Mark McDonald

“How did he die?” the audience is huddled over an executive wearing a business suit and clutching a wireless mouse.  ”His brain exploded, at first we thought it was as stroke, but know we know better.”

“It was death by powerpoint.”

You hear the term a lot; you have probably had your life shortened by a particularly ‘interesting’ PowerPoint presentation.  Perhaps the author of this blog post has delivered that slide.  In either case it’s important to recognize that CIOs and IT executives have to make their presentations as clear, focused and intelligible as possible.

Remember that you are presenting to help the audience achieve their goals, not show how smart you are, how complex you can be or how you can squeeze more graphics into a presentation.  You are helping the audience do one of the following things:

– Make a decision

– Understand a situation

– Build Skill

– Entertain them

CIOs and IT executives need to think of the audience first, as they have to cover a lot of information that could be complex.  Why am I aiming this missive at CIOs and IT executives, because when it comes to death by PowerPoint often the smoking gun / or wireless clicker is in the hand of a technologist.

Take a look as CIO. com presents examples of some winning slides.

http://www.cio.com/special/slideshows/2009/02/bad_powerpoint/index#slideshow

If you see yourself, or one of your slides, think again – am I presenting a nugget of wisdom, or just a bullet meant to deliver death by powerpoint.

Please contribute slides that you think need to be registered because they are deadly weapons.

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Category: CIO Fun Personal Observation     Tags: Leadership, Powerpoint, presentations

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