| When someone "gets" how bad the cognitive style of Powerpoint can be, there's no going back | | Date Created: 27 Sep, 2007, 10:38 AM |
 Courtesy of someone failing to send through my QANTAS flight's airways clearance, my 10.05am flight to the Australian Psychological Society Conference in Brisbane sat on the tarmac for almost an hour. Though I'd arrived at Melbourne Airport early enough to get the 9.05AM flight, it was booked out and so with time ticking away I saw my ambition for attending my first APS Fellow meeting (where my nomination and acceptance was to be formally announced) deflated. (see my blog entry below this one - Sept 26 - for more info on recent personal happenings.)
I arrived in BNE at 1.15PM having pre-booked the Airtrain service into the Brisbane CBD, but with time running out hot-footed it by cab and got to the meeting in time to say a few things about mentoring and the role Fellows may wish to take for psychologists seeking ethical guidance, an idea I've participated in and pushed to the APS for some time now. Maybe now it will get formal backing and an infrastructure to get it happening. But wheels turn slowly...
Speaking of which, straight after, I attended my first symposium for the conference, one of four single papers looking at various therapeutic endeavours.
As it turned out the first was delivered by a colleague who in the weeks before had sought out my assistance with her Powerpoint.
Fortunately, she knew enough about the mechanics of Powerpoint so that we could concentrate on her ideas. But Keynote came in mighty handy when she sent me her .ppt file (she was introduced to the wonders of yousendit.com, and forever grateful) and I did some manipulations before exporting it back to Powerpoint. Fortunately, I had chosen effects which translated well, and weren't lost.
The same couldn't be said for her presentation when it came to her talk, because she'd worked on a different edition of Powerpoint than the one the Brisbane Conference centre supplied, and a couple of noticeable glitches occurred.
Nonetheless, I was very proud of her efforts, and she spoke in a polished and calm style, which emphasised the clinical points she was making. |
Aftewards, she received much praise for her presentation, made easy because not just was it good, but it was so far above the presentations that followed, it was not funny.
Essentially, the three papers that followed were a litany of all the Powerpointpoisoning I've been railing against for several years. Long lists of bulleted text, droning voices whose words had already been read by the audience the moment the slide was thrown up, and no sense that the audience is there not just to read slides, but to be engaged by speakers. At one point, one speaker threw up two quotes and then stated she couldn't be bothered reading it, and left us in silence for half a minute to read it ourselves!
Now I could possibly see a reason for doing this (I have done it once, but included a punchline at the end so that titters at the beginning ended up in laughter at the end as all in the room eventually got the joke). But this was not the presenter's purpose. She was just too bloody lazy to think of another way of presenting the same information.
Actually, tha's a tad harsh. It's not laziness, but tradition and thinking narrowly because everyone else does it this way! So when my colleague did her presentation it was "breath of fresh air" stuff for many in the audience (one described it as beautiful) if only because it contains many illustrations and lesser amounts text. It was still too text heavy for my liking, but change happens slowly.
The real purpose of this blog entry is to say that my colleague made two self-observations, one an epiphany.
The first was that her abundant use of illustrations and minimal text caused her to think in short stories, and commit them to memory, triggered by the appearance of certain slides in her talk. This allowed her to:
- slow her talk by not feeling rushed to cover all the text on her slides,
- to not be bothered by getting certain facts or data points out of order, something easily seen on text-filled slides)
- and to better connect to the audience.
It's a way to reduce the inherent failings of the linear delivery method, something which would have been even more important if she'd been last in the symposium and would have enabled her to include the previous speakers' ideas.
Her own epiphany came when she sat through the others' slideshows. Having finished on something of a high by pulling off her high-wire act, she was able to cast a more educated eye over the tradition-bound slideshows that followed.
Literally, the scales had fallen from her eyes, and she "got it". Now she was "enjoying" what I have been putting up with for years attending academic and business conferences: that despite what might be interesting, even compelling content in the confines of a 20 minute presentaion, much more is needed to make an impression.
She could not help but attend to the others' Powerpoint and discover how intefering it was for perceiving the speakers' central messages. |
She also now understood some of what I preach in my presentation skills workshops: For instance, that I'd rather hear:
Conference attendee 1: "Hey you really want to attend a session Les gives..."
Conference attendee 2: "Why - is it interesting content?"
Conference attendee 1:"Well, that varies depending on your own interests, but you will find it engaging and respectful of your intelligence!
as compared to, "Nice content, but gawd, you need a couple of coffees to get through it." |
So now I'm bracing for the rest of the conference where I have to watch, listen and perceive my colleagues delivering original research and ideas, many using "evidence-based" methods, but utilising socially conforming and traditional means to do so.
And prepare my own workshop for Saturday, where I have to do the walk and the talk.
My task will be to balance my enthusiasm for the new features in Keynote 08 with not overwhelming the group who will attend - admittedly self-selected with an interest in techie stuff - with the presentation's differences from what they've been "enjoying" the last few days.
I'll be curious to see if anyone asks about Keynote and whether knowing how to present is something private practitioners should learn about. Judging by what I've seen so far, psychologists are retaining their informal title as people who know about human learning, but don't apply it to themselves. |
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