Been very careful to have some element of my presentation be physical. Tangible. Non-electronic. That’s why I threw a laptop across the stage last time I ran a morning meeting, and why tomorrow I’ll be wearing a cool hat and be playing with food coloring. Its called interactivity, and its the way of the future.
You see, the audiences we face today have a problem. Its called puny attention span disorder. PASD. As in “passed”, but different. Today’s audiences really don’t care about pie charts, bar graphs, histograms, bibliographies, previews, recaps, or bullet points. Really? We’ve already sunk past bullet points? I don’t really think bullet points ever belonged on slide shows. They should live on my grocery list and US History fact test, and no where else.
So this is the general rule of the slide shows of the past. 20 minutes of talking, 10 slides, no more than 5 points per slide.
I don’t think that applies any more. My new rule is this: 15 minutes of talking, ½ a point per slide, and as many slides as you can get through. By sparsely populating your slides and having an overall low information density, you can create the illusion of “flying through the presentation”, and finish before your audience has lost all attention. I can’t stand presentations that have some really interesting stuff to say, but the info is packed into 5 slides and we stay stuck on one slide for twenty minutes.
Good night, my friends.
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