20 minutes is enough

TED presentations take a bit less than 20 minutes. If you have watched a few of these presentations, you will have noticed that this time is more than enough to get a complex idea across in your presentation.

Apparently, 20 minutes is also the average time a grown up can really focus his attention (source).

Add these two observations up and you realize that you need to design your presentation in such a way that the full pitch comes across in roughly this time. Anything more can be added as additional case studies examples, other plot variations. Possibly again in blocks of 10-20 minutes.

A few people with a lot more knowledge than I have about attention span and the brain are reading this blog, feel free to add your perspective.

5 comments

c. oberle2011-04-30 07:37:07

I absolutley agree with you. But it is not only the limited length of a presentation, it is the presentation design, too, which is crucial to the success of a talk. You can also produce death by powerpoint in a 20 minute presentation.

Jan Schultink2011-05-01 05:02:17

That depends on the type of presentations you want to have at your conference

Robert Osborne2011-05-01 01:06:55

Actually, I have been thinking about a conference I am helping to organize and mandating certain sessions where speakers can only speak 12 minutes. Not sure if that is too short, but it is hard to ensure that you avoid DbPP (Death by PowerPoint)

Jan Schultink2011-04-30 07:53:59

True

Bruce Gabrielle2011-05-03 05:27:38

If you mix up your presentation - adding video, audience participation, etc - you can keep attention for hours.

John Medina (Brain Rules) recommends adding some variety every 10 minutes. After a few rounds of this, you can stretch this to 15 or 20 minutes.

I recently listened to a speaker for about 1.5 hours (his lecture was on how to engage an audience and keep them engaged). His delivery style was lively, he frequently stepped out into the audience and addressed people directly, his slides were simple and amusing, his content was excellent. I was never bored and the 1.5 hrs flew by.