It’s clear that when a speaker steps off stage having giving an excellent presentation that a lot of work has gone into the finished article. Whether that is a business case to 5 people or oration to thousands, it takes time. And time is precious. So what one thing could you do that would quickly and dramatically improve your presentation skills? Simple. Stop using slideuments.
There are many reasons that we attempt to multi-purpose our presentation and include: time, efficiency, laziness, conformity, instruction and ignorance but does it work? Of course it does. A knife can be used to drive screws or a book as a weapon. It isn’t elegant and it isn’t as effective as it could be, but it works. Is that what you’d like your presentation to be? Is that how much you value the information you are dealing with? Is that what you think of your audience?
The astute reader may then return to the metaphor of a smartphone. It seamlessly and elegantly can perform many functions from telecommunication to media player to photography and all within one aesthetically pleasing package. None of these tasks are simple and the device wasn’t cobbled together in 20 minutes the night before its release.
If you want to make a dramatic and immediate improvement in your presentations don’t put everything you want to say and everything you want remembered into everything that is seen. Stop using slideuments. No really! Your audience will thank you.
edited image from my friend Phil over at http://philpresents.wordpress.com/