beyond bullets

The Case of the Missing Metrics

If it seems mysterious that we sometimes talk in circles about PowerPoint and things don't get any better, just follow the trail of the missing metrics. That's where we'll find a clue that will help us crack this unsolved mystery.

Any good detective would begin by asking questions, so let's begin by asking questions about our questions. What questions do we tend to ask about PowerPoint, and what clues do the questions reveal about our assumptions? Let's locate our own orientation by looking at 2 groups of PowerPoint questions we could ask:

Group A:
1. Do you like a blue background better, or green?
2. Should my logo go in the upper left hand corner, or right?
3. Have you seen PowerPoint's latest animation feature?
4. Should I have a maximum of 5 rows of bullets, or 7?
5. How can I add some "pizzazz" to my presentation?

Group B:
1. Is our PowerPoint media helping us to achieve our goals, or is it standing in the way?
2. Does PowerPoint help us to retain our intellectual assets, or are we losing them?
3. How well do our audiences retain the information we present?
4. How well did this story structure work with this particular audience?
5. How do we close the gap between the metrics we wanted, and the metrics we got?

If we're asking questions mostly from Group A, it reveals that our orientation leans toward the "looks" of PowerPoint. All of these questions can easily be answered by individual presenters, based on their own personal tastes and preferences. There's no need to ask anyone else, because the questions exist independent of any particular corporate strategy, or audience. And since these are all "opinion" questions, we don't tend to think of the need to measure any of them.

Group B is a different case. If we're asking these questions, it reveals that our orientation leans toward the "results" of PowerPoint. None of these questions can easily be answered by individual presenters, because they ask how a particular activity (a PowerPoint presentation) relates to a specific strategy, and audience. In order to answer them, we would have no choice but to find a way to identify a basic set of metrics we could start to apply to our PowerPoint communications.

The differences between the two groups of questions reveal why PowerPoint does not seem to be moving beyond its current state of evolution -- because we have not yet moved beyond un-measured questions of looks and opinions, toward measured questions of results and data.

Many corporations invest massive amounts of money and mindshare into the microscopic measurement of the quality of their processes, products and services. And yet, PowerPoint is mysteriously exempt from the same objective lens. This PowerPoint permissiveness has a very big price, because without PowerPoint metrics, a company and its people are flying blind into a darkened landscape riddled with intellectually-dangerous bullet zones and productivity dead-ends.

What would happen if we began to hold PowerPoint to the same quality standards as every other process, product or service in our organization? I have a feeling a very big mystery would be easily solved.

Tip: If you'd like to start tracking down clues about your PowerPoint results rather than PowerPoint opinions, think about how you could develop a set meaningful metrics that would help you answer the questions in Group B, above. Whatever metrics you choose, you'll only be able to start solving your own PowerPoint puzzles if you're following the right clues, and asking the right questions.

(In)Decision 2004

Is there ever a time you might want to decide to surprise your audience with some unexpected meaning?

There's a TV show on Comedy Central that has a regular segment titled "Indecision 2004", which is a satire on the news and events from the U.S. presidential campaign leading up to the November elections.

"Indecision 2004" is an intriguing title because it's a clever play on words. Where we normally would think of a "Decision 2004", adding the prefix "In-" places an interesting spin on the word, adding new meaning with a mere 2 letters of the alphabet.

Let's give this interesting spin a try, and let you (in)decide whether it could work for you.

Open up a blank PowerPoint slide, and add a simple text box with the word "decision". Then place a second box with only the letters "in", and place it in front. Animate the "in" to Fade in, and then to Fade out again -- a sample slide is here.

Here's how you might decide to use it during a presentation:

Show slide, "decision" fades in: "We're obviously here today to make a decision about the next steps forward. The choices are clear, and obvious to everyone in the room."

The "in" fades in, forming the word "indecision" as you talk: "Or is it really clear after all?" (Insert audience chuckles here.) "I know a number of you still have questions you would like to resolve about the situation, so let's spend some time talking about them. Who wants to go first?" Then, after your dialogue,

The "in" fades out, returning back to the word "decision": "Does anyone else have any concerns before we move forward? All right, let's vote on the decision that's on the table."

When I've used this technique in my own presentations, people tell me that it creates a very interesting dynamic among the audience, the media, and me, because the 3 elements are interdependent upon one another, and as a result people listen very carefully to what I say, what they see, and what they say.

Plus, using a clever graphical technique like the example above can lighten up the tone of an otherwise heavy topic, ease tension, and demonstrate that you are capable of facilitating the meeting in a congenial spirit.

Who wouldn't want to make a decision in an environment like that?

Tip: The next time you present, try out this simple technique. What are some good candidates for a little wordplay? How about (re)alignment, (mis)understanding, (r)evolution? As you mix and match new meanings for your audiences, you just might make the decision that this is an interesting spin you want to keep on using.

Unpolished PowerPoint

When the stakes for your presentation are so high that your business depends on it, wouldn't you want your presentation to be as polished as possible? We would all naturally think so, but sometimes what we see isn't what we get.

A couple of savvy readers brought up the point that there are ways you can polish up the presentation dashboard approach so you never have to leave the Slide Show view. You could use PowerPoint's built-in features to internally hyperlink any slide to another one, or you could create a navigation bar that takes you directly to specific slides. These are all great ideas, and there are even more ways to buff up your PowerPoint so it shines brilliantly.

But sometimes we're so busy polishing the surfaces of our slides, we don't ask if the polish is getting us the type of attention we really want.

Henry Boettinger tells a story in Moving Mountains about a group of experts that had "honed and refined their visuals to close to perfection by any standards," using state-of-the art media and production techniques. The group was asked to present their ideas to the top executives in the company, and during a rehearsal with one of the executives,

"They did a superb job. Every detail and lesson they had learned was brought to bear. Timing was exquisite....When they finished, they expected such enthusiastic compliments as they got when they presented their story to their previous audiences. Instead the (executive) sat silently, fingertips together, shaking his head. The presentors were baffled and upset. Everyone of them knew they could not possibly do better. After enduring the silence as long as he could, my friend said to the executive: 'What do you think?' (He replied,) 'It's no good. Your presentation is simply too slick.'"

The presenters were pretty unhappy to hear this because they had invested so much time into polishing their presentation. The executive confirmed that in fact, all of their material was correct and "first-class", but the problem was that the presentation was over-polished, as he explained:

"'My colleagues will find the razzle-dazzle offensive and will become uncomfortable. They will feel that they have no place at all to apply their judgment. I'm afraid if you show them what I saw, they will modify your proposal, and I don't want that to happen. It's too good.'"

The group followed the executive's advice, and without changing their message, they down-graded the visuals, made things a little less structured, and intentionally missed a few cues when handing off to one another. The result? They "succeeded brilliantly," according to Henry.

By presenting a less-polished version to this decision-making group, the group came off less like "professional actors", and gave the senior team plenty of opportunity to apply their judgment, and to accept and approve the proposal. Based on his experiences, Henry formulated three "polish" principles:

1. As the need to inform an audience increases, the greater should be the degree of finish.
2. As an audience's power to approve increases, the lower should be the degree of finish.
3. The larger the audience, the greater should be the degree of finish.

Today we live in a very polished and slick media world, and it's natural for us to look there to take our PowerPoint cues. But if Henry's principles still stand, it may be that most of the media we see has such a high degree of finish because it is simply there to "inform" us, and is produced for large audiences. But if the same media were used to gain our approval, it would actually look less-finished. This less-finished approach is the norm when large advertising agencies present creative concepts to executives -- they commonly present a minimum of 3 draft concepts that inspire a conversation to pick and choose the best qualities of each.

If anything has changed since Henry wrote his principles in 1969, it's not so much the media, but audiences who expect less "information" and more involvement in the decision-making process.

So before you start polishing your PowerPoint, think about your audience, and what degree of finish is appropriate to meet your goals. The more polished your PowerPoint, the less you invite interaction. The less polished, the more you invite interaction. The degree of polish will help you see what you will get.

Tip: Does your polished PowerPoint deflect you from your goals? Or can an unpolished version actually reflect the best results? Try out the same presentation to different audiences, with different degrees of polish. You've got a great opportunity if you're raising money for your company, because you're likely to give a similar presentation to different audiences. First present your polished PowerPoint. Then try the less-polished presentation dashboard approach, or another one that is not quite so refined. What degree of polish gets you the most sparkling results?

Drive-By Inspiration

If you're looking to jump-start your creative engines, look no further than right outside your windshield. That's exactly where you might see some very interesting creative concepts looming high and wide across your view, in the form of very large visuals called billboards.

A well-designed billboard will catch your eye, communicate some information, make you smile, and prompt you to act. That sounds to me like pretty decent criteria for any particular PowerPoint slide, too, so let's give it a try:

Here's a picture of a billboard I snapped at the intersection of Hollywood and La Brea in Los Angeles -- it could be at the intersection of any two streets, anywhere. I thought it was interesting because it has a very simple composition, yet manages to be striking at the same time. Plus, it's a good example of how we can translate visual inspiration from any outside source into our own PowerPoint communications.

Let's say I'm a VP of sales & marketing getting ready to present to my team. I want my audience to remember a single specific datapoint from a recent survey -- that 87 out of 100 customers said they were interested in trying out a new product. This information is very important to our business, because it indicates very high customer interest that we should act upon right away.

In earlier posts, we looked at ways we think outside of the grid, and stretch our visual canvas, so let's apply those two ideas and see what we get:

This PowerPoint slide contains only a few elements -- two black boxes that create the illusion of a wide and narrow canvas, a red box with text in it, and a red circle with a number in it. Very simple, yet it can be powerful in its delivery:

White text box fades in: "I suppose many of you are wondering what we learned from our recent marketing survey. You can download and study the results for yourself after our meeting today, but one point stood out clearly out of all of the valuable information we collected. I knew some of our customers had been asking about our new products, but I had no idea how strong the demand was."
Circle with number fades in: "An incredible 87 out of 100 customers said they wanted to try our new products. This is very important information, because it means we need to quickly shift our resources so we can get the product samples out to the field."

By pulling out the key datapoint from the survey, you've applied your critical thinking to an information problem (out of all this information, what is most important?), and your graphical solution guarantees that no one will miss your point.

Of course you could customize this slide any way you wanted, making the boxes blue, the circle a square, or any other adjustments. But the big picture here, is that you've opened up your perspectives to include the endless stream of big visual innovations that you otherwise just might be driving by.

Tip: Grab your digital camera the next time you hit the road, and when you see a well-designed billboard, pull over somewhere safe and take a snapshot. When you get back to your computer, take a look at the picture and see if you can duplicate the layout with your PowerPoint tools. Now take a look at your presentation and pull out the most important information you want people to remember -- is there a way you can visualize your idea, as in the example above? Give it a try, and see if you can translate your drive-by inspiration into a more powerful PowerPoint.

The Presentation Dashboard

Would you be willing to let go of the steering wheel of your PowerPoint vehicle for a minute, if it meant you could get to where you're going faster and more efficiently? And to raise the stakes a little, what if the funding of your new business were riding on your decision?

Let's say you had a great idea for a new wireless product, and you had the team, technology and business plan to launch it. All you needed was the money to get it started. You decide to pitch the idea to a venture capitalist, to persuade her to invest in your idea.

You'd like to use PowerPoint because you are convinced of the power of visuals to communicate, but you recently read a venture capitalist's post titled "The Torturous World of PowerPoint," where he said that he had probably seen tens of thousands of PowerPoints, and "the vast majority of them suck." What do you do, when you have a clear case to make, but your audiences have such a strong negative opinion of your medium that they call it "torture"? Maybe it's possible you can transform the torture into an effective tactic, if you simply turn your PowerPoint approach in a new direction.

For many reasons, we often feel the need to keep absolute control of PowerPoint at all times. We might fear chaos, we might be nervous of public speaking, we might lack confidence in our topic, or we might want to make sure we've covered all the bullet-point bases by showing every idea we have, in a pre-ordained sequence of events. But whatever the reasons, this need for control comes at a very high price, in the form of unhappy audiences who increasingly complain that PowerPoint sets up a dominant, one-way power relationship between us and them.

There is no venture capitalist, or any other type of person, who enjoys feeling like they are the "victim" of someone else's "torturous" PowerPoint -- we all like to have a degree of input into the directions any of us are headed, especially when it comes to presentations. Yet we as PowerPoint presenters never give up an ounce of control to let anyone else decide anything. That can easily change if we give audiences, and ourselves, more freedom to choose with a "presentation dashboard" approach. Here's how we can apply it to your presentation about your wireless idea:

After you've met your potential investor, and have shaken hands and made introductions, open your laptop to display a simple, elegant image of a wireless product in your PowerPoint, as in this example. Instead of jumping right in to your "pitch" without any feedback from your audience, ask some questions like: "What do you see is the potential profitability of the wireless market? Why hasn’t any company been able to fully realize the potential?" Listen carefully to her responses, and repeat back what you hear -- "OK, you say the problem is that the technological innovations have dried up, and that the numbers don't add up anymore."

Now, click the "Esc" key on your keyboard, then choose View --> Slide Sorter (or, click on the Slide Sorter icon in the lower left of the PowerPoint window). Welcome to your "presentation dashboard."

If you've set up your PowerPoint using a unified design approach, each slide will contain a single main idea and will feature a visual that is easily recognizable from Slide Sorter view. In this simple mockup, there are visual placeholders for "retail channels", "financials", "our team", and "technology". Now that you know that your audience's main concerns relate to the technology and your financials, click first on the computer chip, choose View --> Slide Show (or click the F5 key) and discuss the following series of slides. Then click "Esc" again, and click on the chart to show and discuss the finance-related slides.

If you've organized your content with a modular approach, you might have a series of 5-10 slides for each of the topics that are important to your investor audience. There's no way you would ever be able to cover everything on the list because you're limited in time. But if you let your audience do the driving, you can go directly to the slides that are relevant to their interests, producing a much more targeted, tailored, meaningful, and profitable journey for everyone.

Tip: Try out your own "presentation dashboard" approach. Select and place a visual on each slide that introduces the main sections of your presentation. Choose --> Slide Sorter often to make sure you can easily identify the slides from this view. Now, select an evocative image to kick off the presentation. Ask questions to get information about what your audience wants to hear, then repeat back their responses. Click the "Esc" key to access your presentation dashboard, then choose the appropriate slides that allow your dialogue to follow a much more flexible, adaptable, and ultimately freer path. Enjoy the ride.

Fire, Water, Earth, Air

If you can transform ideas into pictures, you can transform media into meaning.

One of the really interesting things about PowerPoint is that it has transformed our concept of the "visual aid". In the days of overhead projectors, you could write something on a transparency, talk about it, then turn off the projector when you were done. Of course there's nothing stopping you from doing the same thing with your PowerPoint -- when you have a slide you want to show, you simply turn the projector on, and when you're done, turn it off. No big deal. You're only a slave to PowerPoint if you allow yourself to be.

But where the PowerPoint picture gets really interesting is if you look at it in the context of the larger media landscape that is transforming before our eyes. Every surface in our environment is increasingly covered by visuals, from everyday products to buildings to our own bodies. It's probably no accident that likewise, a PowerPoint is "always on", blending together the talk and visual aid into a new hybrid media mix. Whether or not what has happened is a good thing is certainly an interesting debate, but let's assume for a minute that the visual revolution around us can also help us communicate more effectively with PowerPoint.

Clearly we won't get anywhere with our "PowerPoint as usual" approach, because it's boring and frozen in its evolution. So what if we tried out a little "PowerPoint as unusual" and thaw out our thinking?

To do that, we would need to go back to the past, and look at how visuals can be used to set the stage, and update those ideas with a new media perspective. For example, set designers know how visual cues can set the tone of a theater scene, and Hollywood has refined the art to a science. Taking a cue from them, let's try our hand at using images to set the changing backdrop for the themes of a talk.

Let's say you want to engage an audience about the need to embrace change in your organization. Your goal is to spark interest, dialogue, and new thinking -- pretty elemental stuff. So you go to Corbis BizPresenter, like I did, and find four images that each represent the four elements of fire, water, earth and air. When you download the images, you simply Insert each image onto each slide -- the whole process may take a few minutes.

Then, your script might read something like this:

Slide 1 fades in (fire): "Has anyone here experienced the flames of uncontrollable change? (Raise your own hand here, to give permission for your audience to raise their hands.) What are some examples? (Listen, and repeat back responses.) We all face the relentless energy of changing circumstances, and part of our challenge is to find a way to transform this destructive power into energy that will fuel innovation."

Slide 2 fades in (water): "Of course, the fires of change can always be tamed with the cool waters of clear thinking. When we are centered on the core elements of our strategy, we can learn to continually adjust our approach and go with a more adaptable flow."

Slide 3 fades in (earth): "When we have a grounded ourselves in a solid approach, we can see every threat as an opportunity to plant new ideas, and to give them new life as they support and grow our strategy in a competitive environment."

Slide 4 fades in (air): "When we get to that place where we stop seeing change as a threat, we can see new perspectives that give us the space to adapt. Here are 3 practical things you can do to make this process such a part of your daily life, that it becomes as easy as breathing in and out..."

What do you think -- silly or strategic? Try it out, and let your own experience, and your audience, be the judge.

Tip: Go to Corbis, or to Microsoft's free clip art and media gallery, or to your own company's image libraries, and find 4 images that relate to your introduction. Set up a problem-statement for your audience, and try out the technique above. Notice how you relate the changing images, or don't. Try a run-through where you don't even refer to the images directly -- you just allow them to change behind you as you continue with your talk. Compare and contrast this approach with your standard bullet point approach. Ask your audience what they thought. If anything you tried actually burns away old thinking, waters your imagination, plants the seeds of innovation, or gives your mind the room to breathe, by all means consider adopting some new media elements to your PowerPoint portfolio.

What’s Your (Audience’s) Problem?

If you don’t know your audience’s problem, you’ve got a big problem. Because without a problem, your PowerPoint has no pivot point, and its center cannot hold.

Here's a case in point. George had done a great job of creating a series of 10 clean slides, featuring a very clear headline that summarized the main idea of each slide, a solid 3-act story structure, and an interesting visual to illustrate each idea. He had placed all explanatory text in the Notes area below the slides, giving the slide area breathing room and making sure that when he printed out Notes Pages, he would have a very meaningul handout. A job well done. Except. There was something missing at the very beginning -- the thing that that would either focus everyone's attention, or leave it scattered and confused.

I could see what was missing from George's PowerPoint, because I was missing the same thing at a recent workshop. I had worked hard to create a very good presentation, but the results fell short of my audience's expectations, and mine. What had happened that unraveled all my presentation preparation? I had a chance to figure it out later that day when I gave the same workshop to a different group. Although I used all the same materials, I simply adjusted a few words at the beginning, and the rest of the session was a hit. I had found that the difference between results and regrets all came down to a simple problem.

Peter Drucker is one of the most original thinkers I've come across, and for him to call a book "a first-class and highly original, but also highly practical, treatise both on how one thinks and how one presents thinking," there was no question I needed to read Moving Mountains, by Henry Boettinger. Sadly, the book is out of print, but happily, I was able to get a used copy and in it I found some of the most insightful thinking about presentation problems. According to Henry:

“Think of some problems you know of right now: personal, family, career, business, community, national, or global. What do they all have in common? One thing, at least. All problems consist of a mismatch between two things: what actually exists, and what we want to exist (in our desires and imagination). Since we also perceive events taking place in a stream of time, a problem’s solution must be in the future. Some time, short or infinite, separates the present set of unsatisfactory circumstances from those we want to replace them with. These two aspects, mismatch between two conceptions, and their separation in time, furnish the clue to why other human minds can become interested when a problem is stated explicitly, and why they founder if they have to guess at what the problem is.”

In other words, when you set up the core problem of every PowerPoint as a mismatch between a current state and a future state, your ideas become the pivot point that spins the powerful engine of your presentation forward.

Let's apply this idea to George's PowerPoint. The topic was about motivating people who provide support to customers -- an issue that's important to every business. The core problem boiled down to a matter of beliefs, results and actions. The current state was that everyone in the company had the belief that it was important to treat their customers well. However, the company had not been achieving the future state it desired -- results. The fundamental mismatch here was between the things people believed today, and the improved results they wanted in the future. George proposed that it was specific actions that would bridge the gap between belief and results, and his presentation promised to take his audience there, if they were willing to come along for the adventure. I knew I was.

I drafted up an animated slide for George to try out, consisting of three boxes. As the word "beliefs" appeared on screen on the left, George could ask: "What do we believe about customers?" He would listen, repeat back responses, and confirm: "We're in agreement here that we all believe we need to treat customers well." Then the word "results" fades in at the right side of the slide, and he would say: "But how are we doing with our results?" He would listen, repeat back responses, and confirm: "We can also agree that we're not doing as well as we'd like, and that we have, in fact, a big gap between what we believe and what we want to achieve. What will it take to bridge that gap?" Then the word "actions" appears between the "beliefs" and "results". "Ladies and gentlemen, nothing less than the right actions will bridge that gap! And that's what we're going to explore today -- the course of actions we need to take in order to transform our beliefs into results."

Get the picture? Seeing and defining the problem-statement is the hardest thing you'll ever do, but when you get it right, your entire PowerPoint will pivot around the powerful energy that a centered problem can provide.

Tip: You can use PowerPoint as a tool to solve your (audience) problems. A very simple graphic can have a powerful effect and help you cut to the graphical chase -- right-click to download the above example here, and take a look at how it's built. Think about your next presentation -- can you distill down your audience's core problem into struggle between a current state, a future state, and how you will close the gap? Write a word representing the problem at left, a word for the future state at right, and a word for the bridge between them. As in the example slide, animate each word to fade in as you ask questions of your audience, and guide your talk in response. When you've solved the problem of your problem, don't be surprised if your presentation holds tightly together and your ideas start to spin into clear meaning and productive engagement.

Rare, Medium or Well Done?

How do you like your meatiest ideas -- rare, medium, or well done?

Unfortunately, many PowerPoint slides that are overloaded with bullet points are simply platters of ideas that have not yet been fully grilled by the flame of critical thinking. The result for audiences is usually a debilitating case of intellectual indigestion.

We've all done it -- we spend a few minutes thinking about a topic, chop up a list of ideas, toss them on a slide, mix them up with a few graphics and serve them up on a bullet point platter that we're sure the audience will feast upon. There are so many ideas there, that they can pick and choose what they like.

Bon appetit.

Of course, the cognitive culinary critics will be the first to point out that this approach is a sure recipe for cognitive overload, since the mind simply cannot digest your smorgasbord of ideas. And if you read the points off the screen, you double the indigestion by overloading the mind's dual-processing channels. But at a certain level, we don't need to know the science of PowerPoint overload to know a slide isn't well done, just like we don't need to know the molecular structure of ice cream to know that it tastes good. The reverse applies too -- we may not know the exact reasons for under-cooked PowerPoint, but we know it when we see it.

So what's a technique for properly cooking a flavorful idea, and improving the quality of its presentation from rare to medium to well-done? Try out this recipe:

Tip: Invest a little time to get a clear picture of the quantity of information on your slides, so you can figure out how much more intellectual cooking you need to do. Take a single bulleted slide, and count the number of ideas you have there. Most bullet points represent a single idea, so say you have 6 bullets/ideas on the slide. Place each bullet/idea on a new slide -- in this case, you would have 6 new slides. Continue to do this for each slide in your presentation. If you had 20 slides when you started, you should have about 120 slides when you finish. Now, choose View --> Slide Sorter so you can get a clear look at the raw ingredients for your presentation. The reality of the science of memory is that people can only retain 3 or 4 ideas at any one time. So how can you boil down what you've got to the 3 most important points? Your audience will only find your ideas nutritious if you've done the hard prep work of reducing them down to their flavorful essence. Let's get cooking!

The Shifting Corporate Canvas

How wide and high can you stretch your thinking about ways you can use PowerPoint?

From what I've seen, you could expand it at least 35 feet across and 10.5 feet tall, because those were the dimensions for a projected PowerPoint at a recent sales conference for 20,000 people. Three projectors blended together their signals to create a seamless background image, which set the backdrop for an embedded live video feed and motion graphics display.

PowerPoint has already reconfigured the interior architecture of corporate meeting rooms from chairs surrounding a table, to chairs in a U-shape with a screen on one end. But beyond the walls of office buildings, it is stretching the screen beyond our previous imagination.

Much of this is due to the release of PowerPoint 2002, which has become a key production tool at trade shows, sales events and other high-end corporate productions. The software has taken center stage for some of the same reasons it’s used in lower-end shows: it’s fast and easy to make changes, plus clients get to continue receiving a return on their investment by re-purposing professionally-produced materials for their own PowerPoint presentations.

But a key difference the last few years is that PowerPoint can now present professional graphics with smooth animation. PowerPoint 2002 can easily do what used to involve expensive and proprietary tools, including the creation, display and animation of well-designed graphics that use gradients, transparency and imported Photoshop imagery.

If you're interested in some of the technical specs of the widescreen above, the PowerPoint page setup was changed to 24.5” x 10.5”, so it could be projected and blended across two of the three projectors, with a 25% overlap in between. The actual PowerPoint computer output a screen resolution of 1600 x 1200 letterboxed. In the third projector, another PowerPoint was fed into the picture-in-picture video feed, which was blended across the 25% overlap between that projector and the adjacent one, creating a single seamless screen of 35’ x 10.5’.

Technical details aside, this example clearly displays the fact that PowerPoint is not just for small meeting rooms anymore. You can stretch, narrow, bend, focus and blur the media lines as your vision, and strategy, sees fit. If you think PowerPoint is only for boring bullets, it's time to expand your sight to some very interesting new views.

Tip: Stretch your thinking about your own media canvas. You don't have to go through all of the technical complexity of a super-wide screen show in order to shift the shape of your sight. Without changing your page size, you can simply open a blank slide, and add two black boxes as I did in this example -- you can right-click and download the file here. When the PowerPoint slide is projected, the boxes create the illusion that the central area is the shape of your screen. If you put these black boxes in your Master template, every slide will appear that it has this interesting aspect ratio. Suddenly, you're not constrained to the same screen shape as a computer monitor, TV, film or magazine page like other designers -- you actually have many more creative possibilities. What could you do if you could apply your visual thinking to a wider, or narrower, canvas? Let's see.

A PowerPoint Culture Clash

Sometimes it takes a culture clash to make us aware that sometimes we are unaware.

Company A had a powerful PowerPoint approach. Every PowerPoint was limited to only a few slides, and had to be accompanied by a written report that explained the context and meaning for the slides. It was the company’s cultural expectation that everyone read the report in advance of the meeting, so they would be fully-informed and ready to focus on dialogue and decision-making that was facilitated by clean and clear slides.

I was very impressed. Here was a corporate culture that had effectively bypassed the very serious problems that PowerPoint presents for every corporation -- cognitive overload, lack of context, loss of intellectual assets, diminishing dialogue, and discouragement of deep thinking. If every CEO decided today that every PowerPoint in every organization be limited to no more than 10 clean and clear slides and be accompanied by a written report, the number of PowerPoint presentations would dramatically drop, but their quality would dramatically increase.

Sounds like a happy ending, right? Well, Company A was acquired by Company B, and Company B had very different PowerPoint practices. When someone from Company A presented a PowerPoint to his new colleagues in Company B, he was told something to the effect, "No, you can't do it that way. You need to put all of the information from your slides and your report onto only one slide, because that's how we do it here. You don't need to bother with writing a report, because no one will read it." They had pressured him to change his PowerPoint approach from clarity and simplicity to confusion and cognitive overload.

This story is especially poignant because Company B is in fact a very smart, innovative, creative, adaptable company. It simply is not aware it has a particular PowerPoint culture, let alone that it unconsciously suffocates innovative ideas, as it did in this case. If Company B were to try out Company A's approach as an experiment, I'm sure the strategic benefits would be quick and crystal clear.

In the natural world, the point where two rivers converge is a place of conflict and turmoil, but it is also the place where some of the richest forms of life thrive. In the natural world of business, the convergence of two corporate cultures is a place of conflict and turmoil that can force us to re-think how we think, if we only look and listen for the very rich opportunities.

Tip: Take the temperature of your PowerPoint culture by trying out one of the tips from this blog. What kind of response do you get? If you get an open reception, keep on creating. If you hear back that "we don't do that here," share your story by adding a comment to this posting, and maybe together we can figure out a way to spin a culture clash into a creative opportunity.