Boring Meetings Suck: Get More Out of Your Meetings, or Get Out of More Meetings

PowerPoint Really Sucks

I couldn't possibly say enough previously, so I'm back for more.

PowerPoint is a crutch. Perhaps you use it to convey the message and lead the presentation because you're afraid to stand up and make it on your own. Remember, any slide you show should add meaning, emotion, and impact to what you are presenting.

What's the number one complaint about PowerPoint? It's boring. How do you make it not so boring? Simple. Marry your data to emotion—feelings that are universal.

Your meeting attendees have two sides of the brain and two ways of thinking: facts and figures on one side, emotions on the other. It has been scientifically proven through functional MRIs and brain-based learning research that information tied to emotions has a far greater retention rate than that of bullet points listing analytical data. However, most of the billions of slides presented each year still focus heavily on the data—the facts and figures. What is there to appeal to the emotional side, to paint a mental image that people can relate to and recall?

If it's important to convey detailed facts and figures in your presentation, then do yours differently, and let your attendees sing your praises for giving them a break from the norm.

Create slides that trigger senses other than those that drive brains into a downward dive from data overload.

Involving emotions can be as simple as using image and media clips (while avoiding cutesy graphics, as you'll learn about). Yet so many people ...