Of course, I’ve borrowed the sentiment from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and looking back at the prose I realise that a great deal of it can be related to my question about Powerpoint. (If I may.)

German philosopher Arthur Mally interprets Hamlet’s dilemma: “that our state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to it.”

What if he were talking about your Powerpoint presentation?

That it can be so wretched that it would be preferable if it did not exist.

Or imagine he were referring to your audience: .. lights down, slides appearing one by one, overloaded with bullet points, you’re repeating everything the audience sees on the slides – and to top it all off – you’ve used a standard template. (of course, you would never do this, but I bet you know someone who has.)

So back to the audience.. they are thinking… “my state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to sitting through this presentation.”

Is your presentation a “sea of troubles“? Is your audience wondering when they might shuffle off “this mortal coil“?

The last line of Hamlet sums up what you’ve done if you give a presentation in this way: “And lose the name of action“. Why are you delivering a presentation? You’re selling an idea. As an audience member yourself, how much easier have you found it to accept a new idea when it’s presented in a way that cuts through and makes you FEEL something?

Communication is the transfer of emotion

Seth Godin’s ebook ‘Really Bad Powerpoint and how to avoid it’, although written in 2001 is eternally relevant: “Communication is the Transfer of Emotion“. One line from the ebook sums it up: “Make slides that reinforce your words, rather than repeat them.Create slides that demonstrate, with emotional proof, that what you’re saying is true not just accurate.”

It can be as simple as this: You’re talking about the annual company results. Instead of showing bullet points with a bunch of statistics, show me a clever graph on a background photograph which represents the main learning from the graph.

But you can take it a step further: Put that graph on a background photograph of our happy customers.

Say you’re giving a presentation on how to improve Powerpoint presentations – instead of giving me 4 bullet points.. give me a photo of 6 people sitting around a board room table, asleep behind their ‘Homer’ glasses (glasses with eyes printed on them).

I gave up using Powerpoint a couple of years ago – when I left my Ms Megabyte technology character behind. As a conference speaker, it was a challenge not to use Powerpoint as a crutch. But I have to say, it was liberating not to have to rely on technology and I felt much more connected with my audience in doing so.

Let’s bring Powerpoint back

Recently I’ve been presenting half day workshops rather than just a keynote address, and I find Powerpoint can help in these longer sessions by adding a layer of learning. Plus, changing the method of delivery (from my voice to a carefully chosen graphic) is refreshing for the audience. If used correctly.

In Godin’s ebook, he outlines 4 components to a great presentation:

• Make yourself cue-cards. That way you won’t fill the slides with bullet points to remind YOURSELF what you need to say.
• Make sure the slides reinforce your message, not repeat them.
• Create a written document – but DON’T hand it out until the end. Let everyone know you’ve got it , so they don’t have to write anything down.
• Create a feedback cycle – if the purpose of your presentation is to ask for something – get an answer at the end of it.

I always buy photos from iStockPhoto and RedBubble in my presentations. It’s worth it. You’ll pay about $3-$10 for each professionally shot image. Insert a photo full screen in your presentation and don’t put any words on that slide – let it REINFORCE the words you’re delivering.

It might take a bit more effort, but it is FUN. Truly – not just because I love technology – it is actually FUN to look at my words and imagine an image that might represent and reinforce them.

Here are some samples of the presentation I’ve been putting together all weekend about the importance of providing staff with wireless access to everything they need:

Presentation Zen

Anyone using Powerpoint (or Keynote for the Mac) should follow Garr Reynold’s:Presentation Zen blog that goes with the book of the same name. Specifically, this post has some great examples of impactful slides.

Go for it!

Read the soliloquy from Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Day 1, you grab a coffee on the way in, find your little piece of real estate and sit in it. You decide which possession you’ll leave on your seat during all the breaks to claim it as your own (a jacket, a folder, something disposable.. you don’t know these people yet – you can’t leave your phone/computer/handbag!).

You review the program, circle the ‘cannot-miss’ bits,

{ This conference was called Marketing Now – about social media marketing. The ‘with a difference’ bit is that the conference had no ticket price. Can you imagine two days of fantastic speakers, filling your brain with inspiration, knowledge and wow-factor without paying for it? The gang decided to simply ask for a $100 donation which would be distributed between 2 charities. Hardly a big ask. You may wonder how they managed to cover the expenses of food/coffee breaks, etc? They held the conference at the Sofitel, Melbourne, which resides one level above a multitude of cafes and coffee spots… so the attendees just sorted themselves out during the breaks – such a great idea!http://www.marketingnow.biz/}

Now back to the conference…the first speaker is about to start. If you’re a geek like me, you’ll take out your laptop, check for free wireless internet, connect to it then open TweetDeck and set up a new search column to match the hashtag that’s been set for the conference. In this case#mktgnow . From the search column you can view the tweet stream – anyone who is tweeting from the conference (and by a quick scan of the room, at least half of the audience has laptops open or iPhones at the ready) appears as they tweet. As we now have something in common, I automatically follow each conference tweeter.

The MC welcomes the audience, introduces the 1st speaker and you’re away – tweeting the great bits, sending private DM comments to your own peeps, watching other people’s comments in the tweetstream.

{The way I like to tweet from a conference is to add a bit of extended value for the people following the tweet stream. If speaker refers to a case study or an article or website or video, I’ll quickly jump onto Google, track the link down and tweet the speaker’s comment as well as the link.}

Time to break, synchronise watches with the MC, grab a crew of people, head down in search of good coffee and a quick, late breakfast. And this is where the added value happens – in the conversations you have in the breaks – your knowledge is extended and deepened as you discuss your thoughts on the speaker, the content, the slides, the venue. Little friendly debates break out, notes are scrawled, business cards exchanged. (every time you hand out your card these days you cringe that your Twitter ID is not on it….you are I am SO LAST WEEK).

Back to the conference, next speaker is up, frantic tweeting and sharing is going on, time to break again, more speakers, the day ends, a crew heads for drinks at the bar, a smaller crew heads for dinner, an even smaller crew heads for more drinks after that. To attend the whole conference virtually you’re lucky enough that Gavin Heaton (@servantofchaos) set up a fantastic Posterous blog that was contributed to by all:http://marketingnow.posterous.com/

By the time Day 2 ends, you check back in at your usual desk and it feels like you’ve been away for a week, or was it an hour? It is a strange little time warp because you’ve soaked up so much information that you feel like you’ve attended a 12 week diploma… but at the same time it’s like you never left your desk. There is nothing like it and I’m so lucky to actually BE a speaker (not at this conference) so I have a chance to experience this weirdness weekly.

I purchased a Flip Ultra HD Camcorder at the start of the week and you’ll see from my new YouTube Channel that I’ve put it to good use. I interviewed many Twitter and Social Media personalities at the Marketing Now conference… and I’d love to get your feedback. On the layout of the channel, the content of the interviews, the style and all that jazz. If you have any requests for further interviews, let me know… I’ll track the subject down and do it!

Here are a couple of the videos I did from the conference:

Darren Rowse – the famous @problogger

Kate Kendall, Matt Granfield and Nath Bush

Andrew Horabin, celebrated & awarded & very clever comedian took us through his Top 5 tips for injecting your presentations with humour last night. Andrew is the inventor of Mick the De-Motivational Speaker. More at www.horabin.com

My summary (if you were there, please add your comment/summary below too):

1. INTERACTION - Get your audience interacting with each other in a fun way and they will make each other laugh. It gives you a chance to read the room and the energy before you launch into your presentation. If you’re not someone who is ‘a natural’ at comedy, continue to find ways to make your audience crack each other up.

Your presentation is a combination of ‘rope’ and ‘risk’. Rope = the tried and true material you know works, every time. Risk = the stuff you try out or fall upon. If Risk works consistently, it becomes rope.

2. ANALOGIES - Humour comes when you put two things together that don’t naturally fit, then you show how they DO fit. For example – how is LOVE like WATER? Audience: ‘it flows’, ‘there are moments of wetness’. Presenter: ‘yeah.. and long times of drought’ (laughter!!)

You will get fresh ideas if you find a way to connect two things that don’t seem to go together.

3. CHARACTERS - Use your voice and your body to take on the character you’re talking about. When you are telling a story, don’t just use your own voice when quoting someone in the story. BE THAT person.

4. STORIES – If you can tell your career/life story in 3 minutes, you’ll keep audience attention. Don’t feel the need to reel off your achievements and resume. Lots of that will have been done in the introduction by the MC. You can pepper your presentation with various ‘trophies’ by bringing them up during your stories.

5. REINCORPORATION – Loop back to previous spots in your presentation where there were laughs. But be careful.. do this too often, without much of a gap since the last time and the audience will not like it.

Other tips – if you try some ‘risk’ material and it doesn’t work, just move on – don’t point it out. The audience won’t mind if YOU don’t mind.

TRACK for humour – look for funny things all the time. consider journaling things you find funny. During the presentation, things will happen that could be used for humour – use them.. and refer back to them.