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I pull off this sort of stuff (very few slides or talk sheet with a few bullet points) nowadays after a decade of corporate managerial life. It essentially requ

by sfifs 9y ago

I pull off this sort of stuff (very few slides or talk sheet with a few bullet points) nowadays after a decade of corporate managerial life. It essentially requires you to be ultra clear in your mind about message and narrative and to develop an ability to communicate simply. It's very difficult to pull off without much practice especially early in your career - so don't feel bad.

gregmac 9y ago
I found when I applied the principles I use for software, it helped me make much better presentations. Build a (user) story. Why are presenting? What do you want to accomplish by taking to these people? Based on what they already know, how much background do they need? Your don't build features by adding buttons and sliders - you figure out user stories by asking why a dozen times. It's not quite the same dynamic but you can roughly go through the same exercise, even if it's just in your head. The other big thing is to reduce text content to the bare minimum. Remove sentences (move them to speaker notes, if you want). Keep rephrasing things to make it shorter. If you have lots of text on screen people read it and don't pay attention to you. If you're reading the text verbatim, you might as well just email your content and not waste the time talking. Visuals are good when possible. Even dumb stock photos can work: for example, if you're making an argument that your onboarding process is too complex, a photo of a crazy highway interchange can help reinforce that. It certainly leaves a more lasting impression that a 9-point bulleted wall of text.
ptero 9y ago
> It essentially requires you to be ultra clear in your mind about message and narrative I think this is a requirement (unfortunately too infrequently enforced) for making any presentation to more than a few folks. If a number of people are dedicating their time, brain cells and energy to listen to the presenter, that presenter should make his message as clear as possible. Know exactly what you want to say, write main points into charts, say it. There are some exceptions -- at scientific conferences it is usually OK to lose all but narrow specialists in the last 25-50% of the presentation, but even then the "general" section should be clear.

by sfifs 9y ago

gregmac 9y ago

I found when I applied the principles I use for software, it helped me make much better presentations. Build a (user) story. Why are presenting? What do you want to accomplish by taking to these people? Based on what they already know, how much background do they need? Your don't build features by adding buttons and sliders - you figure out user stories by asking why a dozen times. It's not quite the same dynamic but you can roughly go through the same exercise, even if it's just in your head. The other big thing is to reduce text content to the bare minimum. Remove sentences (move them to speaker notes, if you want). Keep rephrasing things to make it shorter. If you have lots of text on screen people read it and don't pay attention to you. If you're reading the text verbatim, you might as well just email your content and not waste the time talking. Visuals are good when possible. Even dumb stock photos can work: for example, if you're making an argument that your onboarding process is too complex, a photo of a crazy highway interchange can help reinforce that. It certainly leaves a more lasting impression that a 9-point bulleted wall of text.

ptero 9y ago

> It essentially requires you to be ultra clear in your mind about message and narrative I think this is a requirement (unfortunately too infrequently enforced) for making any presentation to more than a few folks. If a number of people are dedicating their time, brain cells and energy to listen to the presenter, that presenter should make his message as clear as possible. Know exactly what you want to say, write main points into charts, say it. There are some exceptions -- at scientific conferences it is usually OK to lose all but narrow specialists in the last 25-50% of the presentation, but even then the "general" section should be clear.