January 6, 2008 – Silence and Voice

Went into a nice Italian restaurant on the Upper West side. Cash only. Who will order a bottle of wine and dinner in Manhattan with cash? #
Even the taxis and McDonald’s in the city take debit and credit! #
Ended up eating Mexican. Less expensive than the cash-only Italian, and more food, too! #
Love shopping at #GraciousHome. #
@gapingvoid I think you mean "Bubblegeneration." They are both cool names, though! #
Creating a new tag cloud on my blog. Have changed how I do this over the years. #
@heyjudeonline What do you mean "somehow social networking is about authenticity"? #
@heyjudeonline Do you think all people who engage in social networking are authentic? #
@heyjudeonline Or is that your approach that you hope others follow as well? #
@macboyx Why so tired already? #
@arjunsingh You have been quiet for a long time. All twittered out? #
@RobinYap What is a kindle? #
@heyjudeonline Ahh. I was thinking you were talking about what bloggers say is what they mean or believe or think. #
@heyjudeonline As opposed to writing for an audience and not meaning what they write. #
@heyjudeonline That is one of the interesting facets of communication – I read your words through my own voice, experiences, and assumptions #
@pinoyboy I tried to dry some of my spearmint, but it only made a mess. How do you do it well? #
@macboyx Lucky you! May tonight be better . . . #
@macboyx With that, I will stop my 2 hours of Twitter, tweaking my blog, and following endless links into the "Wow, how cool!" #
@macboyx I will off to read myself to sleep. At least we have no snow and tomorrow is really a day off. #
@heyjudeonline What is Edublogosphere? When I followed your link, there was no info; only a password request. #
Just wrote a post about PowerPoint and message titles http://tinyurl.com/2a66zp #
I think Garr at http://www.presentationzen.com/ would approve. #
Referred to some recent items of #PresentationZen http://www.presentationzen.com #
Waiting for a table at Cafe Cluny. How can so many people be up for brunch already? #

One of the communication items I stress with my students is that PowerPoint slides require Message Titles, not Topic Titles. The difference? A message title tells the audience what to think, believe, do, or say as a result of your slide or presentation. Don’t just tell them the topic and allow them to draw their own conclusions, whatever they may be. If you have gone through all the work of gathering your message and are preparing to deliver it to an audience, you must have some point you want them to take away, something you want to persuade them to do or think, of even inform them that your vision of a situation is the most accurate one. To help them with this process, tell them by embedding your message or point in the slide title. When presenting, leave as little to chance as possible.

I started thinking about this with Garr Reynold’s post today about Bill Gates, where he compared a slide presentation from Bill Gates to one by Steve Jobs.

Bill Gates’ slides are overwhelming in content, the colors look dark and dreary, and as I scan the slides, I have no idea what main message (point? take-away? idea? belief? action?) he wants his audience to leave with. Granted, I am a huge fan of the business prowess of Bill Gates, and he undoubtedly said some interesting and challenging things while presenting, but I was not at the conference. I only have the slides, and reviewing them now does not help me at all. If anything, it has the opposite effect–what is he talking about? When they get printed and/or electronically distributed (as is happening here and at countless desks around organizations), they lose their meaning. That is not what a communicator wants.

Steve Jobs’ are clean, straight-forward, and more compelling. They follow what Seth Godin suggests with minimal text on slides so they help to reinforce the speaker’s message. Great for the audience that is there, perhaps, as long as they are primarily auditory learners. However, I have another reservation here–I was not in the audience at the time, and while the slides may indeed reinforce the presenter, that doesn’t do anything for me. Is Steve suggesting Apple is aiming at all-in-one? They have already achieved it? They want to ultimately sell only one all-in-one product? I am not sure. Once again, without message titles, I am clueless and left to my own thoughts.

Yes, presentations still have that “had to ‘been there” quality. BUT, as social media changes the way we work, it is also having an effect on how we communicate and consider the primary and secondary audiences we face. Message titles, even if they are just scattered through a presentation with the other slides filled with images and other engaging devices, will definitely help the various audiences far into our digital futures.

If only Amazon will hurry up with the delivery of Garr’s book Presentation Zen!

Day: January 6, 2008

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2008-01-06