Article for keynote speakers...
Hollywood Style or PowerPoint®?
by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

Recently, I was addressing one of the smaller National Speakers Association chapters. The program was on "How to Design a Charismatic Keynote--Hollywood Style." Even the most experienced speakers in the room were amazed with the ideas, comparisons, and performance level. Many of the guests were so excited by the quality of the program that they decided to join, while newer members asked how they could become more active. I was a hit.

If you are familiar with me or my work, you know I am a very high-tech marketer and low-tech presenter. I was raised on stories about Winston Churchill who got on the radio during World War II and made average citizens willing and eager to fight in the streets to defend their country. He did this with just the power of his words. His audience couldn't see him, except in their minds. Similarly, my style has always been focused on the words and on the delivery and performance level of a speech or seminar.

One of the audience members at this NSA presentation, a first timer, said he was surprised that I did not have PowerPoint®. My product sign was hand lettered, and I used a flip chart for my two diagrams. How, he asked, could the group hold me up as a "professional to emulate?" I suggested-rather strongly I admit-that if he judged my professionalism by the absence of PowerPoint® and my handwritten sign describing their purchasing opportunities, then he had totally missed the point of my three-and-a-half hour program. (I did not mention that renting PowerPoint® equipment would have cost his group more than my airline tickets.)

I fully appreciate PowerPoint® slides, and other wonderful visual aids when they are used well. But often they are misused. It is not my purpose to wage any kind of campaign against Microsoft's excellent PowerPoint®,although I do believe it is overused or misused. So does Edward R. Tufte, professor emeritus of political science, computer science, statistics, and graphic design at Yale.

The Disadvantages of High-Tech

In an article in the September 2003 issue of Wired magazine, Tufte writes:

"Presentations largely stand or fall on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content. If your numbers are boring, then you've got the wrong numbers. If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.

At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm. Yet the PowerPoint® style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content. Thus, PowerPoint® presentations too often resemble a school play--very loud, very slow, and very simple.

The practical conclusions are clear. PowerPoint® is a competent slide manager and projector. But, rather than supplementing a presentation, it has become a substitute for it. Such misuse ignores the most important rule of speaking. Respect the audience."

(Edward R. Tufte is the author of several best-selling and seminal books on graphic design.)

So Hollywood Style does not depend on expensive, high-tech equipment. It is an attitude, an immediacy of exciting communication that makes you a true star.

(569 words)

This article was first published in In an article in Wired magazine

Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE is a San Francisco-based executive speech coach, sales trainer, and professional keynote speaker. She is the author of Get What You Want!, Make It, SoYou Don't Have to Fake It!, and Past-President of the National Speakers Association. Meetings and Conventions Magazine named Fripp "one of the country's most electrifying speakers!" PFripp@Fripp.com, (800) 634-3035, http://www.fripp.com

Patricia Fripp offers both one-on-one and group speech coaching for individuals, leaders and sales teams for success through better speaking skills: http://www.executivespeechcoach.com

Patricia Fripp's CDs, DVDs, and video programs on public speaking and presentation skills will help you speak more effectively: http://fripp.com/publicspeakingresources/publicspeakingres.html

Find out about Fripp's speaking school and other public dates when Fripp is "speaking on speaking:" http://www.fripp.com/hearfripp.html

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