Is It a Good Thing to Make Fun of Your Own PowerPoint Presentation?

Posted by J.J. under Presentations, Productivity | Be the First to Comment

You might think that the title above was some kind of joke – how could anyone possible want to make fun of their own presentation in front of the audience as this audience could be your boss, clients or your subordinates. It is practically insane to bring your audience to such bizarreness that can upset your audience or worse case – your boss would say “You’re fired!”

As I said earlier, this title is quite misleading. It doesn’t mean that you have to be a clown and make fun of yourself. Every presentation slide has a point or information that need to be transcended in a jovial manner without offending your audience. Most people would accept sarcastic way of delivering your ideas if you’re able to simplify some certain messages that your audience can hardly understood.

Last Saturday, I attended a public forum at a hospital regarding latest development in Neurosurgery. It was conducted by a panel of neurosurgeons (or Consultant Neurosurgeons) and they spoke specific topics that were technical and hardly perceived by some attendees (presumably those who are not familiar to Biological Science). I’ve no doubt that these neurosurgeons able to elaborate information about their field of study. I hadn’t seen anyone walked out from the hall when neurosurgeons were presenting their slides.

The layouts of the slides are very simple:

• Basically they were using simple PowerPoint slide templates with light or white colored background.
• Most of the important points were arranged in bullets
• Size of the fonts are viewable to the audience
• They inserted related images like neurosurgery microscopes , devices and other related apparatus

I’m not going to elaborate much on the contents of their presentations. There was one particular neurosurgeon who spoke sarcastically during his presentation. He made fun of a sub particular topic that some listeners hardly understood.

He was able to attract his audience because of the following traits:

• Self-discipline: He was well prepared for his presentation and improvised his speech. He was able to conclude his presentation within given time frame.
• Body language: No exaggerate arm movements when he was explaining his points.
• Outgoing: Using too much medical terms and any technical jargons could possibly turn off the audience’s attention. Other than that, he sarcastically gave examples that the audience can relate. Never intend to make sarcastic remarks on the audience as it could cause dissatisfaction among listeners.

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