Presenter Focus

An extension of the Presentation-as-Document Syndrome is what happens to the audience when the screen lights up with a slide filled with dense text and highly detailed tables, charts , and graphs. The focus of the audience immediately, and involuntarily , goes to the graphics, and they start to read. When they start reading, they stop listening. The graphics then become the center of attention and the presenter becomes subordinate to the slide show, serving, at best, as a voice-over narrator and, at worst, as a ventriloquist.

This problem is compounded as the presenter becomes a reader, too. The reading often fails to rise above the level of a verbatim recitation. Reciting the slides verbatim is patronizing to the audience. They think to themselves : "I'm not a child! I can read it myself !" The results are a failure to connect, a failure to communicate, and most likely, a failure to persuade.

An even worse variant is when the presenter rambles on, talking about subjects that are not on the slide. In effect, this jams the audience's audio and video channels, resulting in confusion and annoyance.

My approach is different. I view graphics the way my clients at Microsoft view them. The Executive Presentations Team is the specialized unit at Microsoft charged with producing the slides and graphics necessary to support the senior executives at major presentation events for the company. It's headed by my friend, Jon Bromberg, an alumnus of the New York theater world. Today, Jon is the director of events in charge of a huge operation with state-of-the-art production capabilities worthy of CBS, Disney, or the Broadway theater, for television, audio, Internet, and live presentations.

Significantly, the Executive Presentations Team refers to PowerPoint, Microsoft's own product, as speaker support . The slides or other graphics are there to support the presenter, not the other way around.

The slides or other graphics are there to support the presenter, not the other way around.

This is the very same model that we see every evening on the network news broadcasts. We see the anchor Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, or Tom Brokaw giving us information they interpret for us. Yes, they use graphics, but their graphics play a supporting role. The images often consist of little more than a simple picture and a word or two to headline the story that the anchor is presenting: a photograph of the Capitol building and the words "Tax Debate," or a picture of a medicine bottle and the words "Prescription Drugs." Jennings, Rather, or Brokaw is always center-stage.

It so happens that my cousin, Joel Goldberg, has worked for 25 years as a graphic artist at ABC News. Using elaborate electronic tools, Joel often spends an hour getting the appearance of a single image or word exactly right, with highlights, tints , dimension, shadowing, and other tricks of his trade. That image or word may appear on the screen behind Peter Jennings for just a few seconds before vanishing forever. While I'm sure that Joel is paid well for his talents, it is Peter Jennings who pulls down a seven-figure salary for the credibility he brings to the news.

This Presenter Focus/Graphics Support relationship is the only effective model for a presentation. The presentation cannot serve as a document unless it is complete in itself, in which case, the audience wouldn't need the presenter. They could sit in silence and read the slides to themselves. On the other hand, if the graphics constitute a partial document, they cannot stand alone, and they serve only to distract attention from the presenter. Yet another expression of the neither fish nor fowl dilemma.

Instead, when the presenter interprets for the audience and the graphics provide support, the presenter can then lead the audience to a conclusion. When this happens, the presenter manages the audience's minds, creating the subliminal takeaway: Effective Management .

The audience also takes away a visual reinforcement of the presenter's message. As an ancient Chinese proverb tells us:

I hear and I forget;

I see and I remember;

I do and I understand.