Essay

How to give a bad presentation

By David Parmer

One of the many writing-related jobs that I do is to edit Power Point presentations. The majority of them are bad, and some really bad. This had me frustrated for a long time. I wondered, "How can people make such lousy presentations?" Then I realized that there must be something I was missing; maybe people really wanted to make bad presentations. Maybe some organization is offering an award for bad presentations. So being a decent guy, I thought I could help people to win that prize, even get nominated for a bad-presentation Oscar or Golden Globe.

Just to be sure we are on the same page here; a presentation is a speech with some media supporting it, usually Microsoft Power Point. If you just talk, it is a speech. If you are showing your audience something and talking, it is a presentation. So, let's get started.

1. Don't have a beginning, middle and end

If you are going to have a really bad presentation, avoid logic. Just jump into your topic and start talking or showing slides. After all, YOU know what you are talking about, and it will become clear to THEM (the audience) sooner or later, if they pay attention. Just start talking, say what comes to your mind, show a lot of slides and when time is up, finish. This will surely confuse, annoy and bore your audience.

2. Don't consider your audience

Why should you tailor your presentation to your audience? If you are an engineer and your audience are non-engineers, well, so what? Give them all the tech data, don't define terms, don't define context, and most importantly, don't make the benefits of your product or service clear to the average listener. Another good way is to ignore cultural sensitivity. Gosh, if you have a joke that worked once at home, well why not tell it overseas? And of course, don't worry about them being non-native speakers of your language: Use your best vocabulary and impress them.

3. Put LOTS of information on each slide

Why put three or four lines on one slide? Why focus on the key points and try to drive home your message? Silly. Get as many words as you can on each slide. Even better, put so many words on each slide that the text gets really, really small and difficult to read. Finally, choose some really bad colors, and make sure you use a light background and a light color for the type; yellow on white works well.

4. Talk too long

This one will really put you ahead of the competition for the bad presentation award. Just start talking and keep talking. Don't time your presentation, and don't practice your presentation with a stop watch. Just keep talking until you have said everything you want to say, or they drag you off the stage. And if you do have a couple hours, whatever you do, don't have frequent breaks: Keep that audience in their seats where they belong.

5. Don't rehearse

Why bother? Everything will go OK. You assume the equipment will work. Why bother checking it? You have made presentations before, why take the trouble to practice now? Wing it.

Well, there it is. Follow these rules and I guarantee you will have a really good shot at being in the top 10 percent of the worst presentations. And if at first you don't succeed? Well, try again, you can only get worse.

Shukan ST: March 16, 2007

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