Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.netThis is the 1st post in a series of two posts.
I make my own slides. But there are many presenters who outsource their work to others. You might be too 'busy' and so you ask your subordinate to make your slides. But presenting slides which someone else has made has its own share of problems.
1. Meaning: When you make slides, your mind is working. Your mind is talking as you type out the content. As a presenter, you need to understand (literally and figuratively) what the content on those slide really means. If you don't make it how will you know it?
2. Relevance: Only your subordinate knows why he has chosen a particular picture or ordered the animation in a particular way. You need to replicate his thought process while presenting.
3. Time: Your subordinate has broken the entire presentation time into all these slides. Can you present all this information in the given time? Are you sure he has not put more information than you can present?
4. Analysis: Only he knows how he arrived at that magic figure. It is he who has done all the data crunching and research for the last two nights. Will you be able to defend the figure in front of your audience?
5. Flow: Are you going to be comfortable with the flow your subordinate has chosen? Does he have a sense of the macro picture of what you are going to say and why? Is your subordinate qualified to make a presentation which you are supposed to make?
6. Butterflies in the stomach: Confidence comes when you know your content inside out. When your subordinate creates your slides, will you be able to present it more confidently than your own subordinate?
What is the solution then?
I am not saying that making your own slides is the only way out. Many a times there are busy CEOs and executives who just don't have time or the proficiency to create great slides. In such a case, there is a justified rationale for asking your subordinate or a presentation professional to make your slides. But in such a case, you should be well aware of these six problems.
This brings us to the next question. How do you present what someone else has made? How do you bypass these six problems? How do you successfully outsource presentation work?
This will be my topic for the next post. Click here to read it.
2 comments:
Hi Vivek
I agree with some of the problems you've identified. But you're talking as if the presentation and the slides were the same thing. The presenter should plan the presentation and storyboard on paper the slides they want to go with them. And then give another person with more time, technical proficiency and design flair the job of actually creating the slides.
Olivia
I agree with you Olivia.
The presenter SHOULD plan the presentation herself on a piece of paper and then ask the subordinate to prepare the slides. That's the right thing to do. So that she can overcome the six problems I have highlighted. And this is already one of the solutions I am going to propose in the next post (Part 2 of 2) :)
As far the problems are concerned, I would like to know which problem(s) you did not fully agree with.
On the first point, whether 'slides' and the 'presentation' are the same or not... of course they are not.
Thanks Olivia for sharing your valuable ideas on the blog.
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