According to a recent survey by software provider Infommersion Inc., nearly three-quarters of business managers admit to falling asleep, or being sleepy, during presentations.
"Keeping people's interest during a lengthy, or even short, presentation can often be quite a challenge," said Santiago Becerra, chief executive officer at Infommersion, in a statement. "Having a slide show that makes good use of data visualization tools can make the difference between holding an audience's attention and making an impact, or lulling people to sleep and thereby potentially wasting a good business opportunity."
In an online poll, 71 percent of 382 business managers said that they had fallen asleep or been sleepy during a presentation. The poll found the most difficult types of presentations to stay alert and awake during were individual speeches, cited by 35 percent of the respondents. Training sessions (23 percent) and general meetings (16 percent) were the second and third most difficult to stay awake throughout, respectively. Webcasts were the easiest types of conferences to stay alert during, with only 11 percent of respondents finding it difficult to pay attention.
