Here’s something that keeps me awake at night (seriously): why, in this age of super-slick graphics and innovative multimedia resources, is it nearly impossible to give presentation that looks as good as they should?
How come I can guarantee that when I give a presentation, the slides will be cropped, the color balance will be off and the contrast will make the clearest image no better than watching a black cat in a dark cellar (or a white dog in the snow – it can go either way)?
I’m probably alone in worrying about this, but it does bother me that all those hours crafting insightful, attention-grabbing and enlightening slides come to naught as soon as that signal is squirted through someone else’s projector.
Years ago I started working with Keynote exclusively and insisting on using my own computer for presentations, to avoid the vagaries of relying on PowerPoint on someone else’s machine (a combination guaranteed to lead to disaster). But I’ve never worked out how to cope with what happens after the digital signal leaves the computer.
Call me anal, but this matters to me. When I give a talk, I try to communicate – not just present. Which means that each element of each slide is there for a purpose. And when the presentation system mucks up those elements, the communication gets just a little bit harder. Quite a lot actually when you end up having to explain what the black bits on the black background would have shown – if only they were visible!
Of course, I could throw in the towel and revert back to plain old bullet points.
But then I’d end up being just another presenter, rather than a communicator.
Better to persevere within this culture of presentation-mediocrity.
And hope that, just occasionally, the equipment works with me rather than against me.
There’s always hope!
(apologies for those that came across the unedited version earlier!)
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Ids are ok to travel with, no? It’s the egos and superegos that really kick up a fuss?
I was just thinking exactly the same thing earlier in response to a friend’s request for advice on whether he should get a Mac or not (I said definitely). Where is the really fab presentation software that you can get if you want to do very classy presentations? I will pay. I have to do one in Brussels in a week to the Board of the EU/American Business Council and don’t want to look like an ngo who would rather present on tree bark, but they don’t make it as easy as they think they do these software people!
How you address these situations really depends on what you consider is at stake.
When I was making techno/commercial presentations in the late 90′s (to folk like BMW,Ford,GM), I wouldn’t dream of visiting customers without a minimum of two of our own data projectors, matched with triplicated laptops (plus a set of good ol’ fashioned overheads and hard-copy handouts: the latter in case of power-cuts).
The kit wasn’t always needed (but on occasion was!), yet the improvement in quality of night-before sleep more than justified the paranoia.
OK – so maybe there’s not always a multi-million-dollar deal being influenced by the presentation, and belt-and-braces symbolism carries a bonus in manufacturing pitches, but I don’t think you’re being at all anal about this. You probably just suffer from a bad attack of standards!