PowerPoint.
PowerPoint is one of the most misused and misunderstood tools in the corporate workplace.
Too many people use it as a crutch, loading up slides with every possible piece of information they may need to convey to an audience. Just because you CAN put 300 words in 10 point white font on a slide with a yellow background doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
I’ve been working with PowerPoint on an almost daily basis for the past 15 years. I’ve built hundreds of conference sessions, project summaries, workshop presentations and pitch decks. They certainly weren’t all gems, but I’ve received lots of positive feedback over the years. In fact, I can point to four PowerPoint slides that represent pivotal moments in my career.
Kim Possible. 🤯
This is the slide that started it all!
I was working in L&D at Disney. A new Kim Possible attraction was about to open at Epcot. Management wanted to include guest service training during the onboarding process for the opening team. I was looking for a chance to expand beyond my facilitator role. So I was tasked with developing a two-hour instructor led session - and I had two weeks to get it ready.
I decided to structure the class like a Disney attraction. You know those rides where everything starts out great but then all of the sudden something goes wrong and the heroes need your help to save the day? I built one of those! But this time, a new villain was wreaking havoc on Epcot and only the cast of Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure could save the day by using their guest service skills.
The slide deck began with an EXTREMELY boring title slide. Then, with one click, the dull classroom session transformed into an interactive learning adventure. The screen tore apart to reveal a themed backdrop, complete with the Kim Possible theme song. The slide was a mix of visual elements, sound effects and timed animations. My peers actually thought it was a video upon first viewing. After all, who could make PowerPoint do stuff like this?
Listen to the audio version of this post to hear the slide’s audio effect sequence.
People had never seen a training experience like Kim Possible before - even at Disney. The title slide - with its surprise reveal - quickly became my calling card. In fact, I credit this slide (and the rest of the well-received training program) with getting me promoted to my first L&D management gig.
MLE Version 1. 🤷♂️
This slide was part of the first conference presentation I ever delivered.
The topic: social learning. The event: Learning Solutions 2014 in Orlando, FL. I was in the middle of a strategic transformation within my L&D team. I needed a visual to explain the blend of tactics I was using to shift the push/pull balance within my learning ecosystem. I came up with this.
It was ugly, but it did the job. This was the slide most people took photos of during my session. It even popped up in a few other people’s presentations over the next few months. I didn’t see this slide again for two years.
MLE Version 2. 👍
This is my most popular slide.
I share the complete origin story of The Modern Learning Ecosystem Framework in my book. TL;DR: I needed a way to communicate my vision for a strategic learning transformation to a new client in 2016. I went scrounging through old materials and uncovered that ugly ecosystem slide. It sat on my laptop screen as I whiteboarded my vision during the client meeting. They loved it! The resulting six-layer framework has been the core of my L&D philosophy and most of my PowerPoint decks since.
Punch. 🥊
This is the kind of slide I use in most of my presentations today.
It’s not flashy. There are no sound effects. But it still packs a punch. I use simple, bold images to reinforce key talking points. I want people paying attention to me, not the screen, so I use as little text as possible. When I do drop in text or present a complex visual like the MLE Framework, I use basic animations to build my story.
It’s time to rehabilitate PowerPoint. 🛟
Building and presenting so many PowerPoint decks over the years has taught me a lot about visual storytelling. It’s also shown me what a powerful tool slides can be when used correctly. Here are five things we can do to get PowerPoint out of the metaphorical doghouse and back into its rightful spot in the workplace toolkit.
Ditch the meeting slides. Every meeting doesn’t require a deck. Copy all of the information from the slides, and paste it into a shared document. Share the doc as pre-reading so people come prepared to interact during the meeting. Use the doc to take notes and summarize next steps. Remember - slides are not reference material. They’re impossible to search, tag, sort, catalog, etc. Don’t waste your time building single-use decks.
Use big pictures and limit text. Reinforce your most important points with images - one point per slide. Don’t be afraid to take up the entire screen with a single picture. Take advantage of free stock image websites like Unplash, Pexels and Pixabay, but be sure to attribute images as required. Limit yourself to 20 words per slide unless absolutely necessary. Make sure that text is at least 24 point font if you plan to project your slides in a meeting room.
Apply animation with purpose. Fade is the only slide transition you should be using on the regular. Dissolve and wipe are the only animations suited for the workplace. Skip everything else unless you’re creating a highly-immersive interactive adventure featuring a cartoon character with their own theme song.
Hire a designer. If you need a really slick deck that you plan to use over and over again, hire a designer to do it right. I use big pictures to add punch to my talk track, but they also hide my limited design skills. Just look at my framework slides!
Share your slides with notes. There’s one problem with building decks that are mostly big pictures. The slides are worthless with you speaking over them. That’s the whole point, but people are still going to ask you to make the slides available afterwards. I create two decks for every session: the one I use in the room and the one I post on my website afterwards. The shared version includes extra text to explain the story so people aren’t left trying to remember what I said on the slide with the picture of the bicycle two weeks ago.
How do you use PowerPoint in your day-to-day work? How has it helped you improve your visual storytelling skills? Do you have a favorite slide you’ve ever built (or is that just a thing I think about)?
PS - Check out Don McMillan’s Life After Death by PowerPoint comedy routine for some solid “oh my gosh I’ve actually done that” LOL moments.
Must read. 📖
It’s time to discuss the problem with “owning your own development”
by Matthew Daniel (Guild Education)
Matthew nails it yet again with this latest CLO magazine article and LinkedIn post (above)! The biggest problem in talent development isn’t the skills gap. It’s the opportunity gap. Many employees, especially frontline workers, are not afforded the time, guidance and resources needed to truly own their development. It doesn’t matter how many courses a company has in their LMS or how many paths they offer in their LXP if people just don’t know where to start.
Too often, the idea of “owning your own development” is really just a shift in accountability - from the company to the individual. Then, who’s to blame when people fall behind and skill gaps emerge? There’s a big difference between making learning activities easier to access and making learning part of people’s jobs.
Thanks for always sharing your frank perspective, Matthew!
Coming up. 📆
Talkin’ L&D. Join me on LinkedIn Live Audio this Wednesday, March 8 at 10am ET for Talkin’ L&D, the industry’s only weekly radio show! We hang out for 60 minutes and discuss anything and everything L&D. Raise your hand to join the conversation, submit topics and questions via DM or just sit back and listen while you work. Just don’t try to sell anything! :-)
Next week, I’ll share tips for speaking at conferences.
Be well. JD.