Avoid text-heavy slides. Simplify, simplify and simplify.

Too much text forces the audience to invest a good share of their cognitive capacity to read, decipher, interpret, and understand your slides. As a result, he pays less attention to what you say.

A good visual support your words rather than competing for the audience’s attention. Avoid text-heavy slides.

Good presentation

P.S.: Thanks to Michele Thibeau whose illustration inspired me for today’s trick and who kindly accepted that I use it for my visual.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post Avoid text-heavy slides appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.

Is there a new presentation method in town? What to think about Seth Godin short text « the atomic method of creating a PowerPoint presentation »?

In a previous post about presentation design styles, I listed almost a dozens of methods. Is Seth Godin atomic method really a new method that I should add to the list or just a remix?

What is the atomic method

• Create a slide for each sentence. For a five minute talk, that’s 50 slides.
• Each slide must have either a single word, a single image or a single idea.
• Break each concept into the smallest possible atom. If it’s not worthy of a slide, don’t say it.
• Do the talk in practice. Remove slides and sentences that add no value or don’t move you forward.
• Now (and only now), start consolidating slides. If two or three or four slides work together as one, then go ahead and make them one. You’ve got molecules now, not atoms.

What’s new or different?

Not much. All the points of the atomic method are basic good practices that you can find in other methods. The consolidation part is probably the novelty. I don’t remember seeing it elsewhere.

However the real difference is the theme and the branding: atoms, molecules, atomic method. That’s sound cool.

Conclusion

I don’t consider the atomic method to be a real new method, but everything helping spread good presentation practices is welcome.

Do you agree? You think it’s a new method? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Via Seth’s Blog: The atomic method of creating a Powerpoint presentation.

Posted by Denis François Gravel

Return to front page

Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post Is « Atomic » a new method of creating a Powerpoint presentation? appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.

I am always surprised to discover that one of the biggest mistakes presenters do is still: Reading the slides.

With all the information about speaking and presenting, easily available to everybody , I don’t understand. There are free blogs, books, articles.

Jim Cronin, author of the blog ProSpeaker Tips, has published the results of a survey

Forty “Big Hitters” responded to our survey asking them to highlight the biggest mistakes they see a business presenter making.

Of the twelve mistake, I have chosen 3 unforgivable one. They are the first things a presenter should correct.

2.  Reading your slides – time and time again, the “Big Hitters” said, “I can read, it’s a core competence in my job!”  Incidentally, you shouldn’t have your script  your slides in the first place!

3.  Too much content on the slides – there are no prizes for filling your slides with words and complex graphics, it’s about connecting with your audience, not bamboozling them.

11. Lack of belief and passion – if you can’t show enthusiasm for your proposition, how can you expect anyone else to! (It’s not hard, this stuff, is it?)

If you avoid those 3 unforgivable mistake, you will be on the top better half of the presenters. However, I suggest that you read all the 12 mistakes to be sure not to do them.

Source: ProSpeaker Tips via @OliviaMitchell

Share with me: What are the biggest mistakes you saw presenter make?

Posted by: Denis Francois Gravel

You liked this post? You can receive future posts for free by subscribing.

• Newsletter: The subscription box is upper left
• RSS Feed

Return to front page

.

Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post 12 Biggest Mistakes Business Presenters Make! appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.

I am not sure it was a good idea to accept this interview.

While I was driving, ideas where popping in my head. How is it possible to have something to say to fill 25 min? Will I be interesting? You know, that kind of thing.

It took less than 2 minutes to Davender to make me feel comfortable. He does this naturally with his large smile and his sincere interest in what we have to discuss.

We agree on some topics to discuss and we start the interview.

It runs really smooth. Like a conversation in your living room.

Finally, we are so passionate about the discussion that we have to stop it without covering everything because we’re running out of time.

Reading the post of Davender about the interview, I suppose I wasn’t so bad.

I had a great interview this morning with Denis-François Gravel, an authority on how to use presentation technologies to improve your ability to communicate.

“An authority”! Wow!, that’s good for my ego.

You will have the chance to judge if the interview is interesting, it will be broadcast on Monday January 18 at 6:00 P.M. (Eastern time) at “Radio Passion au Profit.“ The interview is in French. It wills also be available in podcast after the broadcast.

Until then, here is a video teaser (the full interview is audio only)

Thanks to Davender for his kindness and for the great comments on his blog and on Twitter.

Davender is a business leadership coach. He is involved in several regional, national and international business networks and associations including Réseau META Québec-Lévis (President), Toastmasters (Division I Governor, District 61).

For more information about Davender, you can visit his Web site, read is blog “from passion to profit” or follow him on Twitter @coachdavender

Posted by: Denis Francois Gravel

Return to front page

Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post 3 Presentation Tips – Interview sneak peek appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.

Most people complain about boring presentation that uses slides that looks like walls of text.

The brain don’t have the ability to listen et read all that text at the same time.

According to Microsoft, the average slide shows 40 words.

The BBC published an interesting article about the subject

You think bullet points make information more digestible? Think again. A dozen slides with five bullet points on each assumes that people are mentally capable of taking in a list of 60 points. If it’s a 30-minute presentation, that’s a rate of two-per-minute.

This looks a fairly interesting visual aid

This highlights the biggest problem with slide-based presentations, which is that speakers mistakenly think that they can get far more information across than is actually possible in a presentation.

I invite you to read the BBC article.

Share with me: How many words do you have on your slide?

Related posts:

• How to reduce the text in your slides
• To boldly go beyond pie chart
• Presenting data: be creative with charts

Posted by: Denis Francois Gravel

P.S. – Remember to update RSS feed to the new URL. http://feeds.feedburner.com/PRESENTabilityWithDFG

.

Return to front page

Denis Francois Gravel

Denis François Gravel aide les organisations à performer en contexte de présentation pour que leurs prestations donnent les résultats souhaités. Il les accompagne dans l’acquisition de meilleures pratiques et dans le développement des habiletés de leur équipe.

Il est le fondateur de PRÉSENTabilité, le cofondateur de TEDxQuébec et a été l’hôte de PechaKucha Québec. (2)

presentability.com

The post Why You Should Put Less Text in Your Slides appeared first on Denis Francois Gravel | PRESENTability.