A new era in presentations

A presentation without PowerPoint? It’s possible

On May 20, John Mangan from Cincom Systems and Dale Wolf from Compass Clinical Consulting spoke at the May Institute of the Southwestern Ohio Chapter of Healthcare Financial Management Association.

Their topic was Social Media and the SM capabilities that hospitals have available to them today. They discussed everything from Twitter to LinkedIn to YouTube sharing the stats, numbers, success stories and things they thought were interesting and important.

Sounds great, right? After all, Social Media is “the wave of the future” and it seems like everyone and their mother is signing up for some service or another.

The info is especially pertinent to hospitals as Ad-ology reports that SM influenced 40% of recent hospital or urgent care patients, a statistic which jumps to  53.8% when looking at recent patients between the ages of 25 and 34.

But, how were John and Dale supposed to convey the power of social media to a room full of hospital financial managers in a compelling and cohesive way?

The most obvious choice is a presentation software like PowerPoint or Keynote. They are presentation staples in any organization as they allow a user to easily create a presentation that is – hopefully – succinct, engaging and powerful.

(Side note: Do you know how to make your PowerPoints succinct, engaging and powerful? Check out Seth Godin’s Really Bad PowerPoint and Carmine Gallo’s The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs.)

PowerPoint would have allowed the presenters to store all of their information and example links in one place, but it wouldn’t have led to a cohesive presentation. Nor would it have added any value aside from putting statistics in front of the audience.

But what other option is there? SlideRocket would have added a flashier component, but still wouldn’t have shown the vast value and connective capabilities that Social Media encompasses.

Enter a new competitor: The Website

Really, the only way to create this presentation was to build it on a platform that allows you to plug-in to each aspect of SM – a website.

Using WordPress as a host, I (with some great help from Pius Ekhaeyemhe and Steve Kayser) set up a domain name for them, loaded the WhiteHousePro theme by PageLines and started aggregating their content. (In case you’re wondering about the name, yes, the Barack Obama White House uses the WhiteHousePro theme…)

The end result – Social Media for Hospitals – is pretty powerful.

With plug-ins and widgets I was able to insert both Dale and John’s Twitter feeds as well as Ed Bennett, the Director of Web Strategy at the University of Maryland, Medical Center – and the man behind the bible for those hospitals looking into entering the social media sphere, The Hospital Social Network List.

I embedded videos showing the fun, yet informative nature of YouTube.

I linked to ABC News stories showcasing how surgeons are using Twitter in the operating room.

I even used the blog capabilities of the WhiteHousePro theme to showcase a successful case study in social media and to include a number of “slides” with statistics which one of the presenters wanted to use.

All of the information which John and Dale needed to deliver a powerful presentation was right there, interconnected on one platform.

And the best part of all?

No handouts!

Audience members didn’t have to furiously write down any URLs of examples they might want to see again after the presentation. Nor did they have to keep track of any printed slide decks.

Instead, they only had to remember one URL – http://socialmediaforhospitals.cincom.com. The entire presentation – all the examples, case studies, Twitter feeds and information – is still live on the Internet, accessible by anyone regardless of whether or not they attended the Southwestern Ohio HFMA May Institute.

And what’s better than the best part?

Because the domain was built on WordPress, which has an easy to use back-end that both Dale and John understand, the information on the live site is not stagnant!

The blog can be continuously updated as new stats and information are released about Social Media and hospitals. More YouTube videos can be added. Different case studies can be highlighted. And discussions can be facilitated through the use of comments on the blog.

So what am I saying?

Is PowerPoint going to become extinct? No, of course not. Some people would probably feel more comfortable using PowerPoint to present.

But what I am saying is that there’s a new contender when it comes to creating presentations.

For our purposes, the website was the best possible route – it is interactive, maleable, engaging, creative and a catalyst for discussion. And the presentation wasn’t too shabby, either.

So go ahead, take a look. Can you use a website to suit your presentation purposes?

I dare you to try, because once you start analyzing and creating you’ll start to understand the full potential of using a website.

Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr user h.koppdelaney

Liz Harter has a degree in English Writing with a minor in Spanish from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind. She is an award winning journalist on the collegiate level with a strong background in journalism. She currently works in PR and is a social media autodidact Google+

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