More Engagement Leads to Better Meetings

In this essay, I am suggesting that the speakers at IBTTA meetings consider

abandoning the use of PowerPoint presentations. I don’t have any objection to the use

of PowerPoint per se. The rare presenter can use PowerPoint in an exceptionally

effective way to deliver a powerful message. However, I believe the way speakers

commonly use PowerPoint is often a barrier to the principal goal of speaking to an

audience: helping people understand something by leading them through an

experience.

Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge the amazing time, talent, energy and

sacrifice that every speaker invests in an IBTTA meeting. A 15-minute presentation may

involve hours, days, or weeks of research and preparation, planning, thinking, and

rehearsal. Add to this the time, expense, and indignity of airline travel, staying in a hotel

in a strange city, making your way to the right place at the right time, and you can see

that every presenter deserves our admiration and respect. What I’m suggesting here is

a way to make the whole meeting experience better for the audience and more

rewarding for the presenters.

I begin with the assumption that the goal of an IBTTA meeting is to enhance

“engagement” among the participants. The more we’re engaged, the more knowledge is

shared, which results in a better meeting. Our meetings are as much about the

experience that people have as they are about knowledge transfer. Having a good,

engaging experience enhances the knowledge transfer and vice versa.

Speakers who spend time developing, manipulating, perfecting, and presenting

PowerPoint slides often don’t have as strong a connection to the audience as speakers

who go without PowerPoint. Reliance on PowerPoint can be a crutch, a surrogate for

real connection, interaction, and knowledge transfer.

One of the most effective sessions I’ve observed recently in which audience connection

was especially strong happened in the final session of our summit on ORT and

Interoperability in Tampa. In this session, PowerPoint was nearly absent. Why was the

connection with audience in this session so good? The first reason is that all four

presenters are bright, articulate people who have something important to say.

The second reason is that they crafted their ideas with great care and translated those

ideas into skillfully prepared talking points. They emphasized language and ideas over

the “slide deck.” They imbued their words with extraordinary intellectual content. They

each told a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. They realized that the only

tools they could use to communicate meaning are their minds, words, bodies, and the

collective experience of the audience. There was no intermediary, no technological

crutch. It was just them and the audience. Unplugged. A community. Finally, knowing

the limits of their tools, they employed those tools as effectively as possible, much as

the conductor of a middle school band elicits an inspired performance from the green

musicians in her care.

So, should we stop using PowerPoint at IBTTA meetings? Instead of answering that

question with a definitive yes or no, I would ask each speaker to ponder these questions

when preparing to give a presentation: What have I been asked to do? What main

message am I trying to convey? What experience and expertise do I have to advance

that message? What words should I use to communicate that message? How can I

engage the audience in a conversation about my presentation topic? Keeping in mind

the principles of adult learning, how can I lead the audience through an experience that

will help them better understand the message I’m trying to deliver? How can I best be of

service to this audience and this meeting?

Once you have asked and answered the seven questions above, then ask yourself

“should I use PowerPoint?” In many cases I think you’ll discover the answer is “no.”

-- Pat Jones