Ever done a PowerPoint Karaoke?
PowerPoint is known as a presentation tool that brings along endless loads of slides, words, charts and bullet points, putting most of the audience straight to sleep. Karaoke is feared as a favorite Asian past-time where otherwise normal people fall into supposedly melodic cawing and yelling performances. If both disciplines provoke such profound scares, can they be worse when combined? Well, not necessarily, when we talk about PowerPoint-Karaoke!
The rules of this new game are simple: holding a previously unknown PowerPoint presentation in front of a cheering and yelling audience. All that is revealed beforehand to the presenter are the title and the number of slides. Time line: five minutes - may the best performer win!
What appears to be another crazy idea for extrovert, under-worked consultants, is actually a quite successful party event for everybody, both on private or on corporate level. In Germany, it was introduced by an agency of freelancers that wanted to put the never-ending sea of PowerPoint presentations into a new context. Ever since the roaming success of the first event in 2006, the agency organizes regular sessions in and around Berlin.
Main source for the crazy range of different topics is the internet, where a google search for files ending in “.ppt” results in millions of hits. Some of the presentations used in the initial stages have meanwhile reached cult status, with themes such as the colorful “Background Information on Foot and Mouth Disease”, the 24 slides on “China Contacts of the IHK Bochum” or the absolute T-Systems classic “Strategic and Operational Management through Balanced Scorecard-Based Leadership Information Systems”.
The spontaneous presenters need to be quick-minded and not afraid to improvise. A good strategy is not to stick too closely to the bullet points that endlessly enumerate technical specifications on mysterious topics. It is advisable to quickly scan the appearing slide, pick out one aspect and elaborate in it. Whether it has anything to do with the subject matter is secondary. Some more experienced participants even opt sometimes for a radical approach: they break away from the slides and make up their own story.
Whatever the personal favorite approach, one thing is for certain: PowerPoint Karaoke is a lot of fun if not taken too seriously. The key is spontaneity and entertainment. Just go for it and give it your best!
And should the need to include one of the above mentioned cult presentations arise (only available in German at the moment) – simply contact the author of this article, he will be more than willing to spice up your evening.
Andreas Hauser
The rules of this new game are simple: holding a previously unknown PowerPoint presentation in front of a cheering and yelling audience. All that is revealed beforehand to the presenter are the title and the number of slides. Time line: five minutes - may the best performer win!
What appears to be another crazy idea for extrovert, under-worked consultants, is actually a quite successful party event for everybody, both on private or on corporate level. In Germany, it was introduced by an agency of freelancers that wanted to put the never-ending sea of PowerPoint presentations into a new context. Ever since the roaming success of the first event in 2006, the agency organizes regular sessions in and around Berlin.
Main source for the crazy range of different topics is the internet, where a google search for files ending in “.ppt” results in millions of hits. Some of the presentations used in the initial stages have meanwhile reached cult status, with themes such as the colorful “Background Information on Foot and Mouth Disease”, the 24 slides on “China Contacts of the IHK Bochum” or the absolute T-Systems classic “Strategic and Operational Management through Balanced Scorecard-Based Leadership Information Systems”.
The spontaneous presenters need to be quick-minded and not afraid to improvise. A good strategy is not to stick too closely to the bullet points that endlessly enumerate technical specifications on mysterious topics. It is advisable to quickly scan the appearing slide, pick out one aspect and elaborate in it. Whether it has anything to do with the subject matter is secondary. Some more experienced participants even opt sometimes for a radical approach: they break away from the slides and make up their own story.
Whatever the personal favorite approach, one thing is for certain: PowerPoint Karaoke is a lot of fun if not taken too seriously. The key is spontaneity and entertainment. Just go for it and give it your best!
And should the need to include one of the above mentioned cult presentations arise (only available in German at the moment) – simply contact the author of this article, he will be more than willing to spice up your evening.
Andreas Hauser
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