What is PowerPoint Karaoke? It is an ironic mutation of Toastmasters, one of the original and most successful ways to have fun while overcoming the fear of public speaking. It basically entails giving a humorous PowerPoint presentation to random slides generated by someone else.
Process
Simply get a small group of people together and have everyone assemble a PowerPoint or Keynote slideshow consisting of 10 slides. Then tie all of the presentation slides together and load them onto a computer attached to a projector.
Then, each person in the group gives a presentation to the slides of another person’s randomly hashed together slideshow without seeing the slides beforehand.
The results? Pure hilarity and enjoyment.
Example Presentation
This is an example PowerPoint Karaoke Presentation. This one does not have text, in order to increase the narrative flexibility of the speaker.
PowerPoint Karaoke way to learn how to give presentations on the fly. It is a fun and enjoyable practice that was first started in 2005 by a group of German artists. Now, the practice and experience of PowerPoint Karaoke is ubiquitous across many geek gatherings, and is increasingly a part of Unconference proceedings such as BarCamp (we’ll feature a session of PowerPoint Karaoke at CyborgCamp).
Tips
- PowerPoint Karaoke is often best played with a slightly inebriated group of 6-8 interesting people.
- Slideshows with funny pictures that are either completely random or part of a theme are the most amusing.
- Slideshow presenters that try to be really serious about completely silly subjects often highly amuse their audiences.
- Give your group a very short amount of time or a limitation in order to keep them from fretting about formatting.
- Avoid slide transitions, unless you feel they would add ironic enjoyability (and surprise to the one giving your slideshow).
Want to play before CyborgCamp? Simply come to a Portland Makerlab meeting on Sunday or Tuesday, where we’ll be playing with tech, ideas, and projects — as well as having PowerPoint Karaoke breaks. See the MakerLab website for contact information and time, or simply ask @caseorganic on Twitter.
