For those who don't know, Keynote is Apple's answer to Powerpoint. It's actually really slick, and it's way easy to make really good-looking presentations. My favorite tool in Keynote is the Instant Alpha tool. It lets you obliterate a color in an image you put in your presentation. Ever downloaded some graphic that looked good on Google's white image results page, only to drop it into Powerpoint and have your graphic surrounded by a big ugly white square on your dark background? With instant alpha, zap away that white square and have an awesome graphic looking like it was made for your presentation.
But really, this isn't a rant about how awesome Keynote is and how Powerpoint is blech. The first time I used Keynote, I actually brought a lot of bad habits with me into my slide deck and made an embarrassing presentation. The truth is, slide presentations suck because people make terrible presentations, not because the software they're using sucks. You can make a great presentation in Keynote, Prezi, and even Powerpoint. And you can make terrible ones in all three, too. While I interned at Apple, my internship climaxed with a presentation I gave before the CIO of Apple, Niall O'Connar. I prepared for and practiced that presentation for weeks, and my presentation got slashed to bits by several different managers as I refined it along the way. I thought I knew how to make and give presentations before that summer, but how wrong I was. In the end, here are some simple tips I picked up on making presentations:
- Pictures are a 1,000 words.
- 3-5 word sentences.
- Say what's on your slides.
- Delete unspoken text from slides.
- Make your presentation look good.
- Use a consistent font.
- Don't nauseate your audience.
All of these points look like no-brainers, and they should be. So why is it that every presentation you've ever seen that sucked not followed these? If I were giving a presentation, I could easily insert this list into my slides. I'd probably have it split up onto two slides. And then as I gave my presentation, I'd elaborate as follows:
Use more pictures. Google image search is not that hard. Don't put ugly, pixelated pictures in there, and don't put funny joke images in there unless absolutely everyone is going to get it or you're going to explain the joke so everyone laughs (i.e. not in a lame, humor-killing way). Take the time to clean up images. This is why Keynote's Instant Alpha tool rocks. Lame white squares with your graphic in the middle look lame, and if your presentation looks like sucks and only half-effort was put in, chances are it will suck because you only put in half the effort you should have.
Don't pollute your audience's eyes with the amount of text you put on each slide. Sentences should be as short and crisp as possible. 3-5 words it the ideal target. Make definitive statements, and each statement with a period. That includes each point in a list where applicable.
Say everything that is on your slides. If you have text on your slide you're not using in the audible form of your presentation, it shouldn't be on your slide. This is very contrary to the traditional Powerpoint model where people put a ton of text with every nitty-gritty detail on every slide, and only say 10% of what their slides say. If you do this, your audience will not be paying attention to you while you speak. They'll be squinting and trying to read the bajillion words on your slides, and trying to decipher their meaning. Don't do it. Just don't. Copy/paste those right now into your presenter notes, and then write what you're really trying to say in short, concise statements.
Again, your slides is not a place for your to paste your 50-page thesis. Delete everything you're not going to say, and then delete 80% more of what's left. Only have the most critical, plain, and necessary statements in your presentation. Your audience can go read your thesis (or blog post) later.
Make it look good. Your presentation shouldn't look like a 5th grader made it. There are a lot of good themes for slide presentations out there, so use them. Keynote's built-in themes are just plain hot. Unfortunately, that's an entirely subjective statement (unlike anything else in this post), and Keynote is only for Mac and iPad. But there are some good Powerpoint themes. You just have to look a little harder.
I messed up on this one a few times. I mixed fonts from the presentation theme and external fonts. It looks ugly, and people will notice. Use consistent fonts throughout the entire presentation. Details matter.
Don't make me want to throw up as I watch your presentation. That applies to both looks and transitions. This is where I feel Prezi's aren't always so good. They try to be dynamic and hip, and I admit Prezi is a pretty cool piece of software, but when you're hunting for that slide that says what you wanted to say next, and you switch more than one slide, Dr. Zappala is suffering from his vertigo. And I'm getting sick. So just practice your presentation, know your slide order, and be aware of and avoid nauseating transitions.
So there you have it. My excruciating long blog post about presentations. I wish I could have given you the Keynote version. It would have been much less painless. But hopefully now you've remembered what exactly makes you scared of Powerpoints, and how you can fix it. Slide presentations aren't bad. They can be used as a very effective tool, and help your audience visualize what you're presenting. However, they can be done horribly wrong and have us shouting "Death By Powerpoint!" in an instant.
UPDATE: Here's a link to the Keynote I gave on Thursday about Wise Crowds. You don't to have a Mac to view it; you can check it out in your web browser.
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