10/20/30 rule of Powerpoint.
I didn’t comment on this right away, because I didn’t have the time to craft an answer. I’m sure Vowe will forgive me for using this link as a lever for my opinions. 10/20/30 got me laughing at first, then very concerned that people might take it seriously. Presentation is an art and science, distinct from print or web production, and should be respected as such. Should I squeeze Guy Kawasaki’s immense evangelical and sales skills down to a three point rule? I blame this all on the stultifying effect of Powerpoint on the presentation industry. There were more complex, better solutions than Powerpoint for presentation. A three point rule is all it deserves. To be honest, drawing on a cocktail napkin can be more communicative. Nevertheless, I feel I must correct Guy’s points, as cast against various links and my direct experience after 13 years in the business of presentations:
1. Nothing replaces rhetorical skill, knowledge of your subject, and passion. Time and again, the speaker with one slide and keen knowledge of their subject rivets an audience more completely than any number of slides and an ‘uh’ splattered drone. If you must speak, take the time to learn the skill of surpassingly excellent speech. Learn to drop your ‘uhs’ and other verbal crutches. If you don’t naturally use your hands when you speak, avoid speech-coached “stock hand gestures.” ("There’s another butterfly at the podium.") Teleprompting can be a useful tool, once one has trust in the operator and learns to ‘live by the glass.’ Takes an average person about 3-5 days of regular use with the same prompter operator to be smooth. There are many who have prompters put brief lists of speaking points on the glass, and are able to ad-lib to the list, giving the prompter cues with pauses or verbal hooks. It’s a nice compromise that works with paper, too. Cicero’s “Palaces of the mind” for memory enhancement.
The ideal situation is that if your written speech gets lost, the prompter drops out, a power surge blows all the electronics (and we had a hotel kitchen microwave on the wrong circuit do that at one point), you still have the skill and command of the subject to forge ahead. If you are particularly nervous, make sure you have one friend or business acquaintance in each horizontal section of seats in the front row. Focus on, and speak directly to them. As you relax, look further back. If you tense, bring your attention back to your friends. Simple and effective.
[A personal appeal from a video wonk who’s had to see too many of you on big screens and small ... please brush your teeth with water immediately before speaking. Clear out the crud. Nothing’s worse than seeing your partially-masticated breakfast danish turn your teeth into a monolith of gooey mush. Have someone else do a last-minute check on your blouse, tie, overall look right before you take the floor. Once had a speaker pass through drapes only to have his toupee get dislodged at a hilarious angle. The audience spent the next few minutes trying to not roar while we figured out a way to graciously get his top back in place.]
2. Powerpoint is a tool, not a religion. You don’t have to pray to Microsoft’s altar. No matter what stock color combo or combination of effects you use, the audience has seen it before. Freely use Illustrator, Photoshop and other programs to create truly dynamic informational graphics. Powerpoint’s cheapness and popularity killed off many better presentation systems, freezing most of the advances in the presentation medium firmly in the 80’s. Executives and secretaries believed themselves instantly empowered to be presentation designers. Powerpoint appeared about the same time laser pointers became low-cost crutches for poorly organized presentations, combining forces to numb worldwide audiences. If design ain’t your main gig, you’re spinning your wheels. Get pro help.
Anyway, I digress. There are many different options, if you spend the time to look and aren’t locked in to an event where multiple presentations must be run off the same computer. Many programs now have slide show features ... substantially different features your Powerpoint-weary audience will welcome.
Please remember that all onscreen animation should have a point, don’t just fly text and pictures in with random effects, because you have the effects available. Everything you do should support the goal of your presentation. There’s nothing wrong with dissolves. Information first; screen effects belong way back on the list of priorities. Mere movement, once upon a time, could command attention. Engaging the primitive human defense/hunting instinct. It’s overused, and less effective now.
Ask the question, for each slide: where do you want the attention? On you, or your slides? The most effective use of a slide that I ever saw, was an individual who wanted his sales force to stop doing a certain technique. What did he do? He had us fade the visual to black, and said, “Read my lips. Don’t do -----. Got it?” The point came across clearly and with emphasis [somewhat sledgehammer, but there was not a single audience member who didn’t understand immediately]. Don’t divide your audience’s attention on important points.
Lastly, video is not a CRT [LCD projectors excepted]. You have lines of resolution to be concerned with, fields and frames, not pixels. Pick the wrong number of pixels for a horizontal line, and watch your lines swim across the screen. One of the ways you can tell an inexperienced presentation designer from an experienced one. It’s important, and it’s a common mistake.
3. Audience attention span has been, and is, scientifically measured by scholarly institutions. It was between 16 and 18 minutes back in the late 80’s/90’s. I can guarantee that 20 minutes is too long, way too long for this era, without incorporating some sort of break in the average speaker drone. We used comedy skits, dance routines, live voting machines, videos, etc. Doing a quick Google, I can tell you I would go no longer than 15 minutes, without something to break the drone and refresh the attention. Children, I believe, are gauged at 6 minutes or less these days. Tailor to the age of your audience.
That being said, there’s a caveat. A ‘pre-qualified audience’ can bear longer periods. If the subject is specific, and the audience has very specific interest in that subject, the presentation can go longer, in depth, without all the annoying breaks.
4. The 30 point font rule is patently silly as a general rule. What size is the screen? What’s the dot pitch and resolution of the CRT or LCD? How far back is the audience sitting? Is it front projection or rear? Use what’s appropriate given the size of audience, the clarity of the video projector, the readability and viewing angle of the screen. This is why you hire pros to support you. Unless you have a controlled situation for your presentations, using the same equipment with a similar-sized audience in a similarly lit room, it’s not something a simple ‘rule’ can handle. Spend time to learn from professionals. We know what to use under any given situation. If you don’t have that option, test permutations yourself, and learn what’s appropriate for your equipment and your venues.
The first Powerpoint presentation I ever supported, the client designed his own presentation according to someone else’s rules. Green type on a burgundy background, rear-projected on a 40 foot screen. Dreadful enough. Then I saw the slides themselves. Six point type, when neither Powerpoint nor Windows anti-aliased (smoothed) fonts. What did he do? He produced the cure-all for overtexted and incomprehensible visuals. He pulled out his handy-dandy underpowered laser pointer! The laughs, then the groans from the audience were audible backstage as they realized the speaker was seriously going to go through the slides ... that it wasn’t a huge joke. Folks were leaning forward to try to find the little red dot on the squared pixels of the screen. After the presentation, he cut a swath to where I was. Expecting to get reamed, I tried to look busy while unhooking my equipment. He put out his hand, and said “Now I feel I’m presenting with 21st century style.” He was truly thrilled, left the stage to congratulations from his adoring hordes (the CEO’s grovelling subordinates; you see it all the time in every company). I was horrified. Disgusted. That was the last Powerpoint presentation I ever supported. Part of the reason you see me on the Internet, now; I knew I’d never have the patience to compete with the ‘I own the software, I’m an expert’ mentality.
This is why I say, Guy Kawasaki or not [and I respect Guy greatly on other things], do not necessarily trust a presenter when they make recommendations ‘from long experience.’ You must take into account the ‘brown nose effect.’ Everyone tells them they’re great, when behind their back they’re laughing. Their judgment of what is appropriate may have no grounding in reality.
5. If you’re serious about crafting presentations (and I use the word ‘crafting’ on purpose), learn about color contrast. When choosing colors for projection video, look particularly at black levels [brightness] in addition to hue/color. Contrast in the colors will make one color jump out from another; too close in black levels, nobody will be reading anything. If you must do a notebook/front projection gig, given the dreadful state of low-cost LCD notebook projectors, I’d go with large fonts/large contrast and few if any gradients, in case of banding. Every ounce of increased contrast will help ... onscreen, and in room lighting.
Information design has been changing like fashion over the years. Presentation design has a significantly different set of ‘rules’ than print design. You will find every opinion under the sun here, at professional firms as well as among amateurs. Pick your interpretation, test it thoroughly. Err on the side of negative space. Edit ruthlessly and without squeamishness. The screen carries the bones; you flesh it out.
6. Get to the venue at least an hour early to check all equipment and to be sure local personnel know what you desire. The hotel A/V boys with the pocket protectors and tape on the glasses are there to help you, as long as you don’t interrupt their coffee-and-newspaper rituals. Hired professional A/V folks are there specifically to help you, and will do so generously if offered an ounce of respect. Don’t trust in luck; bring backups or have backups available for your own equipment. Know where the nearest Radio Shack is to your venue, before you arrive, just in case you need connectors; hotels often don’t have ready supplies, esp. of Apple items. Rental agencies will usually offer a backup at half-price that will sit in a box at the venue, just in case you need it. Computers, esp. laptops, video projectors, CRTs, LCDs ... these things can and do fail all the time. When travelling, keep one copy of your presentation on your laptop, one on disc with the computer. One disc on your person, in case the laptop case gets checked for some ungodly security reason. One at the office, where someone can find it and email it if necessary. The law of averages is against you. Do not trust to chance. Know the most common headaches, and be prepared for them. That’s all.
Many’s the time I’ve shown up at a conference room for a laptop presentation, only to find that the only available AC plugs are on the same circuit with big power-hogs, giving a lovely swimming motion to the screen. And, to continue the thought, it’s frightening how many conference rooms sit next to office kitchens, with coffee makers and microwaves, refrigerators and freezers on the same circuit. Compressor kicks in and ... POW. Say goodbye. Speak clearly and carry a loooong extension cord. Extra points if you carry around a five-pound line conditioner, as I used to.
Finally, recommendations:
Presentation skills: If you think a copy of Powerpoint and a laptop make you a presentation professional, you’re kidding yourself ... and worse, doing your audience a disservice. I know of no books out there, except for an 80’s Kodak presentation manual that mostly dealt with slide projection, that ever touched on the real issues of presentation. You need exposure to professional practices.
Stage management: If you’re doing a speech on a stage with professional support, learn stage left from stage right.
Voice: Don’t drink alcohol the night before your speech. Don’t smoke. Go light on the coffee in the morning. Don’t use mouthwash. Those things dry out your vocal cords, challenging your speaking voice ... and alcohol dulls your wits, hence the pilot’s credo, at least “12 hours between bottle and throttle.” Great rule for public speaking; slurring through hangover doesn’t increase audience comprehension. Be fully hydrated, within reason. Get a full night’s sleep. Warm up your voice before the speech, cool down afterwards. And for God’s sake, don’t yell or try singing opera in a loud voice to ‘get the voice in shape.’ You want to keep speaking long term, don’t you? Be gentle and patient with your speech resources.
Video projection: Use more video projection muscle than you think you need, always. Especially if there are windows and curtains in the venue (strong sunlight can overcome blinds). You can always dim, but you can never brighten beyond the specs of the projector. Unless you drag the backup out of mothballs and double up on the projection, which takes time and skill ... and puts extra emphasis on good design and clean font usage.
Voting/surveys: Learn from your audience. If you have the budget and/or the time, live voting systems (or, if everyone has a laptop, online surveys) are extremely effective tools for getting the real opinion of the audience. The Campbell Soup meeting I referenced above used this technology. At the first meeting, it was used largely as a comedy routine, but the management of Campbell swiftly realized that the salesforce had an immense pool of knowledge that would help them overcome the challenge of cheap oriental ramen noodle soups. Late night script meetings ensued after every show in each city, with motivated and engaged clients. By the end of the tour, the technique had made clear a workable strategy that would counter the threat. That show ended as one of the most successful sales meeting tours I ever participated in, and is probably one of the reasons Campbell is still around on your grocer shelves. (I should also let you know this was staged in the mid-80’s. Interactive voting is not a recent phenom. The internet is bringing back the technologies we used so long ago, before the Powerpoint-stultified 90’s.)
Comments:
I cannot be completely objective in reference to PowerPoint, sadly, because it’s cheapness and ubiquity killed off many better systems and stuck presentation technology in a very ‘80’s mode. It is the user’s ignorance, sure ... but I still am left with a very sour taste in my mouth. It’s one thing for amateurs to have access to PowerPoint; it’s another for professionals to get stuck with a limited feature set because of its popularity.
[I say ‘ignorance’, but why should average users know about the state of presentation tech, how could they know, when it seems only we who worked in the field remember?]
On a 386 Windows 2 box, I had multiple true-32 bit video boards that would allow me to animate three layers of video or graphics and text. Real alpha channels ... animatable ones. Targa/Truevision boards were not cheap items in the 80’s, but we expected (before PP became popular) that 32-bit editing should have been cheap and ubiquitous by the mid- to late-90’s. Photoshop has only recently climbed up to the 32 bits of color we used back then ... and it’s still not as advanced as the environments we were working in ... TVL, Rio, etc.
So you’ll have to forgive me my frustration at the lack of sophistication in presentation tech. Professionals are stuck supporting PowerPoint, because it is assumed by many that is the ultimate presentation software.
I would love to still be doing what I was doing in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I just could not contemplate giving clients less value for their presentation buck. Because, of course, hourly rates never dropped to match the lack of production value; indeed, hours were longer because it just plain took longer to get something decent out of the software, compared to what we were accustomed to producing.
I have been the producer (unwillingly) and the reciepient of several “Death by Power Point” productions. At first there was Harvard Graphics and it was difficult enough (and computers were slow enough) to keep it from spreading in the Army, but once Power Point came on board and there started to be enough communications band width to broadcast a briefing to everyone and their dog, more Power Point slides, especially with animation, became the goal. I remember giving a Brigade Op order with sheets of acetate and the backs of rations boxes and when I retired, it wasn’t unusual to have 100 different slides for a Bde Op Order.
i’ve studied at a technical university and i think the mass of profs should emergently read your posting. there are so many slides out in the world that are more self-presenting the childish style than the real topics.
Why there have to be a sound and a random effect each time a slide changes? And why these ‘technics’ are used by profs with courses like “Information technology” or “business law”? Arent there lesson contents boring enough?
Harvard Graphics, ah yes. We used it rarely, until better things came along. Too long to create attractive charts. We used Aldus Persuasion to create 35mm slides, because Powerpoint was too difficult to get beyond the stock color combos. Yet, the early Persuasion would map colors in strict ways; a freelancer came in and customized their color palette for the way they worked, and it changed the color mappings for the whole project. Slides that were supposed to have blue backgrounds, came out with a sickly pink-red ... panic as the first batch came back, and there were three more batches in the process of being shot onto film!
That is a very nice article on how to present better!
Nonetheless, as you said, Powerpoint is a tool. It is not per se a bad thing, it is just that people have the possibility to do bad presentations with it.
The solution to this is not to restrict everybody with “better” presentation systems because then they can do less harm, but to make it clear to those people that they did a bad job of presenting.
Did anybody blame all the bad DTP work on Pagemaker back in the 90s? No. It was blamed on the people doing so.
You can do good presentations with Powerpoint. Period. Are most people able to do so? No. Do they need training? Yes. Should they be told they suck? Yes. But blaming the tool is like blaming the ingridients instead of a a bad cook because he did make that meal ugly
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