Inform. Inspire. Persuade. That's the essence of a good presentation, but many of the best-intentioned presenters turn into robots when trying to communicate their vision via slides and text.
So many of usstudents, teachers, business professionals, church leaders, members of clubs and organizationsare asked to share ideas via visual presentations, but unlike verbal communication, thinking visually isn't easy, natural, or commonly taught in schools or business training programs.
What makes a great slideshow is determined by the type of interaction a presenter has with his or her slides. If the presenter is addicted to reading bullet points, then everyone in the room suffers. It is easy to keep blaming software for the stale output, but in reality, the presenter needs to take responsibility. As communicators, learning to create visual stories that connect with audiences is becoming imperativeespecially in light of global competitive pressure.
Before reaching for that mouse, you should spend some time getting your story straight. After all, presentations are basically stories, and great presentations always come from great stories.
Start with the audience. Take a moment to think about their fears, how they might resist your message, and what their life looks like. Then, after you've pulled together your content structure, overlay stories that will meet your audience's needs and inspire them to feel or act differently. Good stories create much more meaningful and actionable presentations.
Get to the Heart of the Story
Try some good old-fashioned brainstorming with trusted colleagues or peers. Keep passing the story around the room and talking about it. Write down everything that comes out of your mouths.
Get yourself a stack of index cards and a few Sharpie markers. Use one index card per slide and use the Sharpie to add the main idea for each slide. You can write or sketch, whatever works for you. Think through all the things you want to share with your audience and convert them all to index cards.
Try out new material on an unsuspecting audience. This is you telling the story you want to eventually tell with your presentation. This is you stumbling through it, repeating yourself, making mistakes, saying "um" and "like" and "sooooo ..." And this is you feeling uncomfortable and freaking out a little. Do it anyway. Every single time you try to tell that story, you'll get to know it a little better.
My book, "slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations," published this year by O'Reilly Media, outlines practical approaches to creating ideas, translating them into pictures, and delivering them in your own natural way. Whenever you're preparing your next big presentation, keep the "slide:ology" manifesto handy, and remember the following advice:
1. Remember that your audience did not come to your presentation to see you; they came to find out what you can do for them. Give them a reason for taking their time by providing content that resonates. Ensure it's clear as to what they are to do.
2. Spread ideas and move people: Creating great ideas is what we were born to do; getting people to feel that they have a stake in what you believe is the hard part. Communicate your ideas with strong visual grammar to engage all their senses, and they will adopt the ideas as their own.
3. Help them see what you're saying: Epiphanies and profoundly moving experiences come from moments of clarity. Think like a designer and guide your audience through ideas in a way that helps, not hinders, their comprehension. Appeal not only to their verbal senses, but to their visual senses as well.
4. Practice design, not decoration: Orchestrating the aesthetic experience through well-known but oft-neglected design practices can transform your audiences into evangelists. Don't just make pretty talking points. Instead display information in a way that makes complex information clear.
5. Cultivate healthy relationships: A meaningful relationship between you, your slides, and your audience will connect people with content. Display information in the best way possible for comprehension, rather than focusing on what you need as a visual crutch. Content carriers connect with people.
Nancy Duarte is president and CEO of Duarte Design, one of the largest design and woman-owned firms in Silicon Valley. Her client list is loaded with Fortune 500 companies, including Adobe, Cisco, Google, and Hewlett-Packard. Duarte Design is a leader in presentation development and design. Her firm created the presentation for Al Gore's documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth."
Originally published Dec. 1, 2008
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