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The only two rules that I think matter are: 1) make the presentation interesting to sit through 2) have something that you are convincing the audience to do,
by gav 6y ago
The only two rules that I think matter are:
1) make the presentation interesting to sit through
2) have something that you are convincing the audience to do, you should be telling them to "do X" not just tell them "about X".
Whether you have page numbers (I don't) or builds (I do) or executive summaries (I don't) is not going to meaningfully add to the chances of your presentation landing.
Structure is key. The "Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em; then tell ’em; then tell ’em what you told ’em"[1] method works well.
The Duarte Method's[2] "Big Idea"[3] is a good approach:
> A big idea is that one key message you want to communicate. It contains the impetus that compels the audience to set a new course with a new compass heading.
Presentations without a key message are just somebody standing there and talking at you.
[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/15/tell-em/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/15/tell-em/
[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470632011 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470632011
[3] https://www.duarte.com/presentation-ideas/ https://www.duarte.com/presentation-ideas/
- moreati 6y agoWhat is a build? Another word for an animation? Web searches just throw up guides to making a presentation. Edit: Found it. A build is a type of animation that builds up a slide in multiple steps, e.g. revealing steps of a flow in sequence https://www.techrepublic.com/article/creating-animated-build-slides-in-powerpoint-2002/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/creating-animated-build...
- WWWWH 6y agoIt’s jargon. I think of it as animations are a subset of builds.
- gav 6y agoBuilds are ways of trying to avoid the audience reading ahead and getting to the conclusion before you've told the story yourself. For example, if you were explaining your business plan that had three steps: Phase 1: Collect underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit Your audience isn't going to be giving you their full attention while you walk them through Phase 1, because they've trying to understand the whole process think through it themselves. Instead a build would use animations or duplicated slides to present this flow: Phase 1: Collect underpants. (click) Phase 2: ? (click) Phase 3: Profit Now you are controlling the visibility of each step. It's very quick to author: create one slide, duplicate it twice, delete content off those two slides. The slides should be there to reinforce your point. You shouldn't be showing a slide and then reading over the content. It's one reason that some of my decks have a lot of slides, some may only be shown for 5-15 seconds.