Why you need a presentation if you are speaking to an audience

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Can't you just speak and convey the information you need without slides? Sure. But you don't need to.

Making a presentation - a file with slides, even the simplest or the worst - is a rather laborious and time-consuming process. I just want to evade him.

Well-tongued speakers often do just that. Sometimes right in the course of the speech ("Maybe, well, them, these slides? I'll tell you so now").

In my opinion, in 99% of cases this is unjustified cheating and disrespect for the audience. Of the advantages here are only the hours saved by the speaker for preparing the presentation. Of the minuses - everything else, insufficient efficiency in all respects.

It is difficult to defend this point of view until the value of presentation slides for a presentation is not clear.

I'll try to show it.

I will make a reservation that we are talking about presentations created and sharpened specifically for specific speeches: the harm from a worn-out general presentation of your project or a campaign report displayed on the screen can be even greater than from a complete lack of materials.

If you have prepared and created a presentation for a specific speech, then you have a huge advantage regarding "yes, I will tell you this"!

1. The most important thing is that you started thinking about the theses and worked out the story in advance

The appearance of the slide file is the milestone and deadline for which you are preparing. If you don't need to prepare any slides, the temptation to indulge in routine instead of working out the presentation is extremely high. You will prepare at the last moment (if at all), and this will affect the quality.

If you have an external limitation in the form of the need to send or send a file with the presentation in advance - even better. Even more time to prepare and think over the performance.

2. Slides are a great help to the presenter

If you do them correctly, they will help you to keep the thought and the pace of the presentation. You are less likely to flow along the tree of reasoning and go astray from the narrative path you have laid down.

For me, for example, slides are also timing: I always imagine with great accuracy how long the story will take, where we are now, how much time is left. This is handy when you understand your pace.

3. We live in an era of screen competition, most people are visuals

Audiences need to see in order to perceive information. If you don’t give her a picture, if you don’t keep your gaze, you will probably completely lose viewers and listeners in smartphones.

Only rare talents can hold gazes for 20-30 minutes with their striking appearance, artistry and charisma. If you are not one of them, the slides will help you.

• First, their presence, in principle, will give a signal to the public that it makes sense to raise their eyes.
• Secondly, each slide change will also attract attention (at least for a couple of seconds of "evaluating glance").
• Third, if the content of the slides is pleasing, the mission of keeping the audience's gaze and full attention is complete.

It's simple: if your "picture" is more interesting and more intense than the one in the viewers' smartphones, then you will have their attention. At the start, you have an advantage: you are realistic, interactive and, probably, speaking on some topic that the person cares about - otherwise, what would he do at your presentation. So this handicap must simply not be lost.

4. Slides can help say and communicate more

More information

Figures and important facts can be visualized and organized in a more understandable way. The presenter does not need to read out all the data: he simply talks about the general conclusions and the most important thoughts, with information supporting them in the background.

More humor

In general, humor is an excellent tool for speeches: it helps to attract attention (to win the very competition from gadgets), to win over the audience, to emphasize and consolidate important theses in the minds of people. After all, through laughter, what you said will be imprinted in the memory of listeners and spectators. And it is the slides with humor (funny in themselves or in contrast to your story) that play a very large role in this.

More subtext for the most intellectually demanding part of the audience

As with humor, you can play on the fact that illustrating an oral story with slides does not have to be literal. The visual part can contain hints, allegories and subtext. Viewers like this - it's interesting to watch.

More emotions

And emotions increase engagement and enhance the effect of what you hear and see.

More benefit

Have you cited a study or case study and want to link to the full version? By ear, this is generally a useless exercise. But the address can be given on a slide, or even better - duplicated with a QR code that people will open from their phone in two clicks.

Life hack: QR-code readers are built into the iPhone cameras and the camera of the VKontakte application (and on Android too).

What kind of information to put on the slide, the visual accompaniment of the story - you decide. But by itself, this tool makes your arsenal richer and the effect stronger.

Compare the experience of a radio play and a movie. Here is your story without slides - radio.

5. Another great benefit: people love to photograph slides

If there is something surprising (unexpected thesis) or important (numbers and graphs) on the slides. Or just funny, funny, beautiful.

Most of these photos, of course, will disappear in the depths of the memory of your listeners' smartphones. But part of it will still serve you: either by reminding the person who took the photo about your theses, or by scattering through chats and helping to spread your thoughts and interest in the topic. Or by giving you new photos where you are important and very attractive.

Why not? Photos from the performances are worthy of publication on your social networks (no matter what you say, they make a solid impression, and they give a lot of likes).

So the slides and the presentation as a file displayed on the screen are important. They help improve both your presentation and the way people perceive it.

In addition, a correctly made (or at least adapted to the event) presentation gives you a plus some points of respect in the eyes of the audience: people see that you prepared, that you respect them, which means that you should be given a chance to be more interesting than their neighbor. or phone.

Who will still go everywhere with the same presentation, who will laugh it off "yes, I will tell you everything better without slides" - well done. Because they leave the opportunity for diligent and hardworking speakers to stand out from their background.

Does this mean that always and everywhere you need to make a speech with slides behind your back? Absolutely not.

Still, no one canceled common sense. Whether you're giving the opening remarks at the opening of an event or making a toast at a friend's wedding, you can probably do without visuals. You will not be judged, it will not be disrespectful, and everyone will take it absolutely normal. Because in many genres of performances it is so customary.

However, if you accompany the same with the right slides, you will jump over your head, surpass expectations and be remembered much more vividly. Checked repeatedly. Even at a friend's wedding.