When we speak with clients about their executive presentations, we often hear in response to our questions about the quality of their presenters or presentations that they don’t want to experience “DEATH BY POWERPOINT,” and we understand exactly what they mean. We have a couple of suggestions that have worked out wonderfully for those who have really stepped up to do something about it.

Increasingly, audiences today have been exposed to much more fascinating and memorable presentations outside of “General Sessions” than the audiences of 1987 when the earliest versions of PowerPoint began emerging. To stimulate groups today, we often advise a couple of formats better suited to viewers of presentations than were available 24 years ago.

Less is more is an apt theme for either approach.

“Pecha Kucha”, or “20 X 20”, describes a technique in which presenters are granted 20 slides on which they can spend 20 seconds of speaking. That’s 6 minutes and 40 seconds a presentation. It forces presenters to distill their thoughts to the most salient points they want remembered; so they do the work of editing instead of imposing it on their listeners. Presentation slides are more succinct and advance automatically after 20 seconds, so speakers have to rehearse before arriving on-site – another critical practice to develop better presentations.

Similarly, we’ve developed presentations which are supported only by single or very few words per slide or brilliant supportive visuals: photos, illustrations, graphics, etc…This device also engages audiences with something much more stimulating than words and bullets. If the right picture is worth a thousand words, use it and capture the attention and imagination of your audience with a new experience. Evocative words can also stimulate the listener better and more quickly than verbose presentations which seem to run on for hours.

Varied presenters and audiences have experienced this new approach. Resistant speakers find it creative and empowering and attendees have rated their experiences with enthusiasm.