Survey Shows Organizations Wasting Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Due to Poor Presentations

A recent online survey showed that when it comes to PowerPoint presentations, most presenters annoy their audience in many different ways. And when audiences are turned off by the presentation, organizations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted time in meetings, delayed decisions and extra meetings to clarify the message.

A recent online survey showed that when it comes to PowerPoint presentations, most presenters annoy their audience in many different ways. And when audiences are turned off by the presentation, organizations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted time in meetings, delayed decisions and extra meetings to clarify the message.

The survey asked what the three most annoying things were about bad PowerPoint presentations. According to the survey, conducted on the www.communicateusingtechnology.com web site, the most common complaints are: Speakers reading their slides to the audience (60% of respondents cited this item), Text on the slides is too small to be readable (51%) and Full sentences were used instead of bullet points (48%). This survey is one of the first to investigate how presentations are seen from the audience point of view.

Of those respondents who see 100 or more presentations per year, more than half said that 40% or more of the presentations they see suffer from one or more of the annoying traits. The costs of poor presentations are in the time wasted by those who attended and in the extra work that must be done to communicate the intended message again since it was not done properly the first time.

Dave Paradi, who runs the www.communicateusingtechnology.com web site and teaches people how to effectively use PowerPoint, was not surprised. Too many presenters rely on the tool as a crutch. They dont take the time to figure out what to add to the points they are making. They have been given a wonderful tool but they ignore the usefulness and are essentially reading a report out loud."

Paradi also pointed out the staggering costs of these poor presentations. If you look at an organization that has 10 presentations per day -- not very hard in an organization of 250 or more professionals -- the wasted time and time spent in rework can add up to over $450,000 per year."

Paradi offers these suggestions. Start by preparing a proper outline of the points that need to be covered and then back each point up with research that adds depth to the idea being shared. When creating slides, decide what the key points are and only put those on the slides in larger font so everyone can see them. When you present, add the depth to the key points shown on the slides with the words you speak. By adding depth you justify why the audience should spend time listening instead of simply reading a report."

As this survey clearly demonstrates, improving the quality of PowerPoint presentations, a common communication vehicle, can have bottom line benefits to many organizations.

The detailed survey results can be viewed at:
http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/pptresults.htm

For additional information, contact Dave Paradi at 905-510-4911.

About Dave Paradi and www.communicateusingtechnology.com:
Dave Paradi is known as The Office Technology Lifeguard because he rescues people from Death by PowerPoint" and other electronic sins. He has authored five books and his web site offers numerous free articles. He also writes a bi-weekly newsletter which is sent to subscribers around the world.