? Don’t use it. 1 Or at least don’t use it every single time you speak.

Why is this software so insidious? Why should it be avoided like a

fresh outbreak of the Black Plague? Simply put, PowerPoint offers exactly

the kind of crutch to public speakers upon which they should never rely. It

is the public speaking equivalent of a narcotic—it feels good while you’re

using it, but it ultimately destroys what you are trying to achieve.

1

This advice does not apply to closing arguments. See Chapter Fourteen for more

information.

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108 Being Heard

PowerPoint is designed to be a speaker’s helper. It is supposed to

frame your main points in a colorful and powerful way, support your

themes with both images and memorable quotes, and generally serve as

an instructive helper. PowerPoint is supposed to be there when you need

it and gone when it is unnecessary.

But what PowerPoint has turned into, through overuse, misuse, and

downright abuse, is the functional equivalent of a heckler. For the majority

of presentations that employ it, PowerPoint does not assist the speaker in

his or her task. Instead, it undercuts what would otherwise have been a

coherent, thoughtful, and successful speech.

Speeches that at one time would have been fifteen minutes long, easy

to follow, and informative are now thirty to fifty minutes long, contain fifty

PowerPoint slides, and are really boring. Rather than providing the audience

with a handy set of guideposts to aid them in their journey through the

presentation, PowerPoint users instead assault their audience’s s enses with

hundreds of unnecessary headings, bullet points, and dense paragraphs of

text that do nothing to bring the speech to life.

All of which goes to say: PowerPoint is evil. You have been warned.

Stay away.

Example:

In case you think I’m exaggerating about how much of a turnoff a bad PowerPoint

presentation can be, let me offer as evidence the following live tweets by audi-

ence members at just such an occasion. These were collected during a keynote

address at a Higher Education & Social Media conference. The keynote speaker

had made just about every mistake with his slides that a person could make—too

much information, bad design choices, too many slides, etc., etc. And members

of the audience tweeted each other and other conference members the following

not-so-subtle critiques (and these are only a sample of the tweets):

•

“Clearly I’m not the only one who sucks at PowerPoint. I was smart

enough not to use it though.”

• “Gold font on gray background w/ 1990 drop shadow makes babies cry.

Should we stage an intervention?”

• “Worst designed PowerPoint ever. Ever.”

• “I think I’m about to have a seizure.”

• “Why is this guy here?”

•

“Okay, slides with paragraphs of information make me turn around and

tweet about how such things are bad.”

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