Death by PPTs
Shahana Sen Mishra
![Shahana Sen Mishra]()
Shahana Sen Mishra
AI Marketing Advisor | MX Consulting I Adventure Enthusiast I Philanthropist
Cannot be avoided...but can be made more bearable... here’s how!
In my career spanning almost 2 decades, I must have made over 1000 presentations & witnessed over 1500! And yes, it has been grueling to say the least! All my friends in the corporate sector will relate to this :)
So, while we can’t really avoid making or attending presentations, there are ways in which we can make the whole process better... sharing a few tips I came across from a presentation (yes!!!) made by David Phillips in a TED Talk.. so here goes-
1. Keep 1 message a slide
- Attention gets diverted with multiple messaging
2. Do not write sentences on slides
- Working memory is limited
- In cases where you are talking & the same sentences are written on the slide, you end up with 1+1=0
3. Size matters
- The most important message needs to be in the largest font
- Many a times we end up with headlines (usually in the biggest font) and key messages in the body of the ppt with smaller fonts
4. Use contrast to help focus on messages
- Eg, on a slide with bullets, highlighting a particular bullet while fading the rest of the bullets helps focussing on that one thing at a time
- White backgrounds on power-points take away the focus from the presenter, due to higher contrasts. Good practice is to use darker backgrounds
5. Lesser the objects per slide, better the comprehension
- Bringing down the number of objects in a slide from 7 to 5 (just 2 less) can increase grasping/ comprehension by up to 500%!. This is because with lesser objects, one does a visual capture of information, which is much faster than the cognitive process of assimilating more information
- Ideally do not have more than 6 objects per slide
- Number of slides is never the problem... its the information per slide!
- Take away useless information like slide numbers, eg 5 of 45.. (this will also help avoid situations like- OMG! There are 40 more of these to go!)
And, just for laughs, you have to see this one (done in 2010) by Don McMillan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSPPFYxx3o
CMO & Business School Professor | 2x Author, TEDx Speaker | PwC & McCann Alum
6 年Thanks for the tips. From my experience, it is extremely important to add visuals and video clips to help the presenter tell his/her story. The Internet is now 80% visual so presentations need to follow to communicate points and keep the interest of the audience.
Founder at One Impression | Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia | Building The Future of Influencer Marketing & Creator Economy
6 年Rightly said. I think a lot of good entrepreneurs have cracked this with great investor pitch decks. Lots to learn about how so much information is put very briefly and clearly in a small presentation.