Maybe you’ve seen a PowerPoint presentation that looks something like this [visual: heinous PPT template]. Maybe you were the author of a PowerPoint like that. This is a little unfair—usually people will throw in some clip art to jazz it up a little [visual: ridiculous smiley-face clip art]. How do you avoid the dreaded bullet-drenched PPT? Here are 3 tips.
1. Be simple. I know, you’ve heard it before. But it’s worth hearing again. There’s a trial lawyer who holds a focus group with the jury after every major case. His one overriding conclusion: If you make 10 arguments to the jury, no matter how good each argument is, by the time they get back to the jury room, they’ll remember nothing. If you say 10 things, you say nothing. Well, your colleagues are your jury. I know it hurts to cut but if your main points are going to shine through, you’ve got to be ruthless.
2. Show something. To be clear, that’s not the same thing as using clip art. You don’t need to decorate, you need to communicate. What you show doesn’t even need to be on the screen. I got an email from the president of a power tools company who was on the way to a sales meeting. He’d prepped a long presentation about how great his tools were. At the last minute, he decided to toss it out and instead, he put two drills on the table in front of the customer—his and his competitor’s. He disassembled both of them side-by-side to show the durability of his drills. The customer loved it. The best presentations are like this—they bring a little reality into the room.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Made To Stick: Presentations That Stick | Fast Company
Author: Dan Heath
