I frequently write on this blog about the need to bring our presentations into the twenty-first century. But what do I mean when I use the term “twenty-first century presentation”?
A twenty-first century presentation contains all the good elements from a 1990s style presentation, the need to inform, the need to educate and the need to get your audience to do something after the presentation (“call to action”), but it also needs to entertain.
This ‘new’ element of a presentation has come about because of our lifestyle change over the last ten years. Today, we can go to the internet and watch videos, look at high quality images and chat with out friends via video link.
As a consequence of all this wonderful technology our lives are full of entertainment and our attention needs have increased. Looking at line after line of text no longer interests us and we now become distracted by the technology on our mobile phones or iPads instead of focussing our attention on the presentation.
As a presenter you need to be aware of the attention needs of your audience. You need to be aware that a slide full of text is no longer going to raise your audience’s interest and they are not going to do anything if that is the sum total of you slide presentation.
What you need to do is to bring in images and video to demonstrate your points and to enhance your message. Not to make light entertainment, but to actually use relevant images and video that help to make your message ‘sticky’ (ie memorable) and you need to use stories to illustrate your points.
Standing behind lecterns or podiums, turning out the lights so your audience can see your slides better – but not you and reading your slides or written out speech are all elements of a 1990s style presentation that should stay in the 1990s.
Doing a twenty-first century presentation is not easy, and you need to think and be creative, but this is what our audiences are demanding today and if we do not start presenting in a modern, entertaining way our messages and calls to action are going to be ignored.
So please join me in the twenty-first century presentation revolution and help make the world that little bit better for audiences around the world.
