SlideMagic Blog

Many presentations end in some sort of Q&A session. During this discussion, the slide show usually comes to a standstill, and the last visual used stays on the projector for a long time. Make sure it is a useful one, since it might be the image that the audience will remember best. To be avoided:

• A completely random slide from the deck (the one that sparked the discussion for example)
• A “thank you” or “Q&A” slide
• A slide that addresses one of your weaker points (i.e., you got a touch question about the competition and did the best you could using the competitor comparison slide), move it after you used it.
• A dry list of bullet points recapping the content of your presentation using language full of abstract concepts (“ROI”) and buzz words (“key competencies”)

What could work: a visual that links back to a key point in your presentation. For example, if you spend 5 slides on describing how a teenager will use your mobile social network, just putting a picture of her back up will remind the audience of the story. (This time you can leave out the bullets arrows, boxes, just an image to refresh the memory).

The structure of your presentation sets the flow of the story. There is no one fits all structure though. I am discussing three different types of structure here, the names are invented by me and do not refer to well established definitions.

Analytical structure. A rigorous and organized framework that cuts up the material in all the components required to solve a problem or run an analysis. Management consultants use issue trees, university text books have section headings going down three levels. It makes sure you covered everything, that there are no overlaps, and that it is very easy to find a piece of information without having to read through the entire text. Despite that this structure is too boring, and too exhaustive for a presentation, it is often used.

Logical structure. The sequence of facts that provides a rock solid proof of your point, every aspect is dealt with, the logical deductions and implications cannot be disputed. Not as exhaustive as the analytical structure,  it still usually uses some sort of agenda or summary page that prepares people for the logical drill that is about to follow. Market is big, competitors s**ck, etc. Better, but lacking emotion.

Implicit structure. My preferred one for a presentation. You tell a story, the audience is captivated without a rigorous agenda page, your listeners are not aware of an underlying structure of the story. It’s there, it’s just hidden.

I use the analytical structure to solve the problem, the logical structure to develop the check list of points I need to cover, and then construct my story free of these rigorous frameworks. When I am done, I go back to the first two to see whether I covered everything.

Everyone knows that it is important to think about the story and flow of your presentation before opening PowerPoint and start designing slides. Paper sketches are great, sticky notes are great. But there is one common approach that usually does not work: writing the story out long-hand in Word.

Long-hand text looks final. When you want to discuss it with a team of people, they start paying attention to wording, fine tuning messages. This is wasted energy at this stage in the process.

But more importantly, text is not visual. “Here we need an image of a man standing in the street holding his phone up in the air in despair”. It is much more powerful to discuss the draft or first ideas of a visual presentation with - well - visuals!

As a result I often end up scribbling the first version of a presentation in PowerPoint. But in this case PowerPoint is not the slide design tool, rather a simple note pad to organize ideas.

It sounds great, but we discount it completely because we have heard and read it so many times. The same for text in presentations.

Even this Zen minimalist slide text (with a nice picture in the background) might not convince your audience:

IN SHORT, WE HELP YOU

• Acquire new customers

• Sell more to existing customers

• Prevent customers from leaving

• Cut cost

These are the exact things big banks and mobile phone operators are worried about. But, every company pitching to them is putting these words on the summary slide. It does not stick anymore. They have heard it before.

Increase the signal to noise ratio. Instead, try reminding them on the final slide about the specifics of your company that create these benefits. Maybe a small icon-size thumbnail of an image you used before. It will make you stand out in the noise.

The blog “Things real people do not say about advertising” is a collection of pictures with imaginary people responding to advertising. Amusing to read, and reminding us that we are designing presentations to real people that are totally not interested in marketing speak.

This contribution was suggested by Paul Alex Gray.

Some random thoughts on designing keynote slides (in no particular order):

• A keynote is a specific presentation setting. A large audience, an audience that sits there because of its own free will (i.e., not the annual budget review). An audience that has alternatives (walk out for a coffee, check email on a mobile device). You have to capture their attention
• Every keynote speech starts with the story you want to tell. Don’t  open your slide bank and see how you can stitch together something form existing slides. This might work in your weekly management meeting, it won’t for a big audience
• It should be possible to tell your story without slides at all. Use graphics only for specific purposes. A picture that clarifies an example. A minimalist data chart that shows a trend. A few words that highlight what you are talking about, or to signal a transition. A map of competitor logos that shows how you are different. One big number to show how huge something is. Insert black slides into the presentation sequence for those passages that do not require visual support.
• Dense bullet point slides won’t work. But a constant barrage of “stunning” stock images that change every 2 seconds will make the audience dizzy and distracts attention from the speaker.
• If you have to use images, use real ones. Creative common images from Flickr with real people for example. Use images with a lot of white space. Scale images to the full size of the slide. Don’t use images with a negative emotion: something aggressive, something ugly, something revolting, something depressing, something “college humor”. Think aesthetics.
• Dark slides with light fonts work better, slides with white backgrounds on a huge screen makes the speaker disappear in a sea of light.
• Have the mindset of creating a video: think of someone filming your presentation and putting it online for everyone to see. What combination of you as the speaker and supporting visuals will create the best effect. Use a beautiful, calm, non-standard font. Strip out all corporate logos, repeating graphics. page numbers, source references, confidentiality stickers, everything.
• Practice, practice, practice, and then: practice one more time

Many presentations start with the about slide. It is useful to give the audience some background about who you are, where you are from, when you were founded, and what your company does (more or less), that your company is financially stable and not about to go bankrupt. But don’t overdo it:

• There is no need to tell the entire story at the about page, tell it again in the presentation body, and summarize it again on the conclusion page
• The audience needs to warm up before it is ready to receive your message (see my post from a few days ago)
• The presentation should be about something that is interesting for the audience, and listening to you talking about yourself is probably not the best use of their time

You think hard about that perfect opening sentence that encapsulates it all: what the company is about, what you sell, what customer problem you solve, when you were founded. You write it down, change it, discuss it with your team, edit it, and memorize it by heart.

Then you use it for a live audience: all key messages stashed in just 10 seconds of beautiful prose. All your audience has to do is register this, and they can basically skip the presentation. All that has to be said, has been said.

But hey, it did not stick?

While you were uttering your first sentence, the audience was looking at the woman in the picture of your opening slide (I want a jacket like that), trying to figure our your accent (Canada?), wondering when the next coffee break would be (11:15 on the agenda, but we are behind schedule). In short, all but pay attention to that perfect sentence.

Gear up your story slowly and give the audience time to familiarize themselves.

Image credit Markus Bollingmo.

Overhead: “We completed this extensive business plan for our startup 3 months ago. Check! It is a lot of work, but hey potential investors want it, so we churned it out.”

Here is what investors really want:

1. A good visual presentation that helps them understand your business quickly
2. A company that knows what it is doing, has a clear plan going forward
3. More detailed data/information after 1. has been digested

None of these require a long, text-loaded document. Text is the worst way to deliver 1., the exciting investor presentation. And text is not the best vehicle to deliver 2. and 3.

There is a reason why management consulting reports are written in PowerPoint, in a style that is somewhere in between the Steve-Job-style-keynote and the densely written marketing text book.

• Business issues/strategy can best be communicated/discussed using a visual language: it is about data, relationships, positioning, pros and cons, time lines. Diagrams (even poorly designed ones) do a much better job than a dense paragraph of text
• Things change all the time, and text is hard to change. Swapping the flow of a story, adding a piece of information, updating the market shares. “We did this business plan in September, but it is already out of date (December).” A document in PowerPoint is easy to change and update.
• PowerPoint document can be navigated quickly. It is easy to browse through sections, zoom in, zoom out.
• It is very hard/time-consuming to get the exact wording of something right, especially to agree something among a group of people with different styles. In PowerPoint you cut words, leaving less room for lengthy editorial discussions
• Most business documents are written in English, most people who write them are not native in this language. For a non-native speaker, it is hard to write a good proper long-hand text in 100% good English (native-speakers probably have spotted this in this blog). Most people can reach 80% correct English, and in PowerPoint you get away with it.

In a background article on the leaked diplomatic cable archive, the NYT today discusses the “Ambassador’s Cable Drafting Tips” by Richard E. Hoagland, the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan. From the article:

• Pay attention to the first 5 words, they need to catch the reader’s attention, they are the only thing diplomats see in the electronic cable queue
• Avoid flabby writing (see this too often in diplomacy)
• Incorporate story telling
• But: cute writing is never acceptable, only for toddlers, not for professionals…

Now someone needs to leak these cable drafting tips so we can all learn from it…