IABC Café

When was the last time you walked out of a presentation and enthusiastically praised the speaker’s use of PowerPoint? When is the last time you read a technical document or report on which the graphic reporting of data was so clear that you understood the intent before you read the copy? When was the last time you used PowerPoint or graphic reporting of data – for your own presentation or your boss’s/client’s presentation – that resulted in a “standing ovation” from the audience/readers?

With many years of experience delivering presentations, creating PowerPoint presentations, writing technical documents and reports, and teaching design, I thought my skills rated within the upper end on a 10-point scale. Last week, I attended a full-day “visual evidence” seminar, lead by Edward Tufte. I won’t pretend to have become an expert on visual evidence by presuming I can pass on Tufte’s wealth of knowledge. Suffice to say, he inspired me to challenge my own thinking and practices, and commit to sharing his insights with colleagues with the hope of earning the standing ovations that I mentioned previously.

Three of his comments will continue to resonate in my mind. First, and I paraphrase,

People haven’t suddenly become stupid because they are viewing your information or listening to your presentation. They are busy. Help them understand your message/data.

We talk about “know your audience,” “measure results,” “demonstrate accountability for the bottom line.” Tufte talked about all of these things, and emphasized that we can’t blame our listeners/readers, blame bad data, or blame inadequate reporting tools. We need to be responsible for communicating our messages with clarity and purpose, collecting adequate data to give it meaning, and reporting data in interesting and meaningful ways (Tufte refers to it as “escaping flatland.”).

Second,

Principles of analytical design, like principles of analytical thinking, provides principles – rather than arbitrary – justification for our designs and establishes universal cognitive tasks for design.

He details the principles of analytical design in his new book, Beautiful Evidence, which support the fundamental standard for presenting data: do no harm to the quality of data. This approach increases credibility for communicators who are responsible for translating data for our companies and clients’ companies.

And third, which relates to Tufte’s new adventure in landscape sculpture:

Get up and out of your chair, walk around, and observe the world.

Excellent reminder that sometimes we need to physically remove ourselves from the situation so that we escape group think, respectfully question the arbitrarily titled “experts,” look to the core messages or objectives, and seek the right solutions that hit the mark.

In addition to being an inspirational speaker on a topic that many communicators would benefit, Tufte is also very entertaining. It’s not often that I promote seminar speakers, but I highly encourage communicators to look into Tufte’s theories on visual evidence.

As for the use of PowerPoint … that’s another topic that I just might have to address at a later date …

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 8:18 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.