Presentation Zen is a breath of fresh air for those who are in my shoes, however like all good fad's it has its downside. The idea behind presentation Zen builds on the premise that pictorial information is much stronger at conveying messages than textual. If we can build our presentations around images that stimulate deeper thought, then the information we are trying to convey connects to our viewers more effectively.
The idea of Zen stems from Mahayana Buddhism, asserting 'that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition rather than through faith and devotion' (answers.com). If our presentations are following a true 'zen' style then we must ensure our presentation itself, has sufficient time for meditation, self contemplation and intuition... essentially this is searching for a constructivist approach to presenting, the viewer constructs their own meaning from our carefully constructed PowerPoint.
How easy is this? in reality it isn't.
Many of us use PowerPoint to cover a lot of information in a short space of time, so the idea of reflection and time to meditate on specific content within a presentation is difficult to achieve. The mere fact that presenters speak throughout their entire presentation points to their being little chance for true deep reflection. I gave it a shot on a presentation I had done for our grade 8 Sports Education Unit, which focused on teamwork... here's how one slide completely changed...
The Old:
The New:
Coach
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I think I know which one I would like!
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Your opening line says it all. With Presentation Zen, I found it so easy to convey a lot of information without actually filling it into the slides. After having become habitual
ReplyDeleteof PPTs , it was initially so difficult to find that one right picture and one right word for description.
But in the end, I realized that in no time, I was ready with something relevant and to the point.