The 7 Steps
Chapter 9. Now The Slides
Slides Come last
Don’t Open PowerPoint
What’s the first thing most people do when they have to make a presentation? Ask most audiences & you get the same answer, they open PowerPoint & start creating slides. They now even do it in schools from a young age. It’s important to remember though that it wasn’t always so. There was a time when Powerpoint didn’t exist.
What To Say
If you start making the slides first, you don’t know what you will say. Then by the time you finish the presentation it will be too late to change. Your audience won’t know what you want to say either. They might like your presentation, but it won’t drive them to do anything.
Choose A Theme
Decide what you want to say first. Then you can design your presentation in the best way to say it & make sure everyone who watches you present it, gets it & takes action on what you said. Then your presentation will have been a success & you will have moved the world forward a little bit.
Write A Script
Once you have decided what you want to say, the best way to get it across is to break it down & build up your point like a story or a play or movie. Then write it out like a script. Exactly like a script which you can then learn off by heart, practice like an actor & deliver like a professional.
Create Your Content
Once you have your script, just like a play or a film or a book you have to bring it to life. A book comes to life in your imagination, a film on the screen & a play on the stage. Bring your presentation to life through your slides. The slides are like your thoughts, props, costumes & special effects. Make the slides last.
I Prefer Keynote
When IPad Arrived
I don’t open up PowerPoint, because I don’t use a PC or laptop, I only use an iPad & my iPhone. Before, I wasn’t a big Apple fan, like most I thought it was a niche company for designers. We had Macs at university so I knew how to use the system, but it wasn’t until the iPad arrived that I switched to Apple.
Keynote For Keynotes
The presentation slide software on Apple is called Keynote. It’s a great name because it’s for the activity which is giving a keynote. You can get Keynote software for your Mac, MacBook, iPad or iPhone. You can switch between devices but for me the iPad & iPhone are the best versions.
With Your Hands
When you present, especially to a large audience, you need to keep it simple. The reason you should use iPad & Keynote for the iPad, is it will help make your presentation simpler. One reason is touch. As a human you create simply with your hands. Tablets now let you compute with your hands.
On Your IPad
When you work on an iPad to build your presentation, you do it all with your hands & Keynote. Sizing pictures, typing text, scaling charts, moving objects. You can draw on an iPad with your fingers too, either to draw simple graphics to use to present or drawing on top of pictures on charts.
Perfect Screen Size
The iPad screen is also a perfect window into your presentation & is like an additional tool. With each iteration of the device, it gets brighter & better. Pictures, charts & graphics feel like they come to life. Your presentation is also more intimate because it can be put closer to the person you are presenting to.
Keep It Simple
How To Simplify
How to keep your slides simple? It’s simple. Decide what you want to say first, work out the way to say it, then bring the idea to life in your slides. The simplicity comes from making a decision at the beginning & committing to following a method. This brings you clarity, which translates to your slides..
A Single Idea
As you’ve already written your points & decided how to illustrate them, each slide will naturally be one point. Be ruthless with this, one point per slide & no more. Make it so that you could just use that one slide by itself. Make it so that if you just showed the slide & didn’t say anything, people would still understand what it says.
Use Big Text
A few things to help make the slide simple to understand. Make the text big so it’s easy to read. It’s amazing how often you see slides which are impossible to read because there’s too much text & because there’s too much, it’s so small you couldn’t read it unless you were standing right in front of it.
Screaming Titles Too
The same rule goes for your slide titles. Make them easy to read & understand too. Make them like newspaper headlines. Few words & words that get a reaction. Get them to stand out with a change of color or exclamation. Make sure your slide titles make it immediately obvious what the slide is about.
Keep Text Straight
Always try to make your audience’s job easy. Listening to you & reading your slides should be seamless. People can read fast but always have little text. Make that text easy to read by making it large & keep it straight. Never put the text on its side. Imagine your audience all simultaneously turning their heads to read it.
Bit Of Magic
Give A Performance
Presenting is a performance, a piece of theatre. If you remember what it’s like, the theatre. Imagine the first time you went to see a performance. It was a magical experience. That’s what makes it so memorable. Those kinds of experiences you will remember for the rest of your life. Try to add some of that magic to your presentation slides..
Bit Of Color
One magic trick is to add color. People are used to seeing plain black writing on slides. You can make yours more magical by adding color. Keep most of the text black & add color to emphasize specific words & phrases. You have to be careful with the color because it might look different on certain screens. Red is bold & works best.
Add Some Drawing
Another magic trick in addition to colors is drawing. Add some drawing to your slides can make them more magical. This could be drawing over charts, tables or text. You can easily do this with screen shots on an iPad. You can even draw the charts & hand write the text.
Add Audience Participation
You can add movement, intrigue & audience participation to your slides by giving a live demo. One way is to include a spreadsheet with calculations & variables which can be changed in the slide. For example have sales volume & price, costs & profit in a spreadsheet table, change the variables to show the effect. Allow your audience to choose the numbers.
Add Chart Movement
You should always add movement where you can. Presenting is all about attention & movement grabs attention. It’s human instinct. Now with computer power it’s easier to add movement & you don’t need video for this. Charts, tables & text can all move. The best way is when the movement makes the point. For example if a chart is going up, make it build upwards.
Don’t Open PowerPoint
What’s the first thing most people do when they have to make a presentation? Ask most audiences & you get the same answer, they open PowerPoint & start creating slides. They now even do it in schools from a young age. It’s important to remember though that it wasn’t always so. There was a time when Powerpoint didn’t exist.
What To Say
If you start making the slides first, you don’t know what you will say. Then by the time you finish the presentation it will be too late to change. Your audience won’t know what you want to say either. They might like your presentation, but it won’t drive them to do anything.
Choose A Theme
Decide what you want to say first. Then you can design your presentation in the best way to say it & make sure everyone who watches you present it, gets it & takes action on what you said. Then your presentation will have been a success & you will have moved the world forward a little bit.
Write A Script
Once you have decided what you want to say, the best way to get it across is to break it down & build up your point like a story or a play or movie. Then write it out like a script. Exactly like a script which you can then learn off by heart, practice like an actor & deliver like a professional.
Create Your Content
Once you have your script, just like a play or a film or a book you have to bring it to life. A book comes to life in your imagination, a film on the screen & a play on the stage. Bring your presentation to life through your slides. The slides are like your thoughts, props, costumes & special effects. Make the slides last.
I Prefer Keynote
When IPad Arrived
I don’t open up PowerPoint, because I don’t use a PC or laptop, I only use an iPad & my iPhone. Before, I wasn’t a big Apple fan, like most I thought it was a niche company for designers. We had Macs at university so I knew how to use the system, but it wasn’t until the iPad arrived that I switched to Apple.
Keynote For Keynotes
The presentation slide software on Apple is called Keynote. It’s a great name because it’s for the activity which is giving a keynote. You can get Keynote software for your Mac, MacBook, iPad or iPhone. You can switch between devices but for me the iPad & iPhone are the best versions.
With Your Hands
When you present, especially to a large audience, you need to keep it simple. The reason you should use iPad & Keynote for the iPad, is it will help make your presentation simpler. One reason is touch. As a human you create simply with your hands. Tablets now let you compute with your hands.
On Your IPad
When you work on an iPad to build your presentation, you do it all with your hands & Keynote. Sizing pictures, typing text, scaling charts, moving objects. You can draw on an iPad with your fingers too, either to draw simple graphics to use to present or drawing on top of pictures on charts.
Perfect Screen Size
The iPad screen is also a perfect window into your presentation & is like an additional tool. With each iteration of the device, it gets brighter & better. Pictures, charts & graphics feel like they come to life. Your presentation is also more intimate because it can be put closer to the person you are presenting to.
Keep It Simple
How To Simplify
How to keep your slides simple? It’s simple. Decide what you want to say first, work out the way to say it, then bring the idea to life in your slides. The simplicity comes from making a decision at the beginning & committing to following a method. This brings you clarity, which translates to your slides..
A Single Idea
As you’ve already written your points & decided how to illustrate them, each slide will naturally be one point. Be ruthless with this, one point per slide & no more. Make it so that you could just use that one slide by itself. Make it so that if you just showed the slide & didn’t say anything, people would still understand what it says.
Use Big Text
A few things to help make the slide simple to understand. Make the text big so it’s easy to read. It’s amazing how often you see slides which are impossible to read because there’s too much text & because there’s too much, it’s so small you couldn’t read it unless you were standing right in front of it.
Screaming Titles Too
The same rule goes for your slide titles. Make them easy to read & understand too. Make them like newspaper headlines. Few words & words that get a reaction. Get them to stand out with a change of color or exclamation. Make sure your slide titles make it immediately obvious what the slide is about.
Keep Text Straight
Always try to make your audience’s job easy. Listening to you & reading your slides should be seamless. People can read fast but always have little text. Make that text easy to read by making it large & keep it straight. Never put the text on its side. Imagine your audience all simultaneously turning their heads to read it.
Bit Of Magic
Give A Performance
Presenting is a performance, a piece of theatre. If you remember what it’s like, the theatre. Imagine the first time you went to see a performance. It was a magical experience. That’s what makes it so memorable. Those kinds of experiences you will remember for the rest of your life. Try to add some of that magic to your presentation slides..
Bit Of Color
One magic trick is to add color. People are used to seeing plain black writing on slides. You can make yours more magical by adding color. Keep most of the text black & add color to emphasize specific words & phrases. You have to be careful with the color because it might look different on certain screens. Red is bold & works best.
Add Some Drawing
Another magic trick in addition to colors is drawing. Add some drawing to your slides can make them more magical. This could be drawing over charts, tables or text. You can easily do this with screen shots on an iPad. You can even draw the charts & hand write the text.
Add Audience Participation
You can add movement, intrigue & audience participation to your slides by giving a live demo. One way is to include a spreadsheet with calculations & variables which can be changed in the slide. For example have sales volume & price, costs & profit in a spreadsheet table, change the variables to show the effect. Allow your audience to choose the numbers.
Add Chart Movement
You should always add movement where you can. Presenting is all about attention & movement grabs attention. It’s human instinct. Now with computer power it’s easier to add movement & you don’t need video for this. Charts, tables & text can all move. The best way is when the movement makes the point. For example if a chart is going up, make it build upwards.
