In January, 2006 I conducted a survey on how PowerPoint presentations are
delivered. Survey participants were given three choices, projected
presentations, printed presentations or remote presentations, and I asked them
to indicate what percentage of their presentations were delivered using each
method. I received 250 responses, with the respondents suggesting that most of
them deliver less than 5 presentations per month. Upon analyzing the replies, I
conclude the following:
Almost 40% of the respondents always project their slides when presenting,
with an additional almost 31% projecting their slides more than 80% of the
times they present. This suggests that a very high percentage of presentations
(over 70% at least) are still done in person using projection equipment and
presenters need to be aware of design and presentation principles that ensure
effective live presentations.
Over half the respondents said that they print out their slides and
present them about 20% of the time. While this may seem to be small, the
printing of slides is still a key skill because I suspect that many handouts
are printed copies of the slides, so presenters also need to know how to make
their slides print well.
Relatively few respondents said that they used remote presentations. While
this may represent a small minority of the presentations done, I think it will
grow as web conferencing technology is now more stable and travel budgets
continue to get cut in organizations. This is an emerging area that presenters
need to be aware of and starting to learn about.
I also asked what role the respondent was in and the following differences
were observed:
The largest group of respondents were those who identified themselves as
in a technical or professional role. They showed an even higher percentage of
presentations that are projected when presented and a lower percentage of
printed presentations. They also indicated that they presented a little more
often than the overall group. This is also the only group that really showed
any significant number of presentations done remotely.
The next largest group were those who work in a management or executive
role. This group uses printouts of their slides more than the overall group
and delivers less presentations than the overall group.
The third largest group were those in marketing, sales and customer
service. This group responded that a much larger percentage of their
presentations use printed slides and they delivered a higher number of
presentations per month than the overall group and higher than the technical
and professional group.
The final question I asked is what industry group the respondent was in. Two
industry groups stood out:
The largest group was from the Education sector and their responses showed
a much higher percentage of presentations done via projector. This is expected
as the traditional delivery method for education is a teacher standing in
front of a class. Interestingly, this group did show some use of remote
presentations, which I think is a sign that the traditional methods are being
adapted by some cutting edge presenters to take advantage of todays
technology.
Another industry represented were the Professional Services firms. They
showed a lower percentage of projected presentations and definitely higher
percentages of both printed and remote presentations. This again makes sense
since many of their presentations would be client presentations which are
outside their offices. The use of remote presentations is significant because
I believe that these firms, due to their workforce that is often located in
many different areas, have grasped the usefulness of the technology that
allows presentations to be done without the cost of travel for everyone to a
single location. They will continue to be leaders in this area due to
necessity driven by their distributed workforce and clientele.
My conclusions from the analysis of this numerical data are:
As presentations move from internal audiences to external audiences, the
percentage of presentations that are not projected increases significantly. I
think this is because of equipment challenges. It is much harder to carry a
laptop, projector, screen and set it all up for what may be a relatively short
meeting at an external location. Many organizations have technically equipped
meeting rooms that make projecting presentations easy for internal audiences.
Presenters and those who create presentations for others need to be aware of
who the audience is and design appropriately for the presentation medium.
The data also suggests to me that the personal connection is more
important in externally focused presentations, so they print the slides and
sit across a table instead of having the distance between presenter and
audience that exists with projected presentations. I think personal connection
is very important in all presentations and those who mostly project their
presentation need to be more aware of this factor when presenting.
I believe that there will be a growing trend towards remote presentations,
both for internal and external audiences. I think it will grow first for
internal audiences, as organizations make use of web conferencing technology.
But it will also become a factor for external audiences as more people in the
traditionally less technical roles get comfortable with the technology and
recognize the benefits of being able to present from their desktop.
I also asked an open-ended question about what would help them deliver their
presentations more effectively. The most common responses fell in these
categories:
Adding audio or video to the presentation
Using advanced delivery skills, including remote presentations
Adding graphics, such as photos, graphs and diagrams
Creating well designed slides
Proper use of animations or movement
Structuring the content of the presentation
From the popularity of the written responses, it suggests to me that some
people are still working on the basic skills, but many have moved past this
stage. They see so many presentations that are bullet text heavy and they want
to break out of this mode. They are looking for ways to better stand out and
connect with the audience. This is a good sign, but it also brings caution. Many
of the multimedia features of PowerPoint distract from instead of reinforce the
message, so presenters need to be careful when using these features. Presenters
need to focus on only those graphics or multimedia elements that will add to the
message and avoid inserting these elements just to entertain the audience with
what the presenter thinks is "cool".
Conclusions
Both the numerical and written data reinforce trends that I have seen emerge
over the past few years. The majority of presentations are still delivered with
the presenter standing up using projected slides. But that depends on the
location of the presentation and we are starting to see it change. Outside the
organization, it is more likely that a presentation will be printed and
delivered due to the logistical challenges. We are starting to see, and will
continue to see, the growth of remote presentations. This will become a more
important consideration for presenters and designers. Audiences are getting fed
up with endless bulleted text slides and presenters have been put on notice. It
is time for presenters to learn how to incorporate meaningful graphics and
focused multimedia elements that bring the message alive and dont distract from
the presentation.
Dave Paradis Think Outside the Slide approach helps presenters get results
by showing them how to quickly create effective PowerPoint presentations. He is
the co-author of "Guide to PowerPoint", part of the Prentice Hall Series in
Advanced Business Communication. He offers a free PowerPoint e-course,
newsletter and articles on his web site at
www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com.