Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes - The Goodman ...

The last two chapters drill down into the nitty-gritty of presenting. According to our
survey, over 60% of public interest professionals use visuals to support their presentations,
and in most cases that means PowerPoint. Chapter 4, “PowerPoint Is Your Friend,” offers
seven recommendations for making the most of this ubiquitous but much maligned software.
And Chapter 5, “The Small Stuff (It’s Worth Sweating)” offers tips on preparing
handouts, creating evaluation forms, securing the right equipment, and nailing down all
those other details nobody notices … until something goes wrong.
By the time you reach the back of this book, you may feel like you have been given more
guidelines, recommendations, and to-do lists than one person can reasonably hope to
remember. So, we have summarized the most essential take-away in checklists that
are designed, literally, to be taken away. Look for them in the Resources section under
“Checklists to Go” and just cut along the dotted lines.
So, Is This Book for You?
When Cause Communications and I first discussed plans for this book, we loosely
defined our audience as any public interest professional who has to speak to more than five
people for more than five minutes on a previously assigned topic. Through our research,
however, we have developed a clearer picture of the kinds of individuals who can benefit
from reading this book.
In our survey, we asked respondents to describe the presentations they give and to evaluate
their own levels of skill. By doing so, what we initially viewed as an undifferentiated mass
of good-hearted, hard-working people divided itself into five categories of presenters:
All-Stars (18% of survey respondents): This group excels at all aspects of presenting,
from developing an initial outline to performing at the podium. This is no accident:
While All-Stars may have some natural gifts, they have invested in formal training or
read relevant publications (or both) to hone their skills. All-Stars are inclined to seek
feedback from others, but they do not rehearse as often as other kinds of presenters,
most likely because they do not feel the need. All-Stars tend to use visuals such as
PowerPoint and regularly bring handouts for audience members. Not only do they
interact with their audience in the course of a typical presentation, they are the only
group who consistently encourages audience members to interact with one another. Of
the five groups, they are most confident in their skills and genuinely look forward to
opportunities to present.
Naturals (20%): In basic skill level, this group resembles the All-Stars. They follow
most of the principles that define good presentations, but this is a result more of
intuition than formal training or independent study. Naturals spend more time
rehearsing than All-Stars, but not as much as some of the groups below. While they
are comfortable interacting with their audiences and do so consistently, they rarely
encourage peer-to-peer interaction between audience members.
pg. 5