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February 22, 2009 By 4 Comments

Breaking Free of PowerPoint?

As I do more and more workshops on topics related to technology, marketing, productivity, and social media, I’m constantly fine-tuning my presentation format. I’ve noticed that the default presentation format seems to be a PowerPoint presentation, or in my case a Keynote presentation because I love my Mac. However, I’ve been playing around more and more with a live demo format.

For example, when I conduct a Facebook workshop, I distribute an outline on paper but when it comes to the presentation I tend to simply log into Facebook on the presentation screen and explore the site as I speak in order to create a live experience. It seems to work well because I can point out real-time updates and display current information by walking the audience throught the site.

I’ve handled my Twitter workshop the same way. I open up a video explanation of Twitter and then open several browser tabs containing various Twitter profiles. I also open up TweetDeck to demonstrate software-based Tweeting and even do some live Tweeting during the workshop.

In all, it seems to go well and I enjoy the organic “live” action provided by just diving into software apps and web sites for the visual aids. I do use Keynote for some of my workshops, such as Email Marketing, and that works well since it’s more presentational. However, I’m still pondering the idea of switching all my presentations over to Keynote. Would this make them more dry? Would it make them smoother? Would my audience have less fun? Am I over-thinking it?

What do you think? Slides or live demos? I’m interested in your feedback.

Filed Under: Marketing, Productivity, Technology
  • Ross Graham

    One vote for live demo here. We see enough PPT and the I’ll at work. BTW your comment box isn’t very friendly to the iPod Touch. Can’t see the first line of type in the box. ;-)

  • http://willstanley.net/ Will Stanley

    Being in college, I probably see more PowerPoints in a week than anybody should in a month, but they didn’t become so widely used for no reason. There is definitely way less chance of something going wrong. If Facebook happened to be down for some reason during a live demo presentation, it would seem that you would be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Although the best way to learn how to use a lot of programs or websites is just to spend time in them and play around, seeing someone else play around in it is the next best thing. Perhaps a short PowerPoint at the beginning to highlight some key points and then switching to the live demo for features that are easier to explain that way.

  • http://clarinerd.com Sharon Murphy

    As a teacher and a student, I’ve used and viewed lots of Powerpoint presentations. A live demo always gets my attention much better than a presentation, and the same goes for my students. The more interaction a viewer gets with a product, the more information they’ll retain — they’re not just viewing the information and jotting it down, they’re using it and experimenting with it. Plus, and I do not include you in this group, I’ve seen so many terribly put together Powerpoint presentations that it would seem a live demo would have been much more suited for the presenter. Agreed however, that the problem arises should a connection or web site be down, so a backup would be appropriate (possibly a localized version rather than a live version).

  • http://www.weblinkinternational.com Curt Moss

    I still use PowerPoint for the majority of my presentations. I can impart much more emotion through the compelling images and minimal text that way. And, there is the unknown factor of “what if” the internet connection is bad or the site is down.

    I have done some hybrids – where I start with PPT to get the audience engaged and then switch to a live demo, then come back to PPT.

    Whenever you I do a live demo, I try to go very quickly to just give them a taste of what they can do. Otherwise you can get stuck in the details of how to do every little thing.