How many time have you heard this at the beginning of a presentation? “Sorry about my slides. I know they’re not great but…”
Aside from the fact that this is a weak opening line, statements like this really get my goat. It’s one thing if the person doesn’t speak publicly very often, but I frequently hear this from preachers, teachers, and others for whom speaking in front of people is a regular part of their professional lives. Here are some of the most common excuses.
I just haven’t found the time to learn PowerPoint yet.
In the years shortly following the transition from old-school overhead transparencies to new-fangled digital slideware thingummies, statements of this kind would be understandable. But it’s 2010 now and every business person in the world has had PowerPoint or its equivalent installed on their computer for well over a decade. If you haven’t learned it by now…
The truth is, you know how to use PowerPoint. You use it every time you give a speech. What you don’t know is how to use it properly. Which leads to the next excuse…
No one ever showed me how to make good slides.
I would understand if there was a lack of resources that would properly instruct eager students in the ways of presentation design excellence, but in the past few years several books, blogs, and websites have emerged to help people cultivate an understanding of not only how to use PowerPoint, but how to think about slide design in general. It’s not up to them to come to you and force you to take their advice. It’s up to you as a presenter to care enough about your slides to seek them out.
I’m not artistic.
This excuse could work for some people…if presentation design required that you have some natural artistic ability. The reality, however, is that most of the concepts of good slide design can be learned by anyone, and learned very easily. Not to mention that there are numerous online tools that will help you make excellent choices when it comes to pictures, typography, or color schemes.
So, what’s your excuse? Especially if you’re a regular public speaker (but even if you’re not), it seems to me that when you offer excuses like the ones above, what you’re really saying to your audience is, “I don’t care enough about my craft to become excellent at all aspects of it.” It doesn’t matter if your message is well-reasoned, your delivery pristine, and your hair is perfect. Poor slides these days simply detract heavily from your credibility and you’d be better off not using them.
There’s just no longer a good excuse for bad PowerPoint.
Great points – there really is no excuse any more! There are certainly enough resources out there to get help.
Perhaps the one we hear most is: “I’ve never had any problems with bullet points before.”
By ‘problems’, they tend to mean ‘complaints’. And in order for an audience member to care enough to approach the presenter after the presentation to comment, they’d have to have been paying enough attention in the first place…
That’s a great observation, Jessica. Excuses like that place the responsibility on the audience instead of being personally accountable for the quality of your presentation. It would take a lot of chutzpah on the part of an audience member to come and tell you your slides stank, especially if this is the only time they’ll ever hear you speak.