The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint was written in 2003. Last week The Wall Street Journal brought us news that Tufte’s criticisms have caught on—with a few. For example, T.X. Hammes argues in the Armed Forces Journal that PowerPoint has undermined the military’s whole decision-making culture:

Before PowerPoint, staffs prepared succinct two- or three-page summaries of key issues. The decision-maker would read a paper, have time to think it over and then convene a meeting with either the full staff or just the experts involved to discuss the key points of the paper. Of course, the staff involved in the discussion would also have read the paper and had time to prepare to discuss the issues. In contrast, today, a decision-maker sits through a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by five minutes of discussion and then is expected to make a decision.

Hammes also echoes Tufte’s criticism that PowerPoint slides are often packed with too much information for the audience to absorb in the minute or so each is onscreen. Tufte blamed this effect for the Columbia space shuttle disaster of 2003, claiming that superiors failed to understand engineers’ warnings before the launch in part because of it. According to the Journal article, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board officially agreed with him. One shudders to think of the damage that could be done in the military.

José Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, is also identified by the Journal as an anti-PowerPoint crusader. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bowen encourages teachers to put their presentations online as podcasts, test students to make sure they watch them, and then devote class time to discussions of the material.

These efforts point in the same direction: productive discussions of complex problems are only really possible when people have had time to absorb and digest information. If organizations fail to allow for that, it’s an indictment of their management culture much more than it is of a piece of software. After all, Tufte has persuasively argued that poor graphic design in a slide-based presentation was responsible for the Challenger disaster in 1986, too—well before PowerPoint was in widespread use.

As Hammes puts it:

[PowerPoint] can be useful in situations it was designed to support — primarily, information briefs rather than decision briefs. For instance, it is an excellent vehicle for instructors. It provides a simple, effective way to share high-impact photos, charts, graphs, film clips and humor that illustrate a lecturer’s points. … Yet even in a classroom setting, it is not appropriate for developing a deep understanding of most subjects. For that, additional reading is required. There is a reason students cannot submit a thesis in PowerPoint format.

Just as we all still use QWERTY keyboards even though proponents of Dvorak have been arguing since the 1930s that we could all type faster with that key layout (convincingly or not, depending on which studies you read), we may be stuck with the imperfect PowerPoint for a good long while. But that doesn’t mean we have to be stuck with poor presentations or poor decisions. We can bring you advice on the presentations. The decisions are up to you.

You’ve probably participated in a retreat or brainstorming session where all those great ideas somehow get lost in the shuffle once you’re back in the office. While a write-up of the action won’t guarantee success, it definitely increases the chances.

“A report is a visual reminder of the changes people committed to,” explains master facilitator Merianne Liteman, co-author of the book Retreats That Work. She recommends the following:

• Sift as you sit. Get organized even as the meeting is going on. Be clear about decisions and other concrete actions taken. If it’s a multiday retreat, summarize key points at night and check their accuracy the following day.

• Out the door in 24. Prepare a one- to two-page summary, to be sent over the signature of the meeting convener within 24 hours.

• The longer report is still short. A fuller report is important, but Liteman stresses it must still focus on the “so what” rather than the “how we got there.” An executive summary and subheads (”Decisions,” “Deadlines,” etc.) will help.

• Beware the bulleted list. Lists that emanate from retreats or other meetings sometimes convey a false sense of priority, in which “people assume that the top point is more important than #15, which may not be the case.”

Paula Tarnapol Whitacre is a writer, editor, and principal of Full Circle Communications, LLC, located in Alexandria, VA.

Recently we received The Conference Publishers’ own e-newsletter and wanted to share their interesting new approach to meeting coverage, which they call “online nested content.”

This approach allows our clients to present content coverage online in three tiers:

• An initial landing page that lists our story lineup by day, with links to…
• A series of 225- to 450-word stories, with links to…
• A collection of longer summary reports, each providing coverage of 1,000 to 2,250 words, the equivalent of two to five typescript pages.

The Conference Publishers further enhances these long reports with video and audio excerpts from the much longer recorded sessions.

Their approach reminds us of a project we did several years ago in covering a conference on the use of technology in community development. The Conference Publishers go a step further, using conference summaries as gateways to further conversation in blogs, wikis, or other online discussion forums.

Check them out. We compete, but we’re both on a mission to make meetings more productive. Capturing the gist of important presentations and discussions on the Web multiplies the return on your meeting dollar many times over. Furthermore, when you preserve key decisions for future reference, you answer for good the irritating question: “We talked about that. What did we decide?”

I use Skype, a free, downloadable program for PC or Mac that allows you to get phone service up and running with minimal set-up. For hardware, you only need a way for sound to get in and out of your computer. Many computers, especially newer laptops, have built-in microphones; older models and desktops have jacks for microphones and headphones. There are USB headsets that combine phones and mike, including Bluetooth headsets that will allow you to wander as you talk. Skype also works with webcams for face-to-face chat and video conferencing.

Calls between Skype users are free. Reaching callers who don’t use Skype is still cheaper than many telephone services: pay-as-you-go calls are $0.021 per minute to 34 countries including the United States, and there are subscription plans as well. There’s no additional charge for conference calls. Just get your entire team on high-speed Internet and operating on Skype; additional callers can be added to any call without the need to set up or order a conference (and non-Skype users can be added at the regular billing rate).

Let’s say you want to keep minutes of your conference call, or you’d like to record an interview. Skype doesn’t offer this as a built-in feature, but you can download third-party software that makes capturing your calls a snap. On my Mac, I use Call Recorder from Ecamm ($15, shareware). The program allows me to hit a record button within Skype and records the two sides of the calls to separate tracks so I can adjust sound levels if necessary. Pamela ($24.95) and Freecorder (free) are popular with PC users, and there are other recommendations at the VOIP-Sol blog and in Skype’s user forums. Now you can put aside the clunky telephone recorder switch (which may not work with mobile or cordless phones) and forget about having to transfer data from a handheld recorder into your computer — it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping a file. Your need for recording gear won’t be completely eliminated — you’ll still need a set-up for the field. But recording at home is a lot easier once it’s all in the computer.

Now this might seem like an odd policy. After all, why not try to be as accommodating as possible, especially when it’s a client making the request?

There are a couple of reasons. First, not all of our writers would be equally comfortable sharing their raw, unedited notes. Our guidelines protect those who aren’t.

More important, though, is our overarching philosophy of never showing a client anything raw. Nothing, not even a preliminary outline, ever leaves our hands without a second person reading and editing it. Polish is part of our professional reputation, as it should be for all publications managers.

But we do understand that clients sometimes want summaries of important decisions right away. That’s why we offer something that Dana Trevas, one of our rapporteurs, has dubbed “real-time reporting.” If we know that service is what the clients want, and we can work with them to make a few small adjustments to their meeting procedures, we can hand over something polished within half an hour of an event’s end.

Like Dogme, Pecha Kucha’s restrictive rules are meant to free presenters’ creativity. Most of those who have adopted the form so far have been artists, architects, and designers. But Pecha Kucha has begun to attract interest from business presenters as well.

“Word of its success among artists and designers reached business types longing to make presentations interesting again.

One of these is Sébastien Meilleur, a training co-ordinator for the pharmaceutical industry.

Every year, his colleagues are bored to tears by a barrage of slideshows to keep everyone abreast of the company’s several projects.

Some of the presentations last an hour. As a result, most of his co-workers can’t sit through them all.

“Most people don’t have the knowledge to make something more interesting or interactive, so they go with death by PowerPoint,” he said.

“The Pecha Kucha format is perfect. It basically tells: ‘This is what I do and how I do it, and if you’re interested, come see me.’” …

To [Mitch] Joel, [president of digital marketing agency Twist Image,] Pecha Kucha will force people to obey what he deems the holy triad of great pitches: be brief, be brilliant, be gone. “It’s something all businesspeople could learn from,” he said.

In his Wired magazine story, Daniel Pink has posted a video of his own example Pecha Kucha. Take a look.

The value of the 20-second rule is apparent immediately: the speaker is forced to make every slide count, never lingering too long or skipping through any that turn out to be redundant or unimportant. It also forces the speaker to rehearse, have a single, concise thesis, and defend it with relevant examples.

One additional virtue, reminiscent of something else we’ve discussed before: images that complement the words spoken rather than simply reiterating them. The slides are examples, not a script.

“Picture captions are the most important words on the page. They get the highest readership … the image fused to its explanation is a tempting twosome used to hook the uninvolved scanner into reading.”

Here’s another novel idea. Editors, talk to your designer about what the captions will say—the point you’re going to make. Approach each caption as a “single intellectual info-unit,” as White puts it. You will save readers the mental effort of linking words to image. Here are some ways to achieve this:

Allow caption lengths to vary. Many publications have prescribed lengths for captions. Such rules often straitjacket fascinating information or encourage padding for the sake of consistency. Make captions as long as they need to be—but no longer.

Use a boldface lead-in to say something that makes sense and is meaningful. You waste prime real estate if you don’t use boldface to attract the reader’s attention quickly with something irresistible and clear. Like a strong headline, use lead-ins or caption titles to play up the “what’s-in-it-for-me value” of the story.

Don’t describe the obvious. Otherwise known as “don’t insult the reader’s intelligence,” this hallowed commandment can get broken under deadline pressure. Obey it. Avoid simply describing what’s taking place in the picture. An obvious caption gives the reader no incentive to dig deeper into the story. Avoid crutches like “above” and “opposite” to point to the picture; if one seems necessary, you need to rework the layout. Unless the picture is so complicated that directions are essential, omit the phrase “left to right” to identify subjects. Even native speakers of Hebrew scan images from the left—and would rather read something new and tantalizing.

Andy Goodman thinks he’s found them. The consultant with Cause Communications spells them out in his book Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes—and How to Ensure They Won’t Happen To Yours.

If you’re used to conventional presentations, it may be hard to picture yourself doing what he suggests. But here are some of his prescriptions for an attentive audience:

• Never speak for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. If you have an hour to fill, break the time into shorter blocks, with ten or fifteen minutes of audience participation after every fifteen minutes that you speak.
• Don’t let all these participatory sessions be Q&A with you. Instead, think of ways to get audience members interacting with each other. When you do have Q&A sessions, don’t just throw it open and hope the audience comes up with something interesting—always lead off with a question or two for the audience.
• Mix in techniques aimed at all kinds of learners. Some people learn best from numbers and logic, the staples of most presentations, but not everyone. Others respond better to stories, or basic principles illustrated with examples, or hands-on exercises, or pictures and music.
• Tell stories. This doesn’t mean simply narrating your successes chronologically; it means using a classic story pattern, with strong characters, telling details, conflicts, and resolutions.
• Focus on the beginning and the end. These are the times when your audience will be paying the most attention—yet another reason to sandwich Q&A into the middle of your talk instead of leaving it for the end. Your audience will probably retain only a handful of things from a whole hour, so you want absolute control of those last few minutes to go over the points you think are most important.
• Make meaningful eye contact. Meaningful means eye contact with one person at a time, for a full sentence apiece.
• Vary your volume, speed, and tone of voice to emphasize important points. Experiment with this when you rehearse. (You are rehearsing, aren’t you?) Avoid the fast monotone. On the other hand, make sure you have more techniques for creating emphasis than simply raising your voice.
• Never include words on your PowerPoint slides that you plan to say aloud. Believe it or not, if you put different information on screen than what you say aloud, your audience will retain more of both. There’s research to support this.

Andy Goodman’s book also expands on tips we’ve covered before—for example, always to begin by considering your audience and what they want to hear, instead of what you want to say.

It won’t be your father’s presentation. But you’ll be remembered.

And now a word from our sponsor:

Congregants of Rev. Tom Ambrose, of St. Mary and St. Michael Church in Trumpington, England, met in September to complain of several things about their vicar, most notably that he delivered the Christmas sermon last year (and several since then) using Microsoft PowerPoint.

From the Daily Mail (London), 9-4-07. Reported in News of the Weird .

But seriously, folks

We write meeting reports, so we see a lot of PowerPoint presentations. The truth is, much of the time you can give a good speech without PowerPoint. The only reason to use it is to improve on your best note-based speech. Here are a few tips:

• Compose a sentence summarizing what you know about your audience. Why are you talking to them? What do you want them to retain, and what do you want them to do? Your slides should reinforce those points and only those points.
• Write out this logic in outline form before you begin working in PowerPoint.
• Now summarize your reasons for using each slide. For example, “This is one of my main points. I want the audience to remember this argument above all.” Or, “This piece of information would be much easier to take in with a simple visual aid.”
• If you have graphs (not pictures, which can work well as slides), consider making them handouts and referring to them at specific times in your speech. If handouts are not possible, be aware that PowerPoint severely limits the amount of quantitative information the audience can read from any given slide. (See Edward Tufte, “PowerPoint is Evil” or “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.”)
• Rehearse. If you find yourself overly dependent on your slides—or miss one—something is wrong. Back up and rethink the logic of your presentation.

To see it done right, watch An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore gave that presentation to business and government leaders around the world over and over, refining it each time, until it became a perfect example of how to use slides rather than being used by them.

• A digital recorder with a microphone input jack. We use a SONY ICD-SX46 digital voice recorder ($149.95). We made the switch to digital recording a year ago and haven’t looked back. Digital recorders mean no audio tapes to carry and easy sharing among coworkers.
• A suitable power supply for the recorder. In most cases, this means an AC adapter. For our digital recorder, that’s Radio Shack’s 3V/500mA AC-to-DC Power Adapter ($14.97) with its Adaptaplug A ($4.99).
• An omnidirectional boundary microphone. We generally use one from Radio Shack (#33-3041, $39.99) that has allowed us to pick up sound from groups of up to 20 people arranged in a medium-sized room. It takes an LR44 calculator battery ($3.19), and we always bring a spare. For groups larger than 20, bring a second microphone (with battery), and a splitter to plug both microphone cords into one jack. We use a RadioShack 1/8″ Dual Mono Jack to 1/8″ Stereo Plug Y-Adapter ($4.99).
• A power strip/surge-protector, in case there’s only one outlet.
• An extension cord.
• Batteries for the recorder, in case there are no outlets. Ours takes two AAAs.
• Duct tape. Every wire must be taped down, or someone will trip. Guaranteed.