Governor PowerPoint

About 2pm yesterday afternoon I started getting emails… “Are you watching Cuomo? He’s using PowerPoint!”

Andrew Cuomo was inaugurated yesterday as the next Governor of New York, and he gave a State of the State address. His speech was certainly not on my radar, but I eventually watched it all (you can watch it here). And yes, he did indeed deliver a presentation filled with on screen slides.

It could very well be the first time PowerPoint was used for such an address.

So, how did he do? I give him a “B.”

I’m still not 100% decided as to whether PowerPoint was appropriate for the occasion, but what I do know is that from a purely presentational standpoint, he did a lot right. (And expect him to continue to get a lot of press on this one.)

THE GOOD 

• The slides supported the well-scripted message he was delivering; they were not the presentation itself (remember, nobody comes to see your slides)
• Template-less slide design (and no State of NY seal in the corner!)
• One message per slide
• Limited text
• Strong, full screen imagery (mostly)
• Speaker as focus: Cuomo faced front and never read his slides; he began and ended without slides.
• Well-rehearsed: Cuomo used a stage manager, and the slides followed him.
• Humor: He committed 100% to a silly animated battleship slide that garnered laughs while illustrating Albany political problems. Goofy? Yes. Sticky? Absolutely. This was his memorable moment.
• Pacing: Cuomo used humor, visuals and special guests to vary the pace and keep the audience engaged 

THE BAD

• Too much text: Some slides still had too much text and asked to be read, taking attention away from the speaker
• Too many slides: Normally I’m agnostic about number of slides, but using 82 slides forced too much focus on the screens, instead of the speaker. Additionally, many slides that just displayed a textual talking point seemed extraneous.
• Animation: It wasn’t horrendous, but just because you can animate on individual elements of a slide doesn’t mean you always should; the subtle entrance animations made this feel more “PowerPoint-y” than it needed to be.
• PowerPoint chops: Very few would notice, but many animations could have been created more elegantly if the designer just knew some tricks…

THE UNDECIDED 

•  Credibility: Is the use of slides befitting the very serious nature of the situation, speaker and content? Did it feel like a pharmaceutical sales meeting? Your thoughts? 

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And since we’re talking political PowerPoint, it’s a good time to remind everyone of what PowerPoint might have enabled at Gettysburg…