Insight Archives

Maintaining Audience Attention in Your Presentations

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Rick E

The British bank Lloyds TSB conducted a study on the cause of careless household accidents, and the results they gathered have some pretty broad implications. As quoted by Fortune.com, the average adult attention span has plunged from 12 minutes in 1998 to 5 minutes in 2008. Participants attributed their short attention span to stress and decision overload, both unavoidable in our fast-paced lifestyles.

With the advent of technology and the distraction of multiple screens — from our work laptops to our smartphones — holding one’s attention for longer than the usual is nearly impossible. That is, if you’re bored by the topic.

Considering this information, it seems that presenting to a huge audience has never been more difficult. Five minutes is barely enough time to make a positive impression. This is a huge challenge that presenters need to over come. Here are 3 key strategies to keep in mind:

Condense your slides

Try to present more information orally to reduce overloading your slides with too much text and data. The people in your audience can read much faster than they can listen to you talking. As we’ve discussed time and again, an effective PowerPoint deck acts as a visual aid. It doesn’t contain every sentence you want to share. Instead, it perfectly illustrates your main points through the use of images and other multimedia elements. Instead of packing your slides with a bunch of facts and figures, spend more time illustrating and articulating your points.

An emotional and physical connection might be more effective in capturing the audience’s imagination. This bond calls the attention of people whose minds were wandering off in the crowd, and engages those who are beginning to invest in what you’re saying.

Follow an intriguing narrative structure

Structure your presentation in a way that will surely engage your audience. There’s a reason why we can sit motionless in a movie theater for two hours, completely enamored by what we’re watching. Movies follow a great story arc that build suspense and intrigue. Effective storytellers know how to create anticipation that keeps viewers looking forward to what happens next. Following their example, your presentation can also work the same way.

Craft your presentation in a way that presents a problem (“what is), and slowly build your way towards a solution (“what could be”). The problem-tension-solution pattern roughly mimics the structure of classical Greek dramas, which research has found to be effective in eliciting powerful emotional response.

Create “soft breaks”

According to presentation expert Carmine Gallo, the best way to re-engage the short attention spans of your audience is by creating “soft breaks” within your presentation. After every 10 minutes or so, give your audience some moments to pause by incorporating videos, activities, and demonstrations. You can also encourage audience participation by posing a question they can answer through a show of hands. If your presentation allows it, you can also call up other speakers from your team to offer the audience a fresh new perspective.

The Final Word

Capturing people’s attention can be a bit of a challenge, especially during a time when attention spans are beginning to drop, and people are constantly busy. But that doesn’t mean you have to make a plain, uninteresting presentation.

Engage people’s senses by keeping your pitch short and sweet, weaving a narrative around your presentation, and giving soft breaks in between. Follow these tips and you might just win new business!

Featured Image: Oliver Tacke via Flickr

Click to Add Title: Using PowerPoint Templates

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Rick E

A PowerPoint template is a great place to start when you’re feeling clueless about how to design your slides. Once you’ve taken your pick, all you have to do is fill in the blanks and add your content. It’s quite a convenient method for those of us who weren’t given enough time to prepare for a presentation.

Despite this, we’ve all heard that PowerPoint templates aren’t always the best solution. Because of its preset format, working with a template can really stifle your creativity.

The placeholders automatically tell you where to text and images should go. Even if you decide to customize the template you chose from PowerPoint’s built-in gallery, you’ll only be able to change so much. After all your effort, your slides will look like other presentation decks, a standard headline on top with a bullet point list below it, or a picture on the right with some text beside it.

So how do you make your PowerPoint templates stand out when you’ve got very little time to think of a unique design?

1. Look for unique templates at Microsoft.com

**PowerPoint Template: Business Digital Blue** (Download HERE)

The default templates in PowerPoint have been used to death in the business world. If you want to stand out without customizing each aspect of your slides, you can head on over to Microsoft.com and choose from a wide array of less common PowerPoint templates available there.

2. Change the layout

**PowerPoint Template: Angles** (Quote from Trade Show Institute | CC BY 3.0)

To avoid repetitive-looking slides, try to move around your placeholders and change up the layout. Try placing headlines at the bottom of your slides. Change up the position of your text. Better yet, minimize your use of bullet points and use images to illustrate your points instead. Be creative and experiment with the template at hand.

3. Integrate your brand colors

One more thing you can do is change your template’s color scheme to something that mirrors your brand. This way, you don’t have to worry about integrating your company logo to your slides. Your brand will be well-represented throughout the presentation just by having the right colors.

The Final Word

Templates don’t have to be boring. You can change it up and apply your own style to it. Seek less used options online, either on the Microsoft site itself, or on other websites that provide quality templates you can use to your advantage. Tweak your layout by changing the placeholders and applying different color schemes on your slides. While you’re at it, why not integrate your brand colors to help impress your company identity on your audience throughout the presentation?

You can do all this yourself with a few clicks and the willingness to explore PowerPoint’s vast potential. Or, you could contact a presentation designer to help you get right off the bat. SlideGenius customizes templates to your liking. Contact us today for a free quote!

Why You’re Better Off With Concise PowerPoint Slides

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Rick E

If you’re not careful, your PowerPoint deck might end up doing more harm than good. Your slides should contribute to delivering your core message.

It should allow audience members to perfectly visualize your discussion. To get there, you need to cut out any distracting elements. The most effective way to deliver a presentation is to keep your deck simple and straight to the point.

Here’s why and how simple slides will work best for your presentation:

The Science of Simple PowerPoint Slides

According to research done by Dr. Christof Wecker, text-heavy slides negatively affect how much information is retained by an audience. In fact, he observed that it would be better to present with no visuals at all than to distract audiences with what he calls “regular slides.” Due to bad PowerPoint practices, regular slides contain too much text. Instead of being able to focus on the presenter’s explanation, the attention of the audience is now split between the keeping track of what they were hearing and what they were seeing.

The results indicate a “speech suppression effect” of regular slides at the expense of oral information (within and across conditions), which [can be explained] by dysfunctional allocation of attention….

The solution to this problem is through the use of concise slides. Dr. Wecker found that by simplifying content, presentations using PowerPoint slides offer the maximum retention of information.

It is concluded that theoretical approaches should account for the allocation of attention below the threshold of cognitive overload and its role for learning, and that a culture of presentations with concise slides should be established.

By trimming down your deck to the most basic points, the audience is able to avoid information overload. Simpler slides that focus more on illustrating key points allow viewers to process oral and visual information at the same time.

Presentation lesson: build a PowerPoint deck that’s straight to the point

To keep slides comprehensible and prevent them from taking any impact away from your presentations, try these useful tips:

Think about all the points you want to make before launching PowerPoint to create your slides. Create an outline of all your ideas and work on a storyboard to give yourself an opportunity to edit everything that seems excessive and unnecessary.
To minimize your use of words, try to illustrate your points using images instead.
Explore the different functions that PowerPoint has to offer. SmartArt can be a great way to compress information into graphics that people can easily follow.
Main points go on your slides. Explanatory details should be typed down in the Notes section, which you can refer to if you make use of the Presenter View.

Reference

Wecker, Christof. “Slide Presentations as Speech Suppressors: When and Why Learners Miss Oral Information.” Science Direct. Accessed September 17, 2014.

Featured Image: elPadawan via Flickr

Applying Color Psychology to Your PowerPoint Designs

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Rick E

Color plays an important role in PowerPoint design. By choosing the correct palette, you can pull individual slides together and create a coherent design. Color also allows you to add a bit more life and interest to your slides. More than that, it can also be a subtle way to convey emotions and strengthen your message. Following the basic principles of color psychology, you can create PowerPoint designs that automatically connects with your audience.

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What is color psychology?

Color psychology works around the premise that color has the ability to affect our feelings, moods, and behaviors. It follows these six basic principles:

Colors can carry specific meaning
Color meaning is either based on meaning that’s learned or biologically innate
The perception of a color causes evaluation automatically by the person perceiving
The evaluation process forces color motivated behavior
Color usually exerts its influence automatically
Color meaning and effect has to do with context

Applying color psychology to PowerPoint design

When deciding on a color scheme for your PowerPoint slides, consider these colors and what they mean:

Red: The color red exudes intensity and energy. It’s also said to stimulate a faster heart rate. What else would you expect from a color associated with both passion and danger? Don’t use too much of it, or else you’ll risk overwhelming your audience with such a loud color. Try to temper it with more neutral shades like white or gray.

Blue: Like the ocean, the color blue gives off a feeling of calm and relaxation. Aside from its associations to tranquility, it also symbolizes loyalty. This is especially crucial for business presentations. If you want to build the trust of your audience, the color blue can help enhance your message.

Green: Often associated with nature and the environment, the color green symbolizes abundance and life. These characteristics are important to convey during finance and investor presentations. The color green helps you convey a more positive outlook. It’s also said to be the color that’s “easiest” to the eyes. Some people also suggest that green can help jog their memory.

Purple: Associated with royalty and luxury, this color portrays a feeling of dignity and exclusivity, which could be helpful for presentations in retail and real estate. It can also be appropriate for presentations in the creative industry.

Black: Black is a powerful color, giving off a sense of sophistication. For presentations, make use of black when you want to deliver a more conservative and conventional message. As a background color, black can also serve as a great way to emphasize other colors in your slide. Because it’s neutral, you can pair it with other colors.

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Featured Image: albastrica mititica via Flickr

Trade Show Tips: Things to Remember On the Exhibit Floor

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Rick E

Exhibiting at a trade show? Industry events can turn into a great business opportunity if you know how to do to it right. According to Chief Marketer‘s Ruth Stevens, the terrifying possibility of customer rejection can be tempered by some measures. Here’s our take on these trade show do’s and don’t’s.