Would You Want to read a Book At A Movie Theater

Respect the medium.

What do I mean by that.

You’ve been asked to give a presentation.

You want to use PowerPoint.

That’s fine.

But it’s still a presentation.

People are there in the room watching you.

It’s not a poetry reading.

It’s not a movie.

So why is that significant.

Think of your favorite novel of all time.

That was then turned into a movie whatever it is.

I want you to think of that.

Now imagine that you are with your family you go to the nicest theater in your town.

You’re spending a considerable amount of money for three or four movie tickets.

A lot of money for popcorn a cola.

You sit down all of the sudden the curtains part and it’s the text of the book coming across the screen for the next eight hours.

Are you happy with that.

Probably not.

No matter how much you love reading the book when you are in a room looking at a screen you were expecting something else.

You were expecting a movie.

A movie is simply different from a book.

Now sometimes books are better than movies.

Sometimes movies are better than books.

But the point is they’re different.

And no matter how much you love the book you don’t go to a movie theater sit in a room with a whole bunch of other people to have someone else turning the pages and having the text go by.

You’re there to look at images.

What does that have to do with PowerPoint.

It’s because when people are in a room with you and they’ve come to hear you speak they’re not coming to have someone put up text for them to read.

And that’s the problem with so many PowerPoint presentations is it’s just cramming something that works in one medium the reading text medium and trying to project it on a screen.

It could be a large 50 foot screen that a huge convention.

It could be just a television in a conference room that’s three feet wide but it’s still a screen and it’s not the experience people are looking for.

That’s the real problem.

You’ve got to respect the medium.

If you’re a movie maker.

Yeah you put up text for a second here or there but for the most part you have to have human beings doing things speaking.

That’s what the movie is about.

A book is going to have text a magazine article a newspaper article that’s text so respect the medium.