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Power
Up Your Presentations
published PROFIT
Magazine for Canadian Entrepreneurs - December 2000
If you've ever noticed your audience nodding off in the middle of your big
presentation, Trish Green has some advice for you: Create visual images to
drive your points home.
"Too many people just take the words from their speaking notes and dump them into PowerPoint," says Green, a presentation skills specialist in
Mississauga, Ont. "Your audience can read faster than you can speak. They won't be listening to
you - they'll be way ahead of you. If this is what you're going to do, you might as well just print out your slides and
e-mail them."
Green advises presenters to translate their words into strong images that reinforce their words-images that will help the audience remember the main points. Using tired visuals, she says, is like "wearing a 10-year-old
suit. Your audience will have a negative impression before you even open
your mouth." She warns that even seemingly innocuous elements, such as typeface
and margins, work differently on a screen than they do on a page. "There's lots of subliminal communication
going on," she says.
Presentation software may be easy to use, but it's not easy to use wisely.
Green's advice: take the trouble to have an expert teach you the elements
of thinking visually. more information
�2000
Trish Green
www.trishgreen.com
Toronto-based presentation skills specialist, public
speaker, trainer, columnist and publisher t'greetings, an electronic newsletter for business presenters.
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