Many people dread having to sit through a PowerPoint. Unfortunately, many presentations seem to go the same way. The presenter goes up to the front of the room and reads off the slides. The only people who enjoy this are audience members who want to catch up on some sleep.
Your PowerPoints don’t have to be so boring. There are options out there to make them legitimately engaging and informative. Consider these reasons why you need to start building interactive PowerPoints.
You’ll Stand Out from the Crowd
There’s no reason to present ideas with an air of mediocrity. Your points will be forgotten before they’ve even had a chance to sink into people’s minds. Though it sounds obvious, lot of people fail to grasp this concept: Being memorable will make people remember you. The same concept applies to your PowerPoints—making them memorable will improve retention.
Don’t be afraid to stand out from everyone else’s tedious, ineffective slideshow.
People Will Pay Better Attention
How much do you learn when listening to someone lecture about a topic? If you’re like most people, you don’t effectively receive information this way. In fact, undergraduate students are 50 percent more likely to fail exams when learning in a standard lecturing environment versus one that promotes active learning.
Droning on an on is boring for everyone. You need to find ways to take your lecture and turn it into a conversation. This approach will keep people’s attention on your presentation as opposed to their phones. Ultimately, this will improve their information retention.
There Are Tools to Help You
It’s never been easier to build an engaging PowerPoint. There are tools today that streamline the process, without putting undue strain on you. The most effective of these bring in an element of audience engagement. Polls and surveys are a super way to get people engaged with your content. Poll Everywhere is one company that has created elegant but simple tools for integrating these into an interactive PowerPoint. You can even sync with people’s smartphones and tables, which brings the presentation right to your audience. These can be done anonymously to encourage more open responses. There’s no reason to avoid the benefits of interactive PowerPoints with such powerful options available to you.
People Don’t Want to Just Read Bullet Points
Bullet points are dull as dishwater. They’re made insufferable when read verbatim by someone standing at a podium. For starters, people are going to read faster than you can read off your points.
When your PowerPoint relies on bullet points, you’re basically just forcing people to pretend they’re listening to you say things they just read. As already stated, straight lecturing doesn’t work as well as finding ways to engage the audience.
Keep your bullet points very brief if you do use them. Instead of just reading what’s on the screen, seek participation from others. This works a lot better if it’s integrated throughout the presentation, as opposed to just asking if anyone has questions right at the end.
Gain Insights from the Audience
Changing your perspective on how you give presentation can also make you rethink your topic. Too often, people let the fact that they’re the ones on stage get to their head. No one is an absolute authority on anything. Interaction with the audience can allow you to gain fresh insights that otherwise might go totally under your radar. Someone might ask an interesting question or raise a counterargument that makes you reconsider things.
Furthermore, it can be helpful to learn where people are having a disconnect with the information. Discovering the unclear aspects of your presentation gives you a chance to make it better in the future.
Your Confidence Will Be Higher
About one in four people say they have a fear of public speaking. The true number might be even higher than that, since not everyone wants to own up to this fact. There are several factors that play into how people react to talking in front of a crowd. Confidence is one of the biggest ones. People who don’t think they’re good at giving presentations, or prepared enough, are going to have a lot tougher time with it. Putting together a solid interactive PowerPoint can really boost your self-assurance level.
You want your presentations to be of the highest quality. Stop making the same PowerPoints over and over. Ace your next presentation by building an interactive PowerPoint.
