On average, it is estimated that up to 350 presentations are delivered every second of every day. This is according to a study from the Harvard Business Review, and do not ask how they came up with this number. Presentations have simply become part of our (not only) working life.
We just blindly create and deliver them, very rarely thinking about whether a presentation is the best way to express our ideas. The Business Matters website dealt with this controversial subject of the actual usefulness of presentations for sharing information with other people.
We often suffer from the notion that we simply can not present the material unless it is on slides. We believe that it is a very effective way to highlight what is essential from our presentation, however it often happens that we do not achieved our communication goals. Slide shows are not effective if not presented in the right context.
What can we to? The format is not as important as the final effect, especially during an important business meeting. Ask yourself. What is the exact purpose of your output in front of your audience? Inform? Entertain? Convince? What is your goal; to receive more information, discuss or achieve a common consensus or to move on to the next stage in the negotiations?
Generally speaking, if you need to interact and share your thoughts, you should probably choose a discussion format instead of a presentation. In this case, for maximum effect it is better to prepare and provide all relevant information to your audience in advance. That way they can know the essential context and respond quickly. If you skip this step, you are wasting valuable time reserved for the meeting because you will have to explain the importance of the meeting at the beginning. Prepare visuals in advance and distribute them in printed form before the meeting starts.
Yes, you are right. This is a known practice. Very often, however, these pre-distributed materials are too opaque and without any explanation. Consequently, the speaker must decode the exact meaning of each point, so they are not useful. Nobody has time to decipher your materials, so your thoughts could easily be lost in translation. Rather, prior to the meeting, distribute a document that is meant to be read, not presented, and contains everything essential to an understanding of the context.
To perhaps highlight the advantages of visuals in presentations it is good to point to some of studies. They prove that a combination of visual material with text helps people better understand and retain the concept. Haig Kouyoumdjian, a clinical psychologist and author, also claims that our brain is predominantly set on visual perception. Therefore a large part of our sensory perception is devoted to visual images, not texts. The part of the brain for processing of words is, in fact relatively small compared with the size of the brain for processing visuals.
So yes, to presentations if you need less interaction with the audience. In addition, if you use visual material, leave sufficient space for the explanation of context. Your presentation should be understood even without you needing to comment.
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