Power's The Point
The Business Times
DECEMBER 27, 2007-JANUARY 2, 2008
Story by Phil Castle
The staff at Ryan, Whitney & Company — from left, Dan Ryan, Lee Whitney, Heidi Bassignani and Angelina Salazar — has developed an interactive form of PowerPoint presentations that offers a more engaging experience for audiences along with the flexibility to quickly and easily adapt presentations to different events.
Interactive approach adds a new dimension to static presentations
PowerPoint presentations have become as much a staple of business as, well, staples. And all too often, the ubiquitous succession of computer-generated slides featuring a hodgepodge of typefaces, colors and cheesy clip art is about as engaging as metal fasteners.
Lee Whitney describes the situation as the tyranny of PowerPoint — a tyranny that not only oppresses audiences, but also confines presenters with its linear and sequential format. As managing partner of an advertising, marketing and communications firm in Grand Junction, Whitney figured there had to be a better way.
He discovered it incorporating a more interactive and flexible approach to PowerPoint that allows presenters to quickly and easily navigate between various subjects with just a few clicks of a computer mouse.
The end result is not only more entertaining and informative for audiences, but also gives presenters the freedom to change their presentations to meet the needs of different events and purposes — on the fly, if need be.
“You defeat the tyranny of PowerPoint,” Whitney says.
Whitney and the staff at Ryan, Whitney & Company initially developed the interactive PowerPoint presentation for a client — Reynolds Polymer Technology, the Grand Junction-based company that manufactures acrylic panels for aquariums, architectural products and scientific applications.
Ryan, Whitney now offers the same approach to other businesses that want better PowerPoint presentations. Dan Ryan, a partner and creative director at Ryan, Whitney, & Company says there’s a wide range of businesses that can take advantage of interactive PowerPoint presentations, including lawyers who present evidence at trials.
While developing the presentations requires an investment of time and money, Whitney says the returns include consistently professional PowerPoint presentations that can be used for a variety of purposes and events.
Moreover, the process ultimately can save time and money by freeing staff from the time involved in putting together their own PowerPoint presentations, he says.
The process starts by developing a story a business wants to tell, including historical and background information as well as products and services. The story also might include information about key personnel and facilities as well as technical specifications.
The story is divided into broad categories into which more specific information can be organized. Whitney says it’s helpful to label categories using words familiar to a business or an industry.
Individual PowerPoint slides then are created to present the information in each category. In addition to text, digital images, video and audio files and animation also can be included.
Interactive PowerPoint includes a navigation system that allows the presenter to follow certain paths and show slides from one category, proceed from one category to the next or to skip back and forth between categories.
The system works something like an Internet Web page with links and icons. “Within two or three mouse clicks, you can navigate just about anywhere you want to go,” Whitney says.
That flexibility allows a presenter to easily tailor a PowerPoint presentation to the audience and time allotted. A sales pitch, for example, might include only the slides related to products or services, while an overall presentation about a business might include slides from all of the categories, only without the depth of any one category.
That means the same presentation can be used for a variety of different purposes and events.
Angelina Salazar, a member of the staff at Ryan, Whitney & Company who goes by the title “chief evangelist,” says the interactive PowerPoint presentation developed for Reynolds Polymer has been used for sales pitches for the varied products the company manufactures as well as more general presentations about the diversity of company operations. The presentation also has been used as a training tool for new employees, Salazar says.
Whitney says the navigation features allow presenters the freedom to break away from a traditional PowerPoint succession of slides and show the slides they want in the order in which they want to show them. Moreover, presenters can skip back and forth as they interact with the audience. In answering a question about manufacturing a certain product, a presenter could go to slides with images and text about the factory.
Still, the overall presentation is consistent with the same typefaces, colors and logos, he says. And by using an advertising and marketing firm to develop the presentation, the end product is more polished and professional.
The ultimate goal, though, is a presentation that breaks free from the norm and the tyranny of PowerPoint. Says Salazar: “There’s flexibility in the presentation. You’re not a slave to your PowerPoint.”
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