Devoted to small businesses and those who run them

Talk about a tool that is overused and most often not used correctly. I have two powerpoint pet peeves. The first one is that people use the slides as cue cards, requiring numerous slides to remind them of their talking points. The second is even worse -- showing a slide and then reading the paragraphs of words on them. Powerpoint slides are not a substitute for a teleprompter.

In my marketing presentations, I strive to use few slides and only those that support or further the points I am making. Many of the slides have no text at all. At least for the self-employed professionals that I address, this seems to work well.

I feel your pain with the pet peeves Peter. I absolutely agree.

Your approach sounds like an effective one. I like your idea of using no text at all on some slides. That breaks the pace a little too.

My pet peeve is when slides take too long to load because they have too many graphics or sound bites on them.

Hi Marcie
I hear you. Simplicity (and brevity) is best.

I think some people like to have all the bells and whistles when preparing power points.

Perhaps they think it looks more professional or important, but if it interferes with the message and the delivery, it defeats the purpose.

I believe there are two types of Powerpoint presentations: one that is designed to be read as a document and one that is designed to illustrate a talk. And many people use the first when they should use the second. Result: boredom.

I believe a purpose of a Powerpoint pack in a presentation scenario is to illustrate and underline the points that you want to talk about. if you put all that you are going to say in the slides then you'll find yourself basically reading what your listeners can easily read for themselves.

For me too it's just using text instead of relevant visuals.

Just because you can do visual and audio doesn't mean you should. This is a classic case of the technology dictating instead of your purpose in the presentation.

The deeper problem is thinking that information is something that I have and give to you, rather than something which you make as you encounter what is presented.

Thanks for sharing the power point presentation.

That's very interesting.

I'm so fortunate that I don't have to be killed by power point presentations. :)

Here's a funny story for you. I recently went to a training given by a man who does a lot of training for Microsoft. They specifically requested that he doesn't use PowerPoint in his trainings!

It seems Microsoft knows they've created a monster.

My main PP tip would be to use not only relevant but inspiring images, images that help your presentation along.

Pet peeve? Presenters that put a lot of text on their slides and then only read their slides for their presentation - no memorization or speech skills applied.