There's no shortage of people out there offering presentation advice --
especially about using slides -- and some of it is really quite good.
I'm starting to present a little now, and I can see the challenges.
But the real goal for me is to never use slides under any circumstances. If slides are required for a talk, oh well, no talk. Move on. Not my crowd. Now, that's the goal, but I'm obviously years away from that. So for now I use slides like everyone else. One note here: when I say "no slides" what I mean is a complete deck of slides illustrating every point with bulleted lists of text and some occasional graphics and corporate branding on each slide so you don't forget where the speaker works. Slides as speaker notes and marketing message delivery systems, basically. Many times a visual is good to have such as a demo or video or some audio or something live to make a point the way only something live can. But the main speech shouldn't be obfuscated with slides, and it shouldn't even take place on stage, either. It should live in the imaginations of the audience where the speaker is carefully and trustfully walking. That's personal. Slides can't go there. That's why I hate slides. I generally feel that slides detract from presentations even from highly skilled speakers, and I can only think of a few exceptions.
When I see a potentially great speaker messing around with computers and connections and slides and projectors and clickers and pointers on stage, I always wonder why. What a waste. And that's where it all starts for me. With the speaker. Not the content. Very few of those offering presentation advice start with the speaker, but I think it's the most important thing. When I look at a conference schedule, I immediately look for the names of the people presenting, then I look at the content. If I find people I want to see or whose work I'm following, I'm there. If I don't recognize anyone, I look at the content and hope I can meet a great new presenter. Both strategies work out well. I can read the content from multiple sources or get it from conversation in the hallways or at dinner or on some website, but great speakers grab you in the moment and suck you directly into the content with personal stories of their experience with the content. A great speaker generates a physical reaction in your body as your mind expands with possibilities. If there's no direct experience with the content, then why is there a speaker on stage at all? As a former speech writer a few years ago, I felt that this was the most important reason most corporate speeches failed. In most instances, it's obvious.
So, it was nice to see Simon Phipps dumping his (very good) slides for his OSCON keynote recently. I'm sorry I missed it. Simon is one of those guys who is a great speaker. He designs his own slides with significant effort and care. And he uses those slides as effectively as any of the A-list talkers out there. He's got it all, right? No. I've seen Simon present many times over the last six years, and I always walk away thinking how this or that talk would have worked with no slides at all? So, he finally does it, and I'm about six thousand miles away. Oh, well. Next time. My point is that I'm willing to bet that Simon's talk took on an entirely new dimension only possibly by excluding slides and benefiting from the simplicity of one human talking directly to another with nothing distracting either person. Just a hunch ...
But the real goal for me is to never use slides under any circumstances. If slides are required for a talk, oh well, no talk. Move on. Not my crowd. Now, that's the goal, but I'm obviously years away from that. So for now I use slides like everyone else. One note here: when I say "no slides" what I mean is a complete deck of slides illustrating every point with bulleted lists of text and some occasional graphics and corporate branding on each slide so you don't forget where the speaker works. Slides as speaker notes and marketing message delivery systems, basically. Many times a visual is good to have such as a demo or video or some audio or something live to make a point the way only something live can. But the main speech shouldn't be obfuscated with slides, and it shouldn't even take place on stage, either. It should live in the imaginations of the audience where the speaker is carefully and trustfully walking. That's personal. Slides can't go there. That's why I hate slides. I generally feel that slides detract from presentations even from highly skilled speakers, and I can only think of a few exceptions.
When I see a potentially great speaker messing around with computers and connections and slides and projectors and clickers and pointers on stage, I always wonder why. What a waste. And that's where it all starts for me. With the speaker. Not the content. Very few of those offering presentation advice start with the speaker, but I think it's the most important thing. When I look at a conference schedule, I immediately look for the names of the people presenting, then I look at the content. If I find people I want to see or whose work I'm following, I'm there. If I don't recognize anyone, I look at the content and hope I can meet a great new presenter. Both strategies work out well. I can read the content from multiple sources or get it from conversation in the hallways or at dinner or on some website, but great speakers grab you in the moment and suck you directly into the content with personal stories of their experience with the content. A great speaker generates a physical reaction in your body as your mind expands with possibilities. If there's no direct experience with the content, then why is there a speaker on stage at all? As a former speech writer a few years ago, I felt that this was the most important reason most corporate speeches failed. In most instances, it's obvious.
So, it was nice to see Simon Phipps dumping his (very good) slides for his OSCON keynote recently. I'm sorry I missed it. Simon is one of those guys who is a great speaker. He designs his own slides with significant effort and care. And he uses those slides as effectively as any of the A-list talkers out there. He's got it all, right? No. I've seen Simon present many times over the last six years, and I always walk away thinking how this or that talk would have worked with no slides at all? So, he finally does it, and I'm about six thousand miles away. Oh, well. Next time. My point is that I'm willing to bet that Simon's talk took on an entirely new dimension only possibly by excluding slides and benefiting from the simplicity of one human talking directly to another with nothing distracting either person. Just a hunch ...
