Thursday, 8 July 2010

In praise of flipcharts

For the recent transition workshops, I have been using no powerpoint (or Keynote, to be more accurate, as a devoted Mac user), simply a flipchart.  It seemed to me more appropriate for the kind of event I wanted to run.

This reminded me powerfully why I prefer flipcharts to projected presentations:


  • They are more intimate
  • They don't distract me or participants from each other
  • They put me on the same level as participants - not some slick professional presenter (though of course I am...)
  • My messy use of them makes it easier for participants when I ask them to prepare flips to summarise their discussions: I model that it doesn't matter about neat handwriting, writing in straight lines etc
  • I only use them when I need to, whereas it is all to easy to use ppt or Keynote as a crutch/prompt, resulting in endless slides...
Must stay low-tech more often!
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1 comment:

  1. Simon Raybould7 September 2010 at 14:58

    With you here!

    I particularly like the fact that participants see the final product being organically and gradually created. It allows them to buy in to concepts more readily.

    And, of course, it's a lot harder to mis-use a flipchart to create Death by Powerpoint!

    The only downside is the quality of my hand-writing! :)

    S

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