Effective business communications, presentation skills can be suppressed by PowerPoint

"PowerPoint presentations are a new form of anesthesia and torture. Have also been used in the prison of Abu Ghraib." ~ Anonymous U.S. military officer.

Each month I attend a breakfast meeting on the basis of independent professional advisers. It is a well-managed non-profit, and the luxurious country club, where we gather serves bacon made just the way I like - chewy, not brittle. Each month, we have a speaker. Almost every month, the speaker carries us through a PowerPoint presentation (with the exception of a banker, who has avoided the slides for a speech unadorned, tells us that, in the "interests of efficiency", he was not going to explain the financial jargon that was using!).

Every month, my growing distaste for PowerPoint. The speaker breaks the eye contact several times, most of us back from the table more than one screen I can not understand much of the lettering, and the give and take that should animate any such presentation takes another dive - offer nothing but the illusion of coherence. And 'technology as a crutch, standing in just for good old visual style to speak in public that we have within us.

What I mean is that we can all interact directly with an audience and express ourselves in well-prepared fashion. Well prepared means a 15 minute presentation that was presented in a logical way, as if writing an email to a friend or associate intelligent. Once you've got that down, the evidence in front of a mirror or a family member or colleague. It 'so simple. Do not let PowerPoint hinder effective communication face to face so well that we need.

The emphasis on the process of PowerPoint in the house when suddenly the product I worked last year with some Navy SEALs in Virginia Beach, Va. back in the states of combat and deployment of security personnel were part of the Naval Special Weapons Development Group, and I was asked to cultivate a concise, to-the-point writing style to communicate effectively with their superiors in the Pentagon. Soon it became apparent that they were frustrated by the briefings were given to senior officials, including ambassadors and politicians.

For a man who hated PowerPoint. As elite warriors, SEALs are subject to constant training - updates on weapons, civil affairs, language, explosives, you name it. Too often, they complained, that meant absorbing a slide after the other, then being pronounced "trained" as if that's all it took. They appreciate these words of Richard Danzig, Navy secretary in the Clinton administration: "The idea behind most of these meetings is for us to sit through 100 slides with glassy eyes, and then do what all military organizations hope surrender to an overwhelming mass ... ".

In this context, here's what we came for briefings of seals: instead of a PowerPoint projector, make sure there is a flip chart, whiteboard or blackboard, a few steps of your podium or lectern. Leave the lights on and lay out your presentation, pausing every few minutes walk over and write a few key points. I told them that their audience would follow their lead and pay close attention to what they had to "say" with permanent marker. In other words, some words or phrases on the main board connecting them to their listeners in an almost physical sense, with nothing standing in the way of technology. (As a side benefit, a walk to the podium to board and back is a good way to deal with nerves.)

"But what about all the information you want your audience to take away?" you may ask. "And all that stuff that appears in the slides that I use now?" No problem. At first, just tell them not to worry about scribbling down all the details you throw at them. Tell them that we distribute cards at the end.

After all, the primary objective is the commitment and involvement in what you are saying. A good speech or presentation - again, hold for 15 minutes, 20 outside - is successful if it leads to a vigorous session of Questions and Answers. When speaking directly to your listeners, instead of looking away and repeat steps unending list on a slide, you have prepared the ground for trading ideas verbally, rather than passively absorb the next image.

I can not say that best-known Italian marketing and advertising consultant Giancarlo Livraghi: "The PowerPoint syndrome is not only the abuse of specific technology is a cultural disease.." One ......