PowerPoint Tips Blog

Helping you with presenting, PowerPoint, and speaking

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Tips
  • E-Store
  • Training
  • About
  • Affiliates
  • Advertise
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Design / Design principles / How do you convince your colleagues to present well?

How do you convince your colleagues to present well?

August 4, 2010 by Ellen Finkelstein Leave a Comment

READ LATER - DOWNLOAD THIS POST AS PDF >> CLICK HERE <<

Lisa Braithwaite has written a post, “Hitting a brick wall with resistant clients,” in which she says, the following:

My fellow presentation experts Olivia Mitchell, Laura Bergells, Dave Paradi, Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson, Jan Schultink, Jon Thomas, Jennifer Kammeyer, Ellen Finkelstein and others have been putting out bucketloads of excellent content about how to make PowerPoint effective for audiences and why.

So please tell me: If all this rich, plentiful, easy-to-understand material is out there, how do we get our clients to adopt the better way?

(Thanks for the mention, Lisa!)

I recently asked a similar question in my LinkedIn group, “Great Communicators! Effective Presenting & PowerPoint.” (You really need to join the group—the discussions there are fantastic!)

The question I asked was: “With so much information about good presentation techniques available, why are there so many Death by PowerPoint presentations given every single day?” (The question has 104 comments and counting!)

There are many answers to this question, not just one.  But here are some possible solutions:

  • Continue to evangelize for good presentation techniques. Don’t back down.
  • Suggest books for people to read, such as Presentationzen and slide:ology. There are many more. Let them see what the experts are saying.
  • Show them examples of before and after slides.
  • Show them some of the research. I have a handout (registration required) of a talk I give, “How to Use PowerPoint for Best Educational Results,” that lists some of the academic research and I’ve discussed research here and here.
  • Tell people that young clients and colleagues will consider them unprofessional. That is, play the generation card.
  • Tell them you’ll hold their hand through the change.
  • Show them presentations about good presenting. There are many on slideshare.net (mine are here and here), Brainshark (here and here), and even YouTube (here and here).
  • Show them Don Macmillan’s funny video, Life after Death by PowerPoint, to get them laughing.

What solutions have worked for you?

Did you find this post useful? Get my free video training, "13 techniques that will make designing your slides EASY." 
Need training? Click here to find out about training to bring your presentations to the next level!

Share1
Tweet
Share
+12
Shares 3
READ LATER - DOWNLOAD THIS POST AS PDF >> CLICK HERE <<

Related posts:

  1. How to convince executives that presenters need presentation skills training
  2. Why you present
  3. How to present when there’s no time to prepare
  4. Do you present with printed slides? What if your slides were the size of your paper?

Filed Under: Design principles Tagged With: change, Death by PowerPoint

Leave a Reply

avatar
This comment form is under antispam protection
avatar
This comment form is under antispam protection
  Subscribe  
Notify of

Free Video Training!

13 Techniques that Will Make Designing Your Slides EASY!

And get the PowerPoint Tips Newsletter with tips and resources for presenters. Plus 5 bonus tips!

BirdSend Email Marketing Tool
4-up-ads PresenterMedia PoweredTemplate High-Persuasion Secrets Power Pointers Quarter Hour


Recent Posts

Recent Posts

  • Why you need a story for your presentations
  • Using PowerPoint’s new illustrations
  • Communication skills for online success
  • PowerPoint has photos again! And a lot more…
  • Equipment for Speakers

Connect with me!

Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Google Plus RSS feed

Ellen Finkelstein, Inc. · Fairfield, IA · Tel: 515-989-1832

Privacy, Refund, and Other Legal Stuff

wpDiscuz