First of all, I can not completely forbid PowerPoint at Jarltech. Numbers for banks, as well as technical diagrams, occasionally find their way to the screen via PowerPoint. But principally, we have a "no PowerPoint" policy.

Some visitors’ facial features noticeably fall when we say "just forget about PowerPoint and tell us something about your company". Or “wouldn't we rather hold the product in our hands"? Good presentations are simply too rare. "Yes, this is from the marketing department, and we will just skip this page, and the next…" does not sound like preparation. And, if you do show slides, then please without text. Of course one would like to take a look at the factory of a vendor ... unfortunately right next to it is a box with 20 technical facts about the factory. This data, if interesting, has been comprehended after one second - but of course the presenter starts to read these numbers one at a time…beautifully looking away from the audience, always with his eyes glued to the screen. For you see, he does not know the figures, not even roughly, because they do not interest him either.

Particularly with Asian companies you will notice that the presentations mostly contain the company history starting from 1965, but rarely something about the future. If you talked about it, your conversation would get a better result. And, interposed questions are of course to be avoided, because then the whole spectacle takes even longer.

When we meet new customers or suppliers, we will first provide them with a small book about Jarltech. It has lots of pictures, and everyone can linger on the page that most interests him. Even hand-outs are even better than PowerPoint - so the speaker, if he is not completely ignorant, will at least register that his listeners (or fellow readers) have already turned ahead five pages out of boredom. If I am a salesman - and aren’t we all - I have to remember what the person sitting across from me really is interested in, and then take that route.

This is how time-wasting occurs, caused by PowerPoint (not only during preparation, but especially among the target audience), which is hard to outdo. Since we usually do not serve alcohol at meetings, one can not often effectively block out the happenings around him. I can not sleep with my eyes open. In addition, I snore, so that would be noticeable.

Why is it that just because you have an appointment somewhere, and therefore have driven for three hours, you must necessarily sit together for at least an hour? If you have a message which only takes fifteen minutes, then everything is fine. Or else you need a new message, or maybe several, but you do not have to get on someone else’s nerves. Unfortunately, in the IT industry not many people are really funny, to make such a meeting entertaining.

So please, bring us products, talk about content, show us interesting pictures - but please do not read any text from the wall. We can do that ourselves. Has anyone ever tried that? Just put a slide with text up on the wall, then keep your mouth shut and let the audience read for themselves? That would probably go faster. This degrades the presenter to the status of a fool though, since he now may only press the "next slide" button. Perhaps, however he does not talk until he is blue in the face, and has the strength to speak about what is seen.

A nice function is the display of the page number at the bottom right. If you see "Slide 4 of 274" that gives me a signal to suddenly receive an important call, causing me to then leave the room and actually do something meaningful. Do you know the apps that call you back at the push of a button? So, just a little touch of the hand is enough, and 20 seconds later the phone rings and my dog ​​calls me, or whoever, but of course urgently. Try it out!

Is that rude? Yes, so in the future you should rather have the courage at the beginning to say what you expect from a conversation, and especially what you already know and do not want to hear again. It would be even better to say right with the invitation: Please, no PowerPoint. Not even printed. And in no case an "introductory presentation before the round of talks" - because when I go there, I am already in the mood for a conversation. And, why increase the tiredness of the business partners right at the beginning?

Recently, in a round of managers who have been dealing with barcodes for 20 years, someone actually read three slides explaining what a 2D barcode is and what you might need it for. Why? Because the slides were there from the presentation the previous day. After all, to remain consistent, the meeting cookies were also from the previous day.