Using Special Effects in PowerPoint - Public Speaking Video Lecture - Public

should you use special effects in your
PowerPoint I'll never forget I was
listening to an engineer give a
presentation in Saint Croix and the US
Virgin Islands and he had this
PowerPoint and all of a sudden a bird
flittered across his PowerPoint screen
everyone was like wow that's fantastic
that's interesting as soon as his speech
was over like how did you do that it
became the focal point got a lot of
tension sounds good right guess what
when I ask people what did he talk about
in that speech no one could answer that
question the problem was his special
effects overwhelmed the message of his
presentation here's the problem if you
are a presenter and you're trying to
come up with special effects number one
when it comes to special effects people
are comparing you if your stuff is up on
a big screen to Steven Spielberg and
Lucas and Star Wars if you're being
compared to people like that with
special effects guess what you're gonna
lose there's no way you're gonna
razzle-dazzle people with special
effects on a big screen because you're
competing in the mind space of a big
screen with big Hollywood production so
I don't want to compete with Lucas and
Spielberg where I want to compete is
with the boring speaker next to me and
the boring speaker in front of me and
after me that's a test I can win that's
a competition I can win every time the
other big problem with special effects
is they take time and you start doodling
and you start messing around and you
start tweaking the next thing you know
you've spent two hours coming up with
some little doohickey that just flitters
by that's two hours you could have spent
rehearsing your presentation and now you
don't have time to rehearse that's two
hours where you could have spent
refining new stories new examples and
now you don't have the time so in terms
of time management allocation of
resources return on investment I'm a big
believer that the special effects are a
waste of time
for most presenters now if there's a
particular reason where you need a video
clip or something out of the ordinary
that's okay but make sure there is a
compelling reason for it don't use video
just because you can don't use a special
effect or a splash or some bright sound
effect just because you can't make sure
there's a real purpose for it otherwise
you're wasting your time and you're just
confusing your audience