Seem familiar?

Does anyone really understand the total investment by companies each year in sending their employees to tradeshows and conferences? Between flights, rental cars, hotels, salaries and time-cost, it’s a considerable sum.  Do people really get all they could out of these shows…especially when the presentations and speakers are ill-prepared and subpar?

And yet, remarkably, presenters at these events consistently miss their opportunity to effectively share information by providing slides that are simply not readable by the audience. It seems that any organization that invests its own time, money and resources should have the professionalism and courtesy to ensure that the attendees can get the maximum benefit from their event. To do this, it is the responsibility of the organizer to ensure that every speakers’ presentation materials are properly formatted and written in such a way to be easily absorbed by the audience.

Presentation format is critical – and most speakers completely miss the mark when preparing their slides.  There are certain rules and guidelines to creating and delivering an effective presentation.  An ‘expert’ could help the speaker in condensing their slides to the most meaningful bits – not too many words, not too few.  Using graphics where they make sense – and providing supporting text when necessary.

While very large companies have the resources to formalize and ‘clean-up’ presentations, it’s not uncommon for associations, service providers, and mid-size businesses to skimp on this effort – to the detriment of their show and their credibility.

The Fix: The suggestion is that organizations enlist consulting services that specialize in taking a presentation, any presentation, and formatting it for the audience size and layout of the show. These services would focus on very fast turn-around, implementing standard graphics in-line with the context of the content, changing font sizes and wording to maximize the ‘present-ability’ of the slideshow.

What would the productivity gain of such a service be? Substantial, when one considers the extraordinary investment made by companies for travel, time, meals, salaries and brain-space of their employees – attendees deserve better than page after page of small print and illegible charts.

So, graphic designers and publishers, here’s a new business opportunity for you.  Providers would allow for customers to send them a powerpoint presentation regarding any topic and receive a turn-around within a day or so.  Organizers could require presenters to provide their materials in time for the ‘clean-up crew’ to do their thing.   Now, some might say, “Well, I don’t finish my presentation until the day of or a few minutes before I go on stage – I’m too busy to finish it up early and send it for someone else to clean it up.”  What this person is really saying is, “My time is more important than all of the people I’m presenting to and it’s not worth my time investment to make certain that I get my message across.”  Does that make sense to anyone other than a selfish, procrastinating speaker?!?

Agreeing to speak in front of a group should be considered a privilege and a responsibility – one that should be respected enough to invest adequate preparation.    There is as much art to quality presentations as their is science – let experts help to clarify your message, and they just might make a first rate speaker out of you yet!