Why can’t people give up their bullet points in PowerPoint presentations? One reason is they don’t know what to replace them with or what to do differently. Here’s a slide makeover that may give you some ideas.

The first slide below is not as cluttered and data heavy as many I’ve seen, but it still has too many words on it to be easily understood by the audience.

One guideline that can help improve a type-filled slide is to put most of the words in your notes (either on your screen or on paper) to remind you what you want to say. Also, include only one key point per slide.

Here the presenter is trying to do too much at once. She’s talking about the importance of a “meaningful difference,” and then also adds five examples. She’ll probably read them to the audience.

I think it can be more visual and therefore more understandable by spreading the info out on more slides. The presenter can also easily include the audience in the discussion.

The first new slide introduces the concept. On her notes page, the presenter can have the info she wants to say, the stuff that used to be on the slide.

“Strong brands stand out because they have something that differentiates them — what’s called a meaningful difference. They convey this difference consistently and constantly in everything they do.”

“Let’s look at some brands that stand out in this way and see if you can name their meaningful difference.”

“When we think of Maytag, what do we think of?”

“Yes, reliability. How about Michelin?

“Safety. All of their ads and communications to consumers convey their emphasis on safety.”

“What stands out when we think of Disney? What’s their differentiator?”

“Yes, Disney is known for providing wholesome family entertainment. Parents know that if they send their kids to a Disney movie, it won’t have sex and violence.”

And she can continue on with the other brands. This way of presenting keeps the audience from texting, twitting, or checking email. And it’s more interesting for the presenter too.

Advice on how to take advantage of social media is everywhere — articles, blogs, webinars, podcasts, etc.

Of course, much of the interest in Facebook, Twitter and the like is being driven by younger people. The message to companies and other organizations is clear — communication has changed. Audiences want simple, understandable, interesting messages or they’ll tune you out. They also want their voice heard and they’ll use it no matter what you do or say.

Then why are so many people who are tuned into social media still giving the same horribly boring, non audience-focused PowerPoint (and Apple Keynote) presentations? How long will it be before Gen Yers, Xers, and even Baby Boomers revolt by walking out on or even refusing to attend speeches that bore them with bullet points?

Often when I tell people their speeches would be much better if they dumped all their bullets, sub bullets and sub sub bullets, they’re shocked. They’ve always done it that way. How else would they deliver messages if they couldn’t fill their slides with words?

The answer, simple but not easy, is to fill slides with visuals — pictures, charts, and graphs — while using a bare minimum of words.

Chances are, if your PowerPoint presentation can stand alone without you explaining it, you have too much information on your slides. Your audience will either start texting and checking emails, or fall asleep as you drone on and on.

Here are five steps to help you make your slides — and your presentation — more engaging:

1). Plan your content before you ever start working on the slides to go with it. When we start with PowerPoint we often aren’t clear about what our important, overlying messages are.

2). Don’t put your company name and other information on every slide. Besides being unnecessary and boring, it takes up important real estate that you can use for conveying your message.

3). Plan on preparing three different presentations instead of trying to accomplish all your goals with one. The first presentation is your slides: visual, colorful and interesting. The second is your notes page at the bottom of PowerPoint or Keynote. Here you put all the bullet points that would have appeared on your slides. Finally, if you need a leave-behind or want to give your audience more in-depth information, prepare a handout.

4). Write a short headline that states the main point of your slide. It’s best to use a full sentence with an action verb. This immediately lets the audience know what you’re trying to convey.

5). Most importantly, present information in small chunks rather than a data dump. This means using only one idea per slide. So if you have a list of five bullet points, it might be best to convey the information in five different visually focused slides, rather than trying to put it all on one.

Yes, this is harder and takes more time. But what’s the alternative? Wasting your time and the audience’s on a presentation that makes no impact whatsoever.

I just came back from another conference. Ho hum. More mediocre presentations that sent me checking email on my iPhone for relief.

It’s not so much that the speakers were bad (some of them were), but their PowerPoint was awful. I’ve written about this before, and I’ve done presentations on the topic, but I just can’t understand how so many smart business and professional people can be so stupid about using visuals that aren’t really visual.

How can anyone actually think that a slide filled from top to bottom with words makes any positive impact? Granted, I’m less tolerant than most. In fact, I’ve become so intolerant that I can hardly stay in the same room with bad PowerPoint. It makes me want to scream.

I believe that it’s time for audiences everywhere to revolt. Stop the insanity. We’re wasting precious time and resources. When speakers turn on those nasty slides, get up and walk out of the room.  If only Obama had a bailout plan for those of us who have to suffer through bad PowerPoint.