In 1968, Douglas Engelbart gave what should have been the technology breakthrough presentation of that time. Did you hear about it? Instead, if fell into oblivion. Why? How to avoid the same destiny for your presentations?

In the 60’s, computer where big. They didn’t have graphic interface or mouse, and only a few people had the ability the work with them.

Although, an interactive computer with a mouse was a huge revolution. A step into the future. Remember, this is almost 20 years before the Macintosh*.

Unfortunately, this presentation didn’t win his place in history. For many reasons. One of them : it is boring. Go ahead. Try to watch it t’ill the end.  I didn’t succeed.

Doug Engelbart 1968 Demonstration from Nathan Garrett on Vimeo.

One of the keys of a successful presentation is to capture and maintain people interest. If you don’t, their minds will wander, they won’t get your message,and you’ll fall into oblivion.

Compare this presentation with the launch of the Macintosh by Steve Jobs in 1984. Same kinds of technology, but a radically different presentation. This is not boring at all…..and it made history.

The complete presentation is available on YouTube ( 44 minutes ) :

Now it’s your turn. Be passionate, be interesting, leave your footprint in history.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment.

Posted by Denis François Gravel

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* The Apple Lisa was the first personal computer available to public, but it’s another story.

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 this historic presentation fell into oblivion 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

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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.