PowerPoint has become synonymous with presentation. All too often, it is synonymous with boring as well. I found an incredible article by Kathy Sierra, from her Creating Passionate Users blog. Well worth checking out! One of the many power points she makes is that PowerPoint fosters one-way communication: I talk, you listen. How many really exciting PowerPoints have you seen? Put on? I can recall maybe a handful.

Much more to my liking are flip charts and white boards. Using them gives the presentation an air of spontaneity and allows for interaction with the group. On a deeper level … do we make presentations when we should simply have discussions? For certain types of information, I guess PowerPoint makes sense. For a briefing, when the participants expect to absorb information, a well-conceived PowerPoint can be useful. But for training, more interactive methods will make your message sink in.

Sales? Sales is all about understanding customers. Asking questions. Listening. Building relationships. In that sense, the phrase “sales presentation” is an oxymoron. And indeed, when I hear a sales person deliver a PowerPoint, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “This person is programmed. He has an agenda and he’s sticking with it whether it makes sense here or not.”

Be careful with PowerPoint and other habitual selling tools. Don’t go through the motions on your design, layout, and content. And edit: if you have ten slides, cut it to five–without expanding each slide’s content.

Blaise Pascal said (one of my favorite quotes), “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.” I’m sure Pascal wasn’t talking about PowerPoint, but his message applies. As a copywriter, I know how easy it is to add words. But people remember short messages, simple charts, and images. If you must go with PowerPoint, use them. (Cartoons, incidentally, are quite effective in this regard.)

Above all, if you go with PowerPoint, get the participants involved. If that’s not happening–back to the drawing board.