Making-Original-Products-presentationzen

Create a Document, Not a Slideument
Slides are slides. Documents are documents.
They aren’t the same thing. Attempts
to merge them result in what I call the
“slideument.” The creation of the slideument
stems from a desire to save time. People
think they are being efficient—a kind of
kill-two-birds-with-one-stone approach
or iiseki ni cho in Japanese. Unfortunately
(unless you’re a bird), the only thing “killed”
is effective communication. Intentions are
good, but results are bad. This attempt
to save time reminds me of a more fitting
Japanese proverb: Nito o oumono wa itto mo
ezu or “Chase two hares and get none.”
Projected slides should be as visual as possible and support your points quickly,
efficiently, and powerfully. The verbal content, the verbal proof, evidence, and
appeal/emotion come mostly from your spoken word. But your handouts are
completely different. With those, you aren’t there to supply the verbal content
and answer questions, so you must write in a way that provides at least as much
depth and scope as your live presentation. Often, however, even more depth and
background information are appropriate because people can read much faster than
you can speak. Sometimes, a presentation is on material found in a speaker’s book
or a long journal article. In that case, the handout can be quite concise; the book
or research paper is where people can go to learn more.
Do Conferences Encourage Slideumentation?
As proof that we live in a world dominated by bad presentations, many
conferences today require speakers to follow uniform slide guidelines and submit
their files far in advance. The conference then takes these “standardized slide
decks” and prints and places them in a large conference binder or includes them
on the conference DVD for attendees to take home. Conference organizers are
implying that a cryptic series of slides with bullet points and titles makes for both
good visual support in your live presentation and credible documentation of your
presentation content long after your talk has ended. This forces the speaker into
a catch-22 situation. The presenter must say to herself: “Do I design visuals that
clearly support my live talk, or do I create slides that more resemble a document
to be read later?” Most presenters compromise and shoot for the middle,
70 Presentation Zen