One of the many clever things that PowerPoint can do is allow you to dump lots of information into it. Unlike your human audience, you can just keep on adding information into a slide and the font size will adjust to allow as much information as you like.
See how it works in this video:
This way of planning may be quick and feel creative – but is it useful?
Although PowerPoint can “absorb” all this information easily, audiences can’t.
Unless you come back and edit your slides, you have set yourself up for a disastrous presentation.
At some stage you’ll probably realise you have too much information to fit into the allocated time so you’ll speak fast (which makes you look nervous), jump slides (which really annoys audiences) and perhaps not actually finish your presentation before people have to leave for their next meeting or appointment.
None of this is a good look. So our advice is:
Don’t plan your presentation using PowerPoint.
The symptoms you listed (like speaking too fast) bring back memories of bad presentations, so I hope they jolt some sense into speakers!
That “AutoFit” feature’s horrendous, because it actually helps presenters metaphorically shoot themselves in the foot.
By the way, you might like the tips in this post about cutting content to make modern-looking slides. (And if you scroll up when you get there, you’ll see a plug for Olivia’s e-book about using Twitter. It’s still such a great resource.)
I look forward to reading your future posts.
Thanks Craig – glad you still love Olivia’s Twitter e-book!
It’s interesting how PowerPoint, ostensibly just a visual aid to assist delivery, has become such a common “planning tool.” Something it certainly was not designed for – and is not good at.
We’ll have more to say about that soon!
Your link to the SpeakerMap appears to have a misspelled URL.
Thanks Phil – that’s sorted now!