Tweet This
I recently visited Thailand to deliver a speech to healthcare practitioners from across Southeast Asia. Leaders from the 10 countries that are part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are eager to expedite plans to create a common market to facilitate the movement of goods, services and labor. The prospect of more cooperation has triggered a renewed interest in effective communication skills as each country positions its industries, leaders and experts to compete in a global marketplace.
Since most business professionals in every country use PowerPoint to deliver presentations, it’s important to use the tool as persuasively as possible. The problem is that most people hate PowerPoint, regardless of the language spoken.
"Death by PowerPoint" is a universal affliction. I’ve never met an audience—in any country—who enjoy watching PowerPoint presentations. I’ve asked the same two questions to audiences in Germany, Japan, Holland, Malta, Mexico, France, Norway, Italy and Thailand:
- “How many of you use PowerPoint?” Most people raise their hand in response to this question. Among sales teams and marketing professionals, it’s not uncommon to see 90% of the audience with their hands raised.
- “How many of you like to watch PowerPoint presentations?” I’ll usually see one or two hands go up, but among many audiences not one person will admit they like it.
It’s clear that business leaders around the world seem to universally dislike the way most PowerPoint presentations are designed and delivered. Yet when I ask to see their PowerPoint decks, those same leaders are designing and delivering PowerPoint in the very way that triggers most of the criticism—they clutter their slides with words and bullet points.
Bullet points are the least effective way of transferring information that is intended to inspire, motivate and educate. The good news is that the cure for “Death by PowerPoint” is one that works in any country, in any language. The cure? Use pictures to tell your story.
Showing photographs and images fall under what neuroscientists call “multimodal” learning. Our brains are wired to process visual information—pictures—very differently than text and sound. In multimodal learning, pictures are processed in several channels instead of one, giving the brain a far deeper and meaningful encoding experience. The University of Western Ontario psychology professor Allan Paivio was the first to introduce a “dual-coding” theory. According to his theory, visual and verbal information are stored separately in our memory; they can be stored as images, words, or both. Concepts that are learned in picture form are encoded as both visual and verbal. Words are encoded only verbally. In other words, pictures are more richly stamped in our brains and easier to recall.
I once read that the average PowerPoint slide contains 40 words. When I heard that statistic, I went to YouTube and re-watched some of the greatest business presentations of our time including the Steve Jobs 2007 introduction of the iPhone and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. I also analyzed some of the most popular TED talks of all time. What I found astonished me—in many of the world’s most popular presentations, it took the speaker about 10 slides to reach 40 words. Great presenters tell stories in pictures and use minimal text.
I believe that ideas are the currency of the 21st century. In the information age, the knowledge economy, we are only as valuable as the ideas we have to share. The tools are available to help us present our ideas. PowerPoint is an excellent vehicle for transferring ideas, as is Apple Keynote and Prezi. But with any tool, if you use it incorrectly, it won’t work.
Since it’s proven that pictures are more memorable and impactful than words alone, use more of them. Your audience will thank you, in any language.
Also on Forbes:
