Since PowerPoint 1.0 launched in September 1987 it’s grown to become a staple in our daily business life. It seems a meeting isn’t complete without a projector and a screen. At CRA we don’t always believe there’s a need for PowerPoint (sometimes uninterrupted dialogue is more powerful), but we do believe if created correctly, PowerPoint can be extremely helpful in illustrating your thoughts.
I’m sure many of you have witnessed a time when a presentation caused confusion and actually spoiled the main message. I thought about this as I read The Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler. The book touches on principles of design that apply to everything from everyday computer programs to the not-so-everyday nuclear power plant, Three Mile Island. Below I’ve listed the book’s top design tips for a successful PowerPoint presentation.
1) Color. The color you use should serve a purpose: “to attract attention, group elements, indicate meaning, and enhance aesthetics,” the book explains. Use color in moderation, and limit your color choices to five (which is the number of colors the eye can process in one glance). For simple, successful color selection, stick with the primary colors.
2) Framing. Think about the order of your presentation. To make sure you tell your story in the best order possible. Think about how the audience will see and hear your story. Graphics, text, and background information can powerfully alter how people view your presentation.
3) Ockham’s Razor. Ockham, a medieval friar and scholastic scholar, is credited with the idea that when given a choice between functionally equivalent designs, the simplest design will be chosen. This means simple designs are favored over complex designs. While this seems like common knowledge, I believe it’s the number one cause of “death by PowerPoint.” We want our presentations to be flashy and attention-grabbing, but in reality the clutter makes the presentation less effective. When in doubt, stick to basics.
4) Picture Superiority Effect. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Pictures are “generally more easily recognized and recalled than words, although memory for pictures and words together is superior to memory for words alone or pictures alone.” Audience memory increases even further when words and pictures are used together. With this in mind, you can emphasize key points incorporating pictures and words together to gain the highest level of audience recall.
5) Readability. I think the book explains this best, “It is a common belief that complex information requires complex presentation. This is not true. The most complex information requires the simplest presentation so that the focus is on the information rather than the way it is presented.” Avoid acronyms and jargon.
Avid CommLog readers know this isn’t the first time we’ve written about PowerPoint. To refresh your memory click here and here and view some of our other posts about PowerPoint. With these tips in mind, hopefully, we can all avoid “death by PowerPoint” and be more successful communicators in the long run.
Is urban violence viral? It might be, according to experts cited in this New York Times magazine article. The essence:
CeaseFire’s founder, Gary Slutkin, is an epidemiologist and a physician who for 10 years battled infectious diseases in Africa. He says that violence directly mimics infections like tuberculosis and AIDS, and so, he suggests, the treatment ought to mimic the regimen applied to these diseases: go after the most infected, and stop the infection at its source. “For violence, we’re trying to interrupt the next event, the next transmission, the next violent activity,” Slutkin told me recently. “And the violent activity predicts the next violent activity like H.I.V. predicts the next H.I.V. and TB predicts the next TB.” Slutkin wants to shift how we think about violence from a moral issue (good and bad people) to a public health one (healthful and unhealthful behavior).
It seems plausible, and interestingly, very similar to our approach to stakeholder management at the office–except in that case, we’re trying to foster the spread of behavior rather than hinder it.
Either way, the central issue is network effects, and in particular, the role of hyper-connected actors within the network. Think of it this way: If someone catches the cold, but only interacts with a few other people, the rate of transmission is likely to be low. If on the other hand the ill person shakes 100 hands a day, well, a lot of people are probably going to get sick. Substitute the willingness to enact violence, or support for your company’s SAP implementation, for the common cold, and it’s clear that not everyone in the network is equal in the effects they exert on the whole. It’s all about dealing with the critical few.
For the seminal academic piece read Rogers; for the seminal popular piece read Gladwell (the book or the original article).
Have you considered gearing up for your next speech by having a couple of cocktails while working on your presentation? Or, have you considered having a few drinks to ease your anxiety the day before a big speech?
Research on speech performance in the past has mostly focused on writing, speech anxiety, practice, and motivation. A new study conducted by R.K. Mitchell and L. Nelson has turned these studies upside down by focusing on the effects of drinking alcohol in the five days prior to a speaking engagement.
In this study, the negative effects of drinking prior to a speech outweigh all of the positive effects of writing, practicing, reducing your anxiety, and your motivation to perform well. This study shows a strong correlation: the more alcohol consumed in the five days before a speech, the poorer the speech performance. There is no clear evidence at this time as to the number of drinks or the frequency of drinking that will have a negative effect on performance, but there is evidence to show a correlation between the two.
We may want to take this into consideration before a speaking engagement. If you would like to know more, you will find the full research article under the title:
Don’t Drink and Speak: The Relationships among Alcohol Use, Practice, Motivation, Anxiety, and Speech Performance, found in the May issue of Communication Research Reports by R. King-Mitchell and C.L. Nelson.
(For access online, a subscription is required)
www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a778590849~db=all~jumptype=rss
We work very hard to teach leaders that human beings are sense-making creatures: We try, at every opportunity, to make sense of what we see, hear, and experience. A consequence is that when a vacuum of information exists, we try to fill it by creating meaning of our own, which may or may not be close to the reality a leader is trying to convey.
Thanks to an email forward by my wife Kate, this morning I saw a wonderful example of this: Over two hundred people deciding to freeze in place, simultaneously, on the main concourse of Grand Central Station in New York. Watch the video, and watch folks try to create meaning out of the event. Acting class? Protest? What in the world IS this? Everybody there has a different interpretation, but they all HAVE an interpretation, and it’s one they’ve crafted out of their past experiences and the overall context at hand. They fill the vacuum.
So the question is: What vacuums of information are your employees filling with meaning? You may not know, but you can count on the people you lead to create meaning for your every decision and action. Your job as a leader is to frame those decisions and actions, adding context so their interpretation is as close as possible to your intention. In times of uncertainty or change, when what you can communicate may be limited, this can be difficult. But there are things you can do to help:
- Refuse to allow vacuums. If there is information you’re not able to share because the facts aren’t settled or HR, your superior, or legal won’t permit it, frame the context by communicating probabilities: What’s certain, likely, unknown (or what you can’t say), unlikely, and impossible. Doing so at the very least contextualizes and constrains the meaning employees (or your peers, or your kids) can create.
- Refuse to let silence be a message. NOT communicating when employees know something is afoot sends a message, and it’s a relational one that employees will interpret as ranging from “I don’t care” to “I don’t respect you.” The act of communicating in the face of uncertainty, be it by sharing probabilities, or even saying “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell you and here’s why,” sends a message about your identity and the relationship. It says “I care” and “I respect you,” both of which are essential to maintaining relational capital during uncertain times.
- Aggressively challenge incorrect conclusions. If you find that employees (or the Board, or your kids) have filled the vacuum with incorrect meaning, challenge and correct those assumptions. Provide the facts, or if you can’t, the probabilities or even the “I can’t say,” but don’t allow the wrong meaning to exist. Not only does it keep bad information in the system, it can brand a leader as passive. In the face of very disruptive change or very bad news, an audience can easily interpret this passivity as cowardice.
Managing meaning during difficult or changing times isn’t easy, but it’s a leader’s burden. The point is to get folks through it with as much relational capital and loyalty as possible–and silence is antithetical to both.
If you’ve been living under a rock in recent years, we’ve got news: High schoolers are increasingly relying on on-line tools to express themselves and communicate with friends. See Pew Internet study with alarming statistics here. (e.g., Thirty-five percent of all teenage girls “blog.”)
Between text messages, Facebook pages, and personal blogs, it appears children need not leave their homes for any reason whatsoever any more. Before I digress about the demise of Kick the Can, a question we get from our clients: How am I, a Baby Boomer, and my company, [insert appropriate descriptor here], to reach the new generation?
If you can’t beat them, join them, right? Perhaps. But three quick tips to observe:
- Use communication channels that are most appropriate for the communicator and your company’s culture. Authenticity is far more important than anything else. You don’t want the CEO who can’t turn his computer on starting his own blog.
- Use particular on-line tools because they are helping to accomplish particular objectives. Start with your objective, the message you want to send, and then match these with the appropriate media, understanding that different media are appropriate for different messages. See more about media richness here.
- Never use new media as a substitute for face-to-face communication. Remember the old-fashioned conversation? It is still the most effective means for communication.
As a new generation enters the workforce, we must get smarter about new media choices, and we may even need to adapt our approach. But, we should do it because it makes sense—not because that’s what the cool kids are doing.
Recently, a client asked me, “So, what’s the scuttlebutt (word origin here) about us?” The question made me think about gossip and its role in organizations. Why do we gossip? Because it just plain feels good to have and share information.
Social scientists believe that gossip serves the same purpose for humans that reciprocal grooming does among primates—anthropologists call it “social grooming.” Research shows that both types of grooming stimulate endorphin production, which relieves stress and boosts the immune system.
I was surprised to learn just how much time we devote to water cooler, back-fence talk—we spend two thirds (!) of our conversations gossiping. With that in mind, we advise clients to divvy their communication attentions between formal and informal channels.
What really communicates? While formal communications—memos, financial reports, staff meetings, newsletters, town halls—are not going anywhere, neither are informal exchanges in the workplace. Quite the opposite. Widespread adoption of social media (a recent post by Meredith speaks to the value in virtual networks) means new types of informal channels are on the rise, and so is the ease with which we send messages informally. Not only does information travel faster through informal channels than through formal means, but it is malleable along the way.
In other words, messages sent through informal channels are undocumented, and open to change and interpretation as they rush through the grapevine (word origin here). Informal messages are unbound by the org chart and thus, move in every direction: up, down, and diagonally, between workers and managers, and even inside and outside the company.
The best organizations manage the grapevine as simply another channel for information, and equip managers with the tools they need to share information—proactively—with their teams. Not only are managers trusted sources of information, but they directly link leadership and the front line.
Though strategically handling the grapevine can be a challenge, it’s one that leaders should embrace. Those who grasp the power of the grapevine will be better prepared to utilize it to achieve organizational goals.
Thanks to sites like LinkedIn and yes, Facebook, online social networking is making a strong presence in the professional sphere. And as Carolynne posted, organizations are starting to encourage employees to use social networking technology for collaboration and to create cross-office connections. But as we place ourselves in multiple virtual networks, how can we get the most out of our online presence? Know that the basic principles about networks apply; to get the value out of networks—online or otherwise—it’s important to know how they work:
There are four types of people who operate inside networks:
- Isolate: People who communicate infrequently, if at all
- Average: People who communicate with average frequency to a moderate number of people
- Bridge: Those who communicate with the same amount as others, but have key relationships with people from a variety of groups
- Star: Those who communicate and maintain relationships with a significantly greater number of people than the average person
There are going to be people who are more active in online networks just as they would be offline. One role isn’t necessarily better than another, but the roles people play inside networks can have consequences on who we know.
It’s about the strength of your network, not necessarily the size:
- There’s one variable that predicts relationship quality with more power than any other: frequency of contact.
- The more people you care for, the harder it becomes to care. We don’t have relationships, we grow relationships. Cultivate the ones that really matter.
- You only have so much time, and there are only so many people with whom you can share that time. So spend your time on the relationships that matter.
There’s power in the “weak tie:”
- If you’ve cultivated the right relationships, you’ll benefit from their networks.
- If you’re cultivating the relationships that really matter, those are the people who have the right amount of influence and credibility to connect you to their networks—thus, you’re establishing powerful “weak ties” without even knowing.
Informal Networks are often the most trusted source of information.
- Rumor mills exist because of informal networks.
- People inside organizations make value judgments based on the information they hear from their informal networks.
We flock to networks because they’re powerful—they connect us quickly to trusted sources of information. And we like online networks because they’re fast and they’re easy. Remember that easy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more effective (read more about Media Richness here). While online profiles aren’t a substitute for interpersonal relationships, if managed properly, they can make our existing relationships stronger. As we build more networks online, remember—it’s still all about building the right relationships.
Much of the ongoing dialogue among internal communicators suggests that a key trend for the future of the function is outsourcing, unless, and it’s a big “unless,” the function can clearly demonstrate a convincing return on investment (ROI). In other words, if your function isn’t making money, then you’re a cost – and costs get cut.
There is certainly enough evidence for this to be taken seriously. But let me suggest a counter-trend: internal communications will become increasingly valued as the internal execution arm of the chief strategy officer.
Never heard of the chief strategy officer? Maybe you already have one, but under a different title (researchers found more than 90 title variations for this role[CRA1] ). If you don’t have a CSO, it’s quite possible you will soon. The role is appearing with “increasing frequency,” according to the authors of the article “The Chief Strategy Officer,” in the October 2007 edition of Harvard Business Review. (Please note: you may need a subscription to read the full article.) http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_action=get-article&articleID=R0710D&ml_page=1&ml_subscriber=true
Whatever the title, the CSO role’s responsibilities for strategy formulation and execution entail heavy communications: clarifying the strategy, gaining commitment to it, and driving change to accomplish it. Smart CSOs are going to want and need the communications function close at hand.
Evidence for these trends remains anecdotal, but the experience last year of three communication functions in three different organizations in one city proves instructive:
- At an internationally renowned consumer-packaged goods company, internal communications and PR were moved from HR and Marketing respectively and consolidated directly under the chief strategy officer.
- At a troubled national health care concern, all communications were outsourced to a PR firm.
- At a global leader in “convenience retailing,” communications were also outsourced to a PR firm. The company then appointed a chief strategy officer who soon brought the entire communications team back inside the company as full-time employees.
The best CSOs recognize that their business success is built on effective communications. That recognition offers communicators the opportunity to spend less time trying to prove they’re relevant to the business, and more time achieving business results.
