Less is more
A few days ago I was running an advanced presentation skills course and when one of my participants gave her first presentation it was clear that she had fallen into the trap of confusing a presentation with an information dump. Its not that her content was bad, there was just far too much data and as a result it was almost impossible for the audience to tell the wood from the trees. Couple this deluge of data with a series of very wordy bullet point slides and you have a recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, by the end of the workshop she was starting to get the message and had reworked the presentation into a much more impactful and easily digestible package.
So next time you come to write a presentation remember that less is more. Be kind to your audience, don’t overwhelm them but instead only present relevant key facts thst help you tell the story you want to tell. You can always put the extra facts in a concise but detailed handout for those people that really must have all the data!
