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One of the reasons the example slide does not guide attention is that it uses a category heading—like those you see in almost all PowerPoint presentations. A category heading like “Focus Areas” can help you quickly brainstorm a list of information, but as you see here, it does nothing to guide you to a quick understanding of what is the most important information on the slide. Simply categorizing and listing information does not entail the critical thinking it takes to determine the point of the lists in the first place.
Many organizations create a corporate PowerPoint template in an effort to ensure that every presentation created in the organization has a similar graphical style. Although these templates can ensure a similar look across presentations, if they ignore the three research realities described in this chapter, they also diminish the effectiveness of presentations of all the presenters who use them.
Forget the old ways of using PowerPoint, because as you saw in this chapter, when you ignore the research realities, you use an approach that is broken, ineffective, and frustrating for audiences. Instead, when you choose an approach that fixes the problems, you produce experiences that audiences find engaging and meaningful.
But as you saw in Chapter 2, you also know what is happening from the audience’s point of view in terms of memory. Sensory memory can see and hear a potentially unlimited amount of verbal and visual information, but only for a fleeting
second. Long-term memory can hold a potentially unlimited amount of information from 30 seconds to up to a lifetime. Yet the capacity of working memory to handle new information, the eye of the needle, is relatively limited for the few seconds it pays attention to what you are showing and saying.
This book includes most of what you need to get started with BBP. Of course, you’ll also need a computer with both Microsoft Office Word and PowerPoint installed. As you begin or continue to work with BBP, the companion Web site to this book at www.beyondbulletpoints.com offers additional resources, courses, and a community to help you create BBP presentations smarter, faster, and easier from start to finish.
film-making is an appropriate model for designing multimedia presentations because it plans and manages both visual and verbal information simultaneously.
Filmmakers know that the best way to start planning a film is with the written word, in the form of a script. A script is much shorter and less detailed than a novel because it assumes that the visuals and dialog will play a major role in telling the story. The best scripts distill stories to their bare essence and strip away anything that does not contribute to a story’s singular focus.
Although putting your thoughts in writing adds a new step to your usual PowerPoint process, doing so will save you time and effort later. When you begin writing your PowerPoint script in Chapter 4, you won’t have to start with an empty page, because you’ll use the story template shown in Figure 3-2 to guide you every step of the way.
To understand the story template, you have to go back in time a few years. The Greek philosopher Aristotle recorded the classical elements of storytelling 2400 years ago, including the concept that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. When you adapt this timeless idea to your PowerPoint presentations, you’ll ground your communications in a powerful technique that works.
addition to a classical story structure, your story template also incorporates persuasive techniques that are useful for many types of presentations in different contexts. These include using Aristotle’s concept that to persuade, you must appeal to emotion, reason, and personal credibility. Even if your intent is to simply inform an audience about something, you still have to persuade them to pay attention. Why should they listen? What’s in it for them? Act I of your story template will make sure that you persuade your audience to focus on your message, and Act II will make sure that you
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You need to quickly make an emotional connection with an audience to motivate them, and you see the specific words that do that in Act I, where you write out the classical elements of a strong story beginning. The first five headlines you write in Act I of the story template will connect emotionally with an audience, define a problem they face, and explain how they can solve it. This forms the story thread that will carry attention through the entire presentation. You will reinforce the strength of the thread to carry new information through the working memory of your audience by applying a
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The challenge of any presentation is not to show all the information you have but, instead, to select the appropriate information to present.
When you project your slides on a large screen, they work as visual triggers that increase your confidence as a speaker. You’re no longer tied to
uncomfortable task of reading text off the screen and unintentionally ignoring your audience. Instead, the clear headline and graphic quickly prompt you to use your natural voice and authority as you explain them.
Rule 1: Write Concise, Complete Sentences with a Subject and a Verb in Active Voice
Write the sentences in active voice—for example, “Our top competitors launched five new products last quarter” rather than in the passive voice, “Five new products were launched by our top competitors last quarter.” Keep your language dynamic and direct; the same principles, techniques, and rules that define good writing also define good headlines in your template.
and remove any ambiguity. Later, when you import your headlines into the title area of your PowerPoint slides, your audience will have no doubt about what you want to communicate because they can read it for themselves at the top of each slide. Write your headlines using sentence case, with the initial word capitalized and the rest in lowercase. When you write your headlines for Act I, constrain them to only one line that fills the width of the cell without extending to a second line. The columns in your template for Act II are narrower, so you are able to extend those headlines to a maximum
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Tip If you’re looking for practical examples of how to write concisely, look no further than the headlines of a newspaper. When writing a headline, an editor has limited space to communicate an idea clearly, so the language needs to be clear, direct, and engaging.
Rule 2: Be Clear, Direct, Specific, and Conversational
Each statement in your story template will speak directly to your audience when it fills the title area of a slide, so use a conversational tone that
simple, clear, and direct. Say what you mean in plain language. When you make your point, include the details that give it specificity, color, and impact. Tailor your words to the level of understanding of everyone in the audience and place ...
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Because you’re simply having a conversation,
your voice should be relaxed and casual—not tense and formal. This conversational tone will help you keep your headlines from getting wordy.
Your story template depends on a special writing style that boils down your story to its essence. Follow these three ground rules to keep your writing on point: Rule 1: Write concise, complete sentences with a subject and a verb in active voice. Rule 2: Be clear, direct, specific, and conversational.
Rule 3: Link your ideas across cells.
headlines—you’ll generally create a more dynamic, in-the-moment feeling to your story if you use the present tense.
Although writing is usually considered a solitary experience, don’t write your PowerPoint script alone. Invite the members of your team to join you in a conference room. To get started, attach a projector to your laptop computer and display your story template as a Word document on the screen. When the story template is projected onto a wall, it becomes a tool for a group of people to see, create, discuss, debate, and agree on the structure of any presentation. Organizations have found the story template tool to be a breakthrough innovation because it guides a collaborative process, gives
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the first moments of a presentation, an audience forms an opinion about you and determines your credibility to talk about the topic in the first place. This puts you in a critical situation where you really need to get it right the first time.
These five slides will determine everything you say, show, and do in the critical first few minutes of your presentation, and they
also represent your opportunity to start strong and clear and to guide working memory through the entire presentation.
These five headlines will answer the clarifying questions that every audience silently asks every presenter: where and when, who, why, what, and how.
This first slide is important because when your presentation begins, audiences might have different expectations than you do. The Setting headline invites them to join you at the same location, establishes a common ground, and
THE SETTING HEADLINE The Setting headline answers the question the audience members are silently wondering: “Where am I, and when is it?”
Establishing your audience as the main character in your second slide makes your presentation personal to them. Because the audience members have a direct involvement and stake in the outcome, they will pay attention. Making your audience the main character also helps you to stay focused on your audience and makes sure that you tailor your presentation to their needs.
Many PowerPoint presentations tend to be “all about me,” with little if any consideration of the audience. With this single slide, you remind your audience that this is “all about you.”
Esto es fundamental no debe olvidarse
REMEMBER The main character of every presentation is your audience, and you are a supporting character. This is the crucial spin on crafting stories for live presentations.
and presents your most important opportunity to quickly engage your audience. Because you should make an emotional connection within the first few minutes of a presentation, this is the specific slide where you make that abstract concept a reality.
Point A headline. This headline is called Point A because it defines the specific point where your audience begins the action of this story. Later you’ll define the specific point where your audience wants to be in light of this
REMEMBER The Point A headline sets your story in motion by defining a specific challenge your audience faces.
Historical narrative “We have a history that makes us proud, and we want to apply our high standards to the current situation.” Crisis “We have to respond to the danger facing us.” Disappointment “We made a decision based on the best information we had available, but now we know it wasn’t the right decision, so we have to try something else.” Opportunity “We know something now that we didn’t know before, which presents us with a new possibility if we act.” Crossroads “We’ve been doing fine on the path
that we’re on, but now we have a new choice and we have to decide which path to take.” Challenge “Someone else has achieved something amazing—do we have it in us to do the same?” Blowing the whistle “Although it appears everything is going fine, we have a serious problem we need to fix.” Adventure “We know that trying something new is a risk, but it’s better to take a risk than to stay in a rut.” Response to an order “We’ve been told we have to do this, so we’re here to figure out how to make it happen.” Revolution “We’re on a path to disaster if we don’t radically change what we’re doing
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might appear that writing headlines is a straightforward process where you write what you need in the first pass, but in reality it’s an iterative process where you’ll write a first draft and then make multiple rounds of changes. As mentioned earlier, you’ll get the best results if you develop your headlines with a team so that you get multiple perspectives and distill the best of your collective effort.
No one likes to remain in a state of discomfort. When you are challenged, you feel unsettled and emotionally uncomfortable until you bring the situation back into equilibrium. The same holds true for the main character in this story or in any presentation.
The Point A headline describes the challenge facing the audience, and the Point B headline shows them a vision of where they want to be in this context. When they see where they want to go, they’ll be fueled by their desire to get there with your help.
The Point B headline of the fourth slide answers the question the audience is asking themselves: “Where do I want to be?”
Remember, the Point A headline puts your audience in an emotionally uncomfortable state of imbalance, and the Point B headline describes the state of balance that they want to achieve.
Defining the problem for your audience is probably the hardest thing you’ll do in your presentation. You and your team might go through several rounds of drafts and revisions to get the Point A and Point B headlines right, but when you do, the rest of your presentation
motif is more memorable if it is unexpected. Introducing a surprising motif in Act I will also increase memorability.
