Infocus 'What Not To Present' Contest
It’s not clear whether the presentation experts at InFocus Labs have opened a Pandora’s Box with this event, but their “What Not To Present“ contest apparently overwhelmed even their most staid judges in terms of popular response and the degree to which things can sink and still be considered acceptable. The response from the field was both daunting and gratifying:
“Our ‘What Not to Present’ contest was epic! Many thanks to all of you kind folks that submitted entries and spread the word about it. Many amazingly horrendous slides were sent in from all around the world. We laughed. We cried. We cringed.”
Naturally once the floodgates were opened the selection of a winner was not at all an easy task.
“We randomly chose our top 3 winners, but then quickly realized that we had to do more. So we are giving away ANOTHER projector to the slide we thought was the most horrendous. We passed the ugliness around the InFocus offices and to many of our partners pandering for votes – and we have a winner!”
Prizes generously include InFocus projectors and accessories.
Suspense mounting? Here’s the First Place winner from the random selection round:
See yourself in that slide? Me too. Kind of makes me cringe. Hopefully we all have slides like that locked securely in our pasts.
But that’s not the point of the “What Not to Present” competition. The good folks at InFocus must surely be sick and tired of their excellent products being associated with – one might even say equated to – the kind of visual flotsam that populated this contest. And they’d like it to stop. So, in an ongoing effort to assist in cultivating our design and presentation senses they are going to offer ongoing therapy to the readers of their blog wherein experts Garr Reynolds and Ellen Finkelstein will offer free advice on how to make presentations attract our attentions for all the right reasons. So, stay tuned. In the meantime, and capturing a feeling right at home on these pages, Ellen Finkelstein offers a few tips on how to avoid being submitted as a contestant in next year’s “What Not to Present” contest: Have Compassion on Your Audience!
Now, ready for this year’s Grand Prize Winner of the worldwide InFocus “What Not to Present” competition? Here you go.
Further Reading
PowerPoint Overload – Two Pounds of Sausage in a One Pound Bag
“The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within”
“PowerPoint Does Rocket Science–and Better Techniques for Technical Reports”
If you’re thinking that you might want to tune up your next PowerPoint presenation, take a look at “How to Create a Captivating Presentation” by Mark MacGuinness at the99percent.com. Here are a few of Mark MacGuiness’s suggestions for getting things back on track:
1. Tap your enthusiasm.
2. Get to the core of your message.
Boil your presentation down to three key points your audience must understand.
3. Tell a captivating story.
Next time you hear a presenter say “I’ll begin by telling you a story…” watch the audience – you’ll see them relax into their chairs. They are re-entering the pleasant “storytime trance” they knew and loved as kids.
4. Wow them with words.
5. Create stunning slides.
Garr Reynolds’ book Presentation Zen Design will introduce you to basic design principles for creating slides from the images. If you are a graphic designer, check out Nancy Duarte’s beautiful book Slide:ology, for a stimulating guide to the creative possibilities of slide design.
6. Keep it simple.
This is all you need for a truly great presentation:
One big idea
Three key points
One compelling story
One idea per slide (and no more than six words)
One clear call to action
Please read the full post here.