When Less Is More ~ Paul M Johnstone©

We have all heard it before, well we try to do it.  Often a speaker says too much instead of too little.

Here is an old example.  A little boy went to his mother and asked a question. She said, "Why don't you go ask your dad?" His response: "I don't want to know that much about it."

Often when you communicate, less is better. Say you are using a PowerPoint, p[lease don't put 50 words on a slide. A PowerPoint slide is there to support your presentation, its not supposed to be your presentation. It’s no place to hold every word of your message.

Instead, create simple slides, that contain a few words, then use the slide to support your presentation. . A good reminder is the 30 point rule: nothing in less than 30 point type.  That way everyone can see and read your slides. Otherwise, your PowerPoint gives the whole message in a boring and tedious manner.

I have been showing people how to use PowerPoint for some time now and lots of people try to make their presentation interesting but don’t have the information to make it work. 

And please don't give a lengthy answer to a "yes" or "no" question. When a person asks you a "yes" or "no" question, a "yes" or "no" is the answer! Your audience only wants an explanation where the questions starts, "What do you think..." "How do you feel..." or "How do you...?"

When you are near the end of a twenty-minute presentation and you realize you have another five minutes of excellent material, don't keep talking. Go to your conclusion and sit down. And avoid the temptation to speed up to get it all in.

Your audience will never know what excellent material you had yet to cover and will think you are a well-organized and effective speaker because you finished on time.

And remember the old speaker saying “Be sincere, Be brief and Be seated”

Please feel free to comment on this or any of my earlier Blogs. All feedback is great

About the Author

Paul M Johnstone is a Professional Communicator, Speaker, Executive Coach and PowerPoint Guru!  He works with companies, organisations and individuals.  Helping people want to speak and present more effectively, to improve their personal and professional success. Paul can be reached at +44 (0)7711 324362or through his website at http://www.pmjohnstone.co.uk/

Top Three Goals for your Presentation- Paul M Johnstone

Public speaking, presentation skills and presenting with PowerPoint techniques are easy to master and just as easy to get wrong.  Let me know your views on these three easy steps to presenting with PowerPoint. 

True or false

Your PowerPoint presentations are always:-

• Compelling
• Illuminating
• Informative
• Clear, to the point and accepted.

Answer is usually FALSE

Making PowerPoint presentations that are clear, compelling, memorable and even enjoyable is not an art.  Presenting with PowerPoint is a science, and if you follow my top three goals you should get it right every time.  Your presentations will then be clear, enjoyable and memorable.  No more death by PowerPoint or people snoozing through your presentations.  These three goals work because they are based on the way we as humans absorb information, then use it.

First of all you must connect with your audience.   Top error for so many presenters, as they think just because they’re presenting every one else has to listen.   Well people especially business people need to be engaged, then they’ll listen. 

Secondly, your presentations need to be directed at the audience and hold their attention.  I once sat through a presentation on sources of finance, where a lady next to me wrote her ‘To Do’ list during it.  The presenter failed to connect with that lady and the rest of the audience judging by their body language.

Finally you should promote understanding and memory. Now this can be tricky for many business presenters, simply because they expect the audience to take on board everything they tell them.  Both of us know that is not correct.  A piece of jargon entering the vocabulary is edutainment.  This is where an educational message is wrapped up in an entertaining way.

By simply understanding just how people take on information, your presentations will change for the better.  Better for your audience, after all it’s the audience we are presenting for.  Better for your message clarity, it will be easier for the audience to understand it. Better for long term retention, your audience will retain information longer.

You may have guessed by now that these three principals shift the emphasis away from you the presenter, to the important people, the audience.   As a presenter you should be the medium not the message.  Entertainers are different as they are building their brand.  You want to get your message across in a way that is clear, simple and to the point. 

Keep checking back for more detailed insight into these three goals in the coming week.

Comments and feedback pleas! Feel free to comment on this or any of my earlier Blogs. You guys keep me on track and help me improve.

About the Author

Paul M Johnstone is a Professional Communicator, Speaker, Executive Coach and PowerPoint Guru!  He works with companies, organisations and individuals, helping them improve their communication skills.  Paul helps people want to speak and present more effectively, to improve their personal and professional success. He can be reached at +44 (0)7711 324362or through his website at http://www.pmjohnstone.co.uk/

©Paul M Johnstone

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint I think? - Paul M Johnstone

I suffer from something called Lack of Audience Engagement Disorder (LAED) but don’t worry, you cannot get it from reading my blog. The symptoms include loss of attention, low boredom threshold and the ability to multi-task (write a to do list or sort pout the shopping for the way home) during dull  presentations. 

There are many medical theories about its cause: too much salt, caffeine, or alcohol in one’s diet, too much stress, and allergies. But by far the biggest contributor is Boring, inappropriate presentation delivered by presenters too keen on them being the centre of attention, not the audience.  And now there is a cure, so I’m told.

To prevent an epidemic of LAED  in audiences, I am promoting something called the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. 

It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. While I’m in the audience I want to be informed not bored and entertained as well as informed. Following these simple rules will help us get to this wonderful state of achievement.

Ten slides. Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and I believe I’m quite normal.  By using more than ten slides to explain your idea, proposition, business, you  are squarely in LAED territory The ten topics that a venture capitalist cares about are:

1. Opening
2. Present your Problem as a Solution
3. Define your Model
4. Underlying magic/technology
5. Marketing and sales
6. Competition
7. Team
8. Projections and milestones (if you must)
9. Status and timeline
10. Summary and call to action

Hey, you don’t have to use 10 slides if you can get away with less great, do it.

Twenty minutes. You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. You may have an hour time slot, but technology often takes thirty to forty minutes to overcome. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion. When designing your presentation design in questions.  This does two things A) it involves your audience and B) you can tease out any limiting beliefs your audience may have.

Thirty-point font: The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a unbelievably small font. They cram as much text as possible into the slide, then the presenter reads it, just like a bed time story. Believe me. I can read faster then you can read it to me……... The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.

Using 30 point or larger ensures everyone in your audience can read your slide.  Cause it’s odds on the one you need to impress is at the back and they’ve forgotten their glasses.  If you think 30 point or larger is strange try this simple equation for defining the font you should use.   Find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s your optimal font size.

With presentations if may help if you think that PowerPoint is there to be a visual aid.  That is there to support your presentation not be the presentation. So please observe the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. If nothing else, the next time someone in your audience complains of LAED, you’ll know what caused the problem. 

Catch up with you again soon!

Paul Johnstone is the founder of

The Paradigm Shakers

Providers of Thought Provoking Training

Delivered by Subject Matter Experts

http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk/

©Paul Johnstone

Death By PowerPoint more of it to come!

In her Maniactove Blog  "PowerPoint Deaths Climb in 2009: But at Slower Rate "

Laura Bergellis spots some alarming trends.

 You can read it on her Blog at

  http://bit.ly/e7iFPp

There is also a video clip on my Blog from Friday you may enjoy.


Love this or hate it please leave your comments 

 Paul Johnstone is the founder of
The Paradigm Shakers

Providers of Thought Provoking Training

http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk/

©Paul Johnstone; The Paradigm Shakers

Death By PowerPoint

One way to loose your audience is to confuse the life out of them. 

Your communications should be clear, to the point and easy for your audience to understand.  Remember the presentation is about the message and not the messenger.

I came across this YouTube piece over a year ago and I keep going back to it when I think I am overcomplicating presentations.

Anyway hope you enjoy this short pices “Death By PowerPoint”

Paul Johnstone is the founder of
The Paradigm Shakers

Providers of Thought Provoking Training
Delivered by Subject Matter Experts

http://www.paradigmshakers.co.uk/

©Paul Johnstone; The Paradigm Shakers