<p>I’ve been selected to give a 5-minute intro talk at an international conference, to give the patient perspective and why continuing medical research is so important. Just wondering if I should supplement with powerpoint slideshow or not. H feels it would be distracting and the talk is only 5 minutes. Just wondering what people think. I guess I could use it to highlight a few major points. As it is, I’m having trouble condensing everything into five minutes.</p>
<p>I give presentations to physicians all the time. They really seem to like visual aids. Maybe just a few slides that have some ‘wow’ factor information on them.</p>
<p>The nice thing with slides is you can give more information than a straight talk. Make sure you don’t read the slides. Just point out a few major highlights on them. We often use call out boxes on our slides to highlight a point.</p>
<p>I think a talk is always enhanced by visuals. I’ve done a ton of presentations over the years - most long before P Point. I often gave them without visuals, but I think that is usually inferior.</p>
<p>Even if there are just a very few, I would include some.</p>
<p>I hate powerpoint- especially when the talk is just reading the screen- but I agree that a visual is very important to underline key points & helps if someone is taking notes at same time as listening.</p>
<p>Lots of people need more than one way to take in information & you are presenting a different side than what they may be used to hearing.</p>
<p>Since the time * is * short, a visual aid, will give you the opportunity to really emphasize what is important.</p>
<p>Current thinking is that we really over-Powerpoint everything. I would skip it except for maybe a title slide or an illustration. Our CEO stays away from PPs whenever he can, and he is the most amazing speaker. Just talk.</p>
<p>Physician here. Interesting slides can help keep your audience listening. Please- don’t read the slides, find something to SHOW you can’t just as easily TELL. Sometimes beginning with a pictorial joke as a humor element works- something to relax your audience and remove any defensiveness about how they’re treating patients. Remember a picture can be worth a thousand words- the visuals could be a mention of something you would love to talk about but don’t have the time for and seeing something could stick in your audience’s minds more than a quick mention. I happen to like lists- seeing a list instead of hearing it stays with me more and wastes less time than throwing in the proper verbage to make the point grammmatical.</p>
<p>Since I’m not writing the speech I can just continue with some other thoughts without editing. Physicians are used to taking in a lot of information in a short time- hence the lists. Better to have more information that can be totally absorbed- get interesting in more, picking up 70% of three times as much material gives more than just making sure all material is slow enough for the average person. Announcing the points while having them on the screen and keeping them there allows people to multitask- you continue with your talk. Personal interest examples of patient experiences are a part of showing- often more meaninful than a bunch of statistics. We can read the journals that prove the points, you want to humanize the issue.</p>
<p>Physicians are used to doing something while listening. I hate the glossy pictures presentations business people usually give me (skip it all you financial presenters trying to get me to invest)- a reason someone in business would be advised to skip the visuals. Don’t repeat the information- presume the audience got it the first time, from a slide or spoken.</p>
<p>Can you tell I was likely to be reading a book while listening to a CME lecture? Your job is to keep your audience listening. Give them reasons to do so by offering a lot of material- those that comprehend/read your slides fast will appreciate it, the rest will gain as much as if all you offered were the main points. Good luck and remember to enjoy yourself.</p>
<p>Dr. Wis75 has great points, so ditto his/her comments.</p>
<p>People say we overdo power points because, I think, most speakers use the slides badly. They’re audio visual AIDS - some speakers treat them like the presentation itself, with the speaker aiding the slides. That’s backwards. </p>
<p>Physicians soak up information, so don’t be afraid to be content-rich.</p>
<p>If you’re having trouble condensing into 5 minutes, then you need to make a special effort to condense into 3 minutes. It will end up being 5. Cut out any fluff, doctors will space out anyway if you have fluff, as wis75 pointed out.</p>
<p>The extent to which you use ppt depends, I think, on two things: 1) whether the material is aided by a visual, or if it’s not. If not, don’t use it. And 2) how many people are in the room. If it’s a large conference, such that you don’t have true eye contact with the audience, visuals are good. But if it’s a small group, eye contact, especially for 5 minutes, can be powerful, and can at times be the best visual aid.</p>
<p>This reminded me of a friend of ours who is a psychiatrist who was presenting to a group of internists about the diagnosis and treatment of depression. He said he put a lot of thought into how he could best convey his intended message to his audience about this very relevant subject. After his “talk”, the only feed back was that they wished he would used powerpoint. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I’m still conflicted and was thinking of having a few slides showing to emphasize key points. My mentor recommends against it saying it will detract and have the docs watching screen instead of me. Maybe I’ll send him the slides I’ve made & ask him. This way, I could skip what’s on them & cut to the chase.</p>
<p>I generally speak more quickly when nervous but will be on supplemental O2, so may be speaking slower than usual. Hard to say how many will turn up for this session, as it’s the last day of the multi-day conference, last session (2-4:30pm). Lots leave to catch flights.</p>
<p>Funny–just sent my doc the proposed powerpoint & he recommended that if I do use slides to eliminate the two with lists as too busy and not adding anything to my talk. He was OK with the other slides–one of my family, a title slide, one about counseling, of our organization, and an end slide with a picture of one of our support group meetings & someone performing a breathing test, thanking the audience.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Will continue to ponder, as the conference is several weeks away.</p>
<p>We should be over BAD powerpoint. The problem is that most people simply grab a free MS template and proceed to fill the slides up with middle school graphics and LOTS of small text.</p>
<p>However, presentations can benefit tremendously from the right tools. Just look at Al Gore … the absolute master of dullness who could bring twelve 2-years old to sleep without trying! Thanks to competent people such as Duarte and his quick learning of how to use a remote control and Keynote, Gore found a new life as an … entertainer. </p>
<p>Please note that a successful presentation takes a LOT of preparation and effort. When asked about his great talent for presentation, Steve Jobs said he was far from a natural; he and a large staff just worked to death on the presentation. However, in his case, this could hardly be “death by powerpoint” :)</p>
<p>I own both Presentation Zen and Slide-ology. Both great books on doing powerpoints. You definitely want to keep it simple but I think most people enjoy looking at something.</p>
<p>We regularly attend conferences held by a health care trend/intelligence company. They do wonderful slides. I asked them how they do it and they said they have a whole department that does nothing but work on putting together the presentations. It is a lot of work to do it well.</p>
<p>Ok will only have slides if I can figure out how to have them really ADD a lot to the presentation. Will see if I can borrow the resources that you all are mentioning. This is supposed to be from the patient perspective and an intro to the other speakers who will discuss data.</p>
<p>People overdo the slides and try to put every little bullet point on them. I generally tell people no more than one or two slides for every five minutes as a rule f thumb. I’m not opposed to slides at all and for you one or two slides that punctuate the most important takeaways would be appropriate (plus a title slide if the event is structured this way…)</p>
<p>Wow. Visual learner here. School would have been a LOT more interesting if teachers had used visuals instead of relying on pure verbal info. I’d use slides to connect with highly intelligent multi-taskers - put up a graph or two, for instance. It gives people who have gotten the point 30 seconds ago something to think about.</p>
<p>Hmmmm, my whole TALK is only supposed to be 5 minutes! I am not presenting data so don’t have graphs, am just trying to do my story so they can understand how their research touches and improves our lives.</p>
<p>My mentor doc suggests NO slides so folks will concentrate on me & make eye contact. I was going to have a
title slide
photo of me, H, S & D
slide of treatments attempted (bullets)
slide of effective treatments (bullets)
slide with just clipart, reinforcing important, often overlooked treatments
slide reinforcing teamwork (just clipart)
slide w/ logo & contact info about our non-profit
slide with photo of someone getting tested & a support group meeting & thanks</p>
<p>My mentor suggests eliminating slides 3 & 4, just talk about them. I thought I could flash those & then not talk about them. He & H both recommend NO slides. I’m pretty conflicted.</p>
<p>Maybe if you could elaborate a tiny bit more what your talk is suppose to be about. IMO, if you’re going to put something up there it should have a visual impact, not just pictures of your family or other people.</p>
<p>For example, a slide showing the ‘maze’ your family has had to go through sometimes to get the appropriate treatment.</p>
<p>Or a visual of how you tried treatment a, didn’t work so it has a big red X through it. More treatments that didn’t work with Xs and then finally one that does with a happy face.</p>
<p>Or a graph that shows the average time from symptoms to diagnosis.</p>
<p>Or a cartoon that is related to the topic.</p>
<p>I agree, with only 5 minutes you don’t want a lot of slides and quite frankly, physicians see slides of patients interacting all the time. To me, it’s boring. You need something that is going to grab their attention.</p>
<p>That may be why H & mentor both suggest no slides–will have to think more on what would be helpful to show pictorally. </p>
<p>It was only 6 months & after seeing 3 specialists between my 1st complaints & when I finally got effective treatment by flying out of state to a specialty clinic. We are supposed to be careful not to offend local docs while I’d like to give credit to the doc & clinic who helped me regain my life; treading a careful line.</p>