Got a speaking engagement coming up? Or have to make a big impression with a pitch or presentation?

Want to engage with your audience?

Want to capture their imagination?

Want to get your audience excited and enthusiastic about what you are doing?

What to communicate with each and every person in the audience?

Then join my new club – The PAPPPP – People Against Pointless Power Point Presentations.

There was a time when the horse and cart were cutting edge.

There was an era when black and white TV was the best there was.

There was a moment when we all thought Disco music was pretty cool.

And there was a time when Power Point was a great way to communicate ideas and information.

However, just like the horse and cart, the TV and the mirror balls, it is time to look for something new, exciting, engaging and entertaining and “Power Point just ain’t it”.

There are five really good reasons why Power Point has become Power Point-less when it comes to delivering ideas, information and innovations to groups of people:

1. People want to be engaged with you, to share ideas with you, to learn and grow with you. They don’t want to be Power Pointed at by you;
2. Communication in this century is a living, exciting, dynamic two-way thing – not a one way conversation from speaker to audience;
3. Knowledge is not power. There is no point delivering a long Power Point presentation full of facts and figures – because everyone knows what you know and they can get it anywhere, anytime and for free from the Internet. There are no more secrets;
4. Power Point forces people to engage with the screen – not with the person or with the ideas, information and innovations – i.e. too many times the presenter talks to the screen and does not share, collaborate and grow with the audience – let’s face it – just how many blue slides with yellow text have you seen in the past ten years?;
5. People want to engage and connect personally – there is nothing personal about Power Point – unless you are a projector and have a thing about laptops and USB drives.

Great presenting is based on the F.E.E.L. concept:

• Feel it (it moves you, it emotionally engages you);
• Ears (you hear it – and really listen);
• Eyes (you see it and really focus on it); and
• Learn (you learn from it and as a result it stimulates change and growth).

PowerPoint is great eye-candy sometimes but as it is with all candy – you just get fat, slow and lazy if you get too much of it.

Power Point can also be a crutch for lazy presenters who aren’t prepared to work hard and who aren’t prepared to communicate and engage with their audience – instead trying to “wow” the audience with graphics, diagrams, photos and flashy transitions…and your audience deserves better.

It’s about energising people with engagement and not trying to baffle them with bull$@^!

And now the good news………….particularly for techno-phobes – who never got Power Point anyway.

The key to being a great presenter is being yourself, speaking from the heart and in doing so engaging the hearts (and minds) of your audience.

Far more effective and far more enduring than being a great “Power-Pointer” is being a great communicator and great human being – one who knows him/herself, who is passionate and knowledgeable about their subject and who cares  for their audience and their needs.

Where people were once impressed by technology, they now crave connections.

Where once people were gaggled by gadgets, they now want to be consumed with communication.

In the old days we tried to “wow” audiences with graphics, we now need to excite them with engagement.

So….the challenge is over to you….what’s the best way you have found to communicate ideas, information and innovation in a way which engages, excites and entertains your audience?

Let me know.

Wayne Goldsmith