The makeover continues…
Well, I’m still picking away at my PowerPoint makeover with Cliff Atkinson of Beyond Bullets. We’ve been working through the three "Acts" of the storyboard. Right now we’re wrapping up Act II and should be working out Act III this week, except I’m such a, uh, slacker, that I probably won’t finish it until next week.
From the looks of the discussion board, I’m guessing that the other makeover recipients have had the same problem as me: finding time to work on it. Cliff has been insanely helpful in getting me focused on the storyline. The storyline approach is a new one for me, and it’s vaguely uncomfortable. I suspect that I’m like most folks when I build a presentation–just slap together an outline, then talk about it. Cliff’s approach adds more visual interest and the storyline layer ought to help with retention after people walk away from the presentation. At least, I hope so. Part of my skepticism is that I’ve
been lined up in the Tufte camp for so long. Tufte rails against using images that don’t apply directly to the issue at hand. He would probably be against most background images in presentations, even if they contributed to the "storyline." Tufte would want to tell a story, but he’d allow the data to tell the story, rather than layering on an
imaginary construct.
I don’t mind straying from the Tufte camp for a while. If it helps make the presentation more palatable and memorable, then I’m all for it!
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4 opinions for The makeover continues…
cafedave
Mar 30, 2005 at 11:35 pm
A Tufte-camp presentation wouldn’t be seeking to be memorable, only to be clear: perhaps your goals for the presentation aren’t quite the same as his “let the data speak for itself” goals.
Bren
Mar 31, 2005 at 6:32 am
Good point, Dave. Though when I say I want my presentation to be memorable, I mean I want it to be memorable in the sense that people remember the content, not the bells and whistles. Otherwise, there’d be no point in presenting stuff if the presentation content drops out of their mind at the door.
cliff
Mar 31, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Glad you’re enjoying the process, Bren!
The storyboard that we develop in the next phase actually does make sure that every visual element is mapped specifically to the idea at hand as it is described by the headline.
But a related issue is: Is data (reasoning) sufficient to communicate, or do people also need to engage other parts of their brain (emotion) to understand something? The latest in neuroscience indicates that we cannot reason without engaging the part of the brain that processes emotion.
Act I of the story template helps to engage emotional interest in setting the context for the presentation (what’s in this for me?), and then Act II uses a “logic tree” approach to structure a reasoned argument in an understandable sequence. Act III wraps up the appeals to emotion and reason together.
On any particular slide, especially in Act II, the visual you choose could be a chart, diagram or other quantitative display of data. But the spin on this PowerPoint approach is that it is grounded in 13 years of research by educational psychologists related to the display of information in a multimedia context. Most of the material related to quantitative display of information is based on displaying that data on a piece of paper; rather than through an integrated experience of projected images, spoken words and audience interaction.
How does this all look when the slide hits the projector? We await the next chapter of Bren’s unfolding story…
John D. Mitchell
Mar 31, 2005 at 12:55 pm
I don’t see there being a fundamental disjoint between a good story and letting the data tell the story. In writing terms, the storyline that Cliff talks about is about setting a consistent frame in which people can connect with your story. Motif and metaphor. We can think of Tufte’s admonishments as being about making sure that what we present is truly clear and correct both in direct communication terms as well as indirectly in terms of the implications. Another example of the complementary nature of how and why. :-)