Digital Media: Putting ''ah-ha!'' into presentations

By Jim Endicott, Owner/Manager of Distinction

"One only, 2001 Toyota Camry VIN # 4875897-839749   Only $11,057!"

(This is where the microscopic fine print goes that tells you that you'll never get this one in a million years.)

By the time you get there, amazingly this little gem has already been sold. You could have camped out the entire night before and as soon as the doors opened at the dealership, that sucker is somehow gone. There's a lot said about truth in advertising and getting what you really want.  Expectations are created but frustration occurs when reality turns out to be something very different.  It's hard to know what to expect these days. 

Whether you know it or not, presentation audiences struggle with a similar dilemma. Are the seminars they've just coughed up $195 for as good as the $495 seminars? Will they be as interesting? Are the presenters who are using 35mm slides or overhead projectors better or worse presenters than those using electronic presentations?  The answer is yes. and no.  As a presentation consultant to large and small companies alike, I noticed an interesting phenomena a few years ago. As electronic projectors became more affordable, companies began embracing this new way of presenting in larger numbers. Where there use to be a single projector shared by many, now many task-specific projectors are deployed throughout an organization. There was almost a giddy euphoria about the prestige that could be had by simply using an electronic projector but then reality began to set in. 

As much potential that existed for the powerful combination of laptop computer and electronic projector, the cost avoidance issues of eliminating slides and overheads seemed to get center stage attention at first. As the novelty of that advantage wore thin, presenters began flying things around screen to justify the expense of such new technology. (I probably would have recommended paper airplanes as a more reasonably cost alternative.) As with many new technologies, the ultimate advantages are often realized after the new adopters move on to the latest and greatest stuff. Companies are now beginning to understand that as cool as these things are, what advantages having really been realized in the critical areas of influence, information exchange or persuasion?  Simply put, how has technology made things better for your audiences (not just for you)?  

If your presentations today could have just as easily have been a 35mm slide (short of flying bullets), then what advantages have you truly realized? If this is you, here are some content areas that can directly impact our ability to get the most from your investment in electronic presentation technology.  

Design content that's appropriate for your media

Print media uses the vehicle of words with an occasional image to convey information. It's generally a passive medium and chuck full of right brain, analytically processed content that most often ends up in the short-term memory garbage can.The reason you hear so many experts discourage the use of busy text slides in presentations is that it's the wrong content for the media. With so much visually rich imagery possible given the computer/projector combination, the use of words alone become our worst enemy in effective group communication. From the time images were drawn on cave walls, people have connected more completely and at a more personal emotional level with the visual representation of words - not the words themselves. If you were a cave man, "WOMA" may be the right word but a picture of a Neanderthal being impaled by a woolly mammoth would most likely connect with you at a deeper more personal level.  In your presentations, replace words with images so you, the presenter, "narrate" the storyline. 

Explore the digital media limits offered up by your computer

Your computer offers the opportunity for a virtual left-brain playground to impart images and concepts that are remembered.  Behavioral changes are initiated through the creative, sensory-based left side of the brain, not the right. The use of elements like crisp video clips of a CEO, industry expert or warehouse tour, immediately make the experience real for your audience. An animation showing a difficult to describe process now gets your audience to that "ah ha" moment in minutes, not hours. An embedded customer voice-over testimonial puts instant flesh and blood on a dry text quote making it more credible. It's easier than ever these days. It just takes a little planning. 

Give yourself options to enhance information availability to your audiences

Information "at our fingertips" is one of the key areas that differentiate computer-based content from static mediums. A click on hot text that launches a link to a web page, hyper linking to another presentation that has more detailed information, launching a PDF that has the latest ad slick - all ways to become more dynamic with the content you offer. Hopefully the days of linear, tray-based slide shows taught us that one presentation option does not always allow us to meet the many aspects of audience expectations.

Animate for retention, not entertainment

Think back on a presentation you attended - an overhead projector presentation that put a mind numbing flow chart up on screen. I'm guessing your first impression was something like, "You've got to be kidding me." Your computer-based presentation technology now allows you to break that content into more palatable chunks, introduce it on a click, then explained to add essential retention.  (For those who have grown attached to the idea of swiveling and flying objects, I recommend a beanie with a propeller - it's three-dimensional.)

Explore other digital content elements that can be leveraged by your electronic projector

It's easier than ever these days to use your projector to toggle between multiply sources. That means presentation content can now easily include a VCR, DVD, another computer or other external elements. Now more dynamic supporting content (often professionally created) can easily augment and reinforce your presentation themes. Psychologists tell us that it's just this kind of visual change up in content that keeps audiences engaged longer. 

If you find that you use your computer and projector in the same old way all the time, I would suggest that your audiences are ready for something new, even if you aren't.  It all comes down to our guiding reason - our prime directive as presenters.  If "first, do no harm" comes to mind, that's for doctors but I see how you could make that mistake. It's actually something much more simple than that.  

Good presentations are not about us communicating information to an audience. It's about them actually "getting it".

Learn more about Jim Endicott and Distinction in our Contributor's section.