Why have slides at all, especially on Monday after a Super Bowl, bolsters this idea? One of the premises of the 5 Slide Rule™ (of thumb) is first to ask if you need any slides; that does not mean you don’t need content. I wouldn’t say I like slides. NASA even attributed PowerPoint contributed to a shuttle disaster. PowerPoint kills. https://lnkd.in/e6C9QVHz < more on that topic. Edward Tufte goes deep on this topic as well if you’re interested. https://lnkd.in/ede64DvqThe knee jerk reaction is that this is reductive or oversimplification of things. The point is if your premise is Why do i need slides at all, you may find a surprise in the analysis. You probably don’t, your actual content in it’s native form is ok to share, spreadsheets, whiteboards, docs, figmas, etc. Your results may vary. Good luck.
Six Suggestions:
1. What is your outline and content to be covered/conveyed? Could you write it out story spine style? Once upon a time… Pixar style, google yourself some story spines.
2. Try using slides not as deckware but as a storyboard for collab’ing toward a compelling narrative. (and keep that as a tool no one sees but the over-prepping team, speaking parts, handoffs, push/pause/checks)
3. Why is that? Please go ahead and interpret the story and break down the audience, intent, and critical concepts to be conveyed. What is the end in mind for all the parts? There is no power if there is no point.
4. Why would anyone care about <content>? Keep asking all the way to the last possible minute. Five or so slides, a forcing function for this form.
5. Timeline the story, my experience only, too many irrelevant, non-narrative contributing, gratuitous, self-serving content bits. 60m mtg = ~40m story
6. Avoid Packed kitchens. Somehow, there is a need for everyone to be heard when building a compelling story, sure. Still, it should not lead to bloated, meandering, meaningless, trivial, no-one-cares content lazily dumped into decks and at 100+ slides anyone thinks that useful.
Bottomline. Start with no slides, understand time, curate hard, fight for less, and make folks pitch their contributions. Five powerful slides will beat every long deck every day(assumes an hour mtg). You cared enough to make less for your audience. For an hour of someone else’s time that they are not getting back, you owe that audience efficient use and expected utility of their attention. Stay tuned for more on story-making using the 5 slide rule. Happy Monday. Thanks for reading. #keepmoving#stopsliding