Modern Business is Inflicting Boredom on Each Other
Each of us has been to a thousand presentations and we can count the fingers of a sloth which ones were in the slightest bit interesting. Yet, we sat through those mind-numbing presentations and then, guess what…we subjected our colleagues, customers and conferences to exactly the same excruciating boredom!
Why? Maybe it’s to get our own back. I was bored stiff, so you’ll suffer the same. Aha. Probably not. But why do we do the same thing?
I Blame PowerPoint…
Dear old Bill G was a genius and a rich one. But come on Bill, PowerPoint – It’s killing us.
Bill, you’ve created a tool but we all use to test how long we can stay awake after the 42nd slide about the figures from accounts that we didn’t understand 12 slides ago.’
If Bill were here…can I borrow some money – erm, I mean, ‘Bill, tell us what do you think is happening?’.
‘You’re all using it wrongly. Terribly’, squawks Bill from the Penthouse.
He might be right. We’ve slipped into a rut and we are definitely doing what the quote says, “Most people use PowerPoint like a drunk uses a lamppost – for support rather than illumination.” Ignorant they may be, but ignorance attracts other great evils such as boredom.
It took me a while to get my head around that quote but when I did I realised that the slides aren’t what people came to see – I was. The slides are there to help me to get my messages across. Not, here’re the slides and oh, I happen to be the muppet clicking them through and reading exactly what’s on them.
Yes Boredom, But its Presence is Not All Ignorance
Enter the controversy that some slides are intentionally made to bore you. Face it, some people don’t like information and the ones who know this will use boredom to their advantage. A boring presentation is their little trick to get you to ‘sleep through’ the important facts and just say yes at the end. It’s not their fault you didn’t see the slide showing they are heavily in debt and their ridiculously high staff turnover.
Think I’m exaggerating? Just take a look at most university lecture slides. If you want a template for the most boring presentations, you’ll get a mouthful with those. Yes, the sad reality is some university slides are designed that way to fail students. Students end up sleeping through an entire one-hour lecture, only to remember nothing a the end. Thus, maximising the university’s revenue from students repeating courses. Get it? It’s a sad world we live in!
Thankfully, here are MBM, we don’t believe in this. We have ethical standards. So to help you become the best version of yourself, this post (or ramble) doesn’t just end here.
Use These 5 Tips to Move From ‘Instantly Forgettable’ to Wonderfully Memorable’
- Firstly, don’t use a white background. Use a darker one to add contrast (remember we’re preventing boredom here!). You’ll notice most university slides are presented with a white background. Try a darker one, and I promise you, you’ll never go back.
- One Message per slide. In essence, each slide should convey one message. Ask yourself, what is the key message the audience should take away from this slide? If you can’t articulate that succinctly then there’s too much on the slide.
- Don’t write what you are going to say on the slide. Put it into the notes and use Presenter Mode on Teams. Then, people aren’t just waiting for you to catch up. Remember they can read seven times faster than you can speak. Meanwhile, university students are substituting their textbooks for lecture slides since they’re basically free duplicates.
- Spotlight what you want to show. Show the graph and then show the same graph but with everything grey apart from the one bit you want to spotlight, as it’s the only bit in colour. It will add real focus and emphasis to your message. Econ lecturers, I’m looking at you!
- Use animation. Just a little. Imagine a slide with 5 products on, and now make two of the products just wiggle a bit. They’re the ones I am going to talk about, and you’ll remember it more because they just moved a little. Try it, please.
Hopefully, this article wasn’t drenched in boredom. Share it and help to make the world a better place. Also, check out our YouTube videos if words are too boring for you.
