Bored of making black and white presentations? Add GIFs to your ppts to make it interesting
Work from home is now a reality for many of us. If that’s not bad enough, the continuous zoom calls and the boring presentations we have to survive makes it worse. It’s easy to lose focus during a boring presentation. We all have had our moments when we have gone completely blank during someone else’s virtual presentation and sometimes even during one of our own. But every problem has a solution. In this case, a little humour with some GIF action can make your presentation interesting. If you’re looking for tips to improve your ppt skills, keep reading because you’ve hit a gold mine today, my friend!
The Use of Humour:
“Human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter”- these words by Mark Twain may sound cliche and old but one can’t deny it gets work done. Our emotions have a universal language and greatly affect our physical and mental health. Humour, that tickles our funny bone, has the power to grab people’s attention. Research shows that humour helps us retain more minute details, build more healthy relationships and increase participation.
Humour is a powerful communication tool to get your message across if used properly. But the question is how do we break the ice with our colleagues during the course of our presentation?
GIFs- Your weapon to get your point across
GIFs have become a popular way of communication. For those of you who don’t know, GIF stands for ‘Graphics Interchange Format’ and you can find it everywhere- like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp or any other platform you can think of.
Everyone, in these times, prefers information in motion graphics. This means a piece of information passed via a visual medium is more welcome than ones that are read. Blame the human attention span that is worse than that of a goldfish! (Not kidding! A Goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds, a human attention span is 8 seconds!). GIFs, in such a case, serve the purpose. Small duration motion graphic that catches your audience’s attention and registers your point in their minds.
When should you use GIFs?
The answer to this question will depend on many factors: first of all on the topic of your presentation. Second, the message you want to convey. Will your message be understandable by a GIF and appropriate, which brings me to the next point. What kind of tone do you wish to use while presenting your ppt? When you decide to use GIFs, do keep these questions in mind and if you have an answer for each of them. Go ahead and use your favourite GIFs.
BUT…
Anything done in excess is never good. There are a few pointers that you must keep in mind when you’re making your next presentation using humorous GIFs :
- Be Natural: Do not force humour or GIFs in your presentation. Incorporate it into the presentation for a natural flow.
- Avoid Offensive Humour: Do not take potshots at your colleagues which may look at personal attacks while cracking jokes. Always share personal experiences that you may have a funny memory of you in that situation.
- Use Relevant Humour: Remember, you’re bringing humour in your presentation to emphasize your point better. Make sure your jokes and GIFs remain relevant.
GIFs can be very efficient in passing on information you want your audience or colleagues to remember. Want them to remember an unsettling statistic. Go ahead and create a GIF. Yes, that’s possible too!
So, are you ready to create your next fiery presentation that everyone will absolutely love? We can’t wait for it either? If you have anything more to add, tell us in the comments below. Don’t forget to follow us on ‘The 101 Times’ Publication for more information about work-life, entrepreneurship and everything in between.
