A commonly touted solution to poor presentations is to change the tool that you use. You may have heard that Prezi, an online presentation tool is a popular option. It is one of many tools that exist, and I have seen ineffective Prezi presentations as well, so the tool is not the issue. You will run in to passionate supporters of many different tools. I thought it was interesting that a recent survey in the events community cited here found that of the users they surveyed, more PowerPoint users were satisfied with the tool they used than Prezi users. What does it mean? I don’t think we can draw any grand conclusions from this one survey, other than the key to an effective presentation is not the tool you use. Don’t go switching to some other tool in an attempt to make your presentations better. Focus on creating a clear message and using effective visuals regardless of the tool you use.
Dave Paradi has over twenty-two years of experience delivering customized training workshops to help business professionals improve their presentations. He has written ten books and over 600 articles on the topic of effective presentations and his ideas have appeared in publications around the world. His focus is on helping corporate professionals visually communicate the messages in their data so they don’t overwhelm and confuse executives. Dave is one of fewer than ten people in North America recognized by Microsoft with the Most Valuable Professional Award for his contributions to the Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams communities. His articles and videos on virtual presenting have been viewed over 1.2 million times and liked over 12,000 times on YouTube.