I cant get into details for obvious reasons, but I’ve been asked to give a 30 minute Powerpoint presentation to 10 local college students visiting our company to gather information relevant to their field of study.
Got about 20 slides or so ready with one 4-page print out of a magazine article relevant to the topic, plus a copy of our catalog. Plan to provide a dozen dunking donuts and a box of Joe as well.
In order to not be that “out of touch” Old Guy, are there any pratfalls I should be aware of with a millennial crowd? I tried to limit my handouts to a minimum because I don’t want to kill too many trees and I know going “paperless” was, at least ten years ago, a big issue.
The presentation will be followed by a tour of our facility.
I have found the majority of people this age to be extremely polite and pleasant to deal with, are there any behaviors I might find odd maybe involving cell phones? I did one seminar about 10 years ago where I was videotaped.
Only three points per slide, maximum. Ideally, there should not be much text at all. If someone can look at your slide deck and understand exactly what you are talking about without your presentation, there’s too much text.
Too many people just use the PPT as their own personal note sheet and simply read copious amounts of text off the slide. Do not do this. It makes your audience want to die.
Tell precisely one joke (it flavours the talk and keeps their interest.)
It is vital not to read copious amounts of text off the slide (see point 2.) I have actually seen a student fall asleep when this happened :smack: (it was a colleague of mine.)
Ask them to switch off their phones.
Decide whether you want to take questions as you go, or at the end (and tell them which.)
But they may not be biologically capable of doing this. Although the phone is not always in contact with their fingers, it is directly connected to their brains.
(cite: I’m the 60 year old guy who runs the office. She was a 25 year old job applicant, who I was training on our software, on her first day at work. And every time her phone buzzed (i.e.every 10 minutes), she stopped me, read the text, and typed a reply. Leaving me, her potential new boss, sitting idle and twiddling my thumbs.)
To the OP: I’ve never given a Power Point show, but I’ve sat through a lot of them. Make sure the slides add something to what you are saying. But dont let the slideshow be what you are saying.
Make sure the content is relevant to them. For example, if you work for a drug manufacturer and these are sociology students, talk about the sociological benefits of having a drugged and compliant populace*.
Ask them questions and invite their questions as appropriate.
Be enthusiastic about your workplace. By that I mean, show that you’re interested in what you’re talking about, not just there because you were the one asked to do it.
Are you looking for PowerPoint tips or are you looking “giving a presentation to young people” tips?
If it’s the former, then the above advice is pretty much it. Don’t overload your slides. Preferably, don’t ever even LOOK at your slides.
If it’s the latter, maybe consider dropping PowerPoint altogether. If there’s anything you can do to light the “this is going to be tedious” signal fire, it’s loading up PowerPoint.
If it’s just a couple dozen people, and they’re going to be in the room where you can give them a set of handouts, the need for PowerPoint drops considerably. Tell them, conversationally, what they need to know to reference the documentation you’re handing them. To me, all PowerPoint is is flashcards for people who never got enough flashcards when they were in school. You go through a few too many presentations where the skip over material saying “We’re not going to cover this in this presentation” and you have to wonder, “why is it up there, then?”
I’m older than the OP & dread PP presentations. Perhaps he should put his points in that format & use them as his own notecards for the talk. If he likes, he can include them with the article & catalog he’s handing out.
Visual display is useful for graphic information–like survival curves. Is this relevant to the talk or is it “just words”?
For such a small group, just put Yoyodyne’s logo on the screen & start talking. Get the point(s) across simply & directly. Then answer questions.
Here are my thoughts, unbiased – I didn’t read any other replies.
They will be trying to figure you out at least as much as you are trying to figure them out, though they will have plenty of experience with professors of all ages. They will probably think of employers as more temporary and disposable than you would. They probably figure they will have their friends to consult about workplace questions, whereas you were likelier to think you had to figure things out on your own. They are more likely than your generation was to expect to share car and other major expenses or to live with parents. If they are exploring beginning employment they may be figuring out how they would get to work, whereas you might have been likelier to own transportation by that age. As to cell phones, they’re more likely to multitask during a talk, though probably most will not. I would also guess they will approach you using manners you would have used for peers rather than elders.
Remember: your PowerPoint is the illustration of your talk. It should not be a list of all the things you are saying. If you are reading the bullet points on the screen, you only bore the audience.
Each slide should have one complete sentence as the heading, a picture to illustrate that point, and make one bullet point. This means more slides, but they will be more memorable (especially if you add a dash of humor) and less boring.
The default bullet point mode is a piss poor presentation.
Remember that you are the one adding value to this whole shebang. The slides should aid you, you are not supplementing the slides.
A good rule of thumb is ask yourself
“if I were giving this talk someone, one to one over a coffee, when would I stop and pick up a pen to scribble an illustration, draw a diagram or summarise the main points?”
And then match your slides to those needs (perhaps with a few extra placeholders or headings to mark the main topic for that part of the talk)
I teach high school, and also am an adjunct professor at a state university. I know these kids; so here’s something that works for me:
Do the PowerPoint using the side by side setting. On the left, have a google images picture with a very vague link to the text, which is on the right. So, for instance, your 3 bullet points about “Starting Out in This Field” has a picture of a baby tiger walking behind his mama (awww, cute). The slide about “Following the Rules” has a picture of Evander Holyfield with a chunk out of his ear. “Starting Compensation” has a picture of Kim and Kanye.
The beauty is you can make it interactive by not titling the slides and having the kids guess the topic from the pictures. If any of the connections fall flat, blame Google: “Yeah, I don’t get it either, but that’s an image that comes up when you search ‘Career Paths.’”
Avoid controversy; don’t show a slide of guys giving a girl drinks for “How to Succeed.” Have fun and don’t automatically scold someone for texting–she may be taking notes on her phone!
I once gave a PowerPoint presentation where the only text was the introductory slide. All of the other slides in the deck (about 30) were photographs from Flicker, most completely irrelevant to the topic.
I don’t think giving a Powerpoint presentation to a bunch of 20-somethings is fundamentally different from giving one to anyone else.
I’ve seen a lot of young people at places I’ve worked over the past ten years. Having them put down their smart phones during meetings and presentations has usually never been an issue. I mean if they are so easily distracted that they cant go two seconds without reading or sending a text, a professional office environment (really any work environment) might not be for them.
Wow, the people who participate in our yearly online lecture series would hate you as a presenter. Our people, many of whom are millennials, want the slides at the beginning of the presentation, and they want them saved in notes format so they can easily take their own notes as you speak.
