Tool No 40: Slides
HOW? Work these seven tips into your slide presentations.
If possible, avoid slides and draw as you speak. If that isn’t an option, see points 2–7.
Either turn the projector on and off as needed, or insert empty black slides between the ones that illustrate what you are saying.
Use metaphorical images. For example, “man on a wire” (Google it) if you want to show your current position in the market, or “cable spaghetti” (Google it) if you want to illustrate something that needs to be simplified.
Show metonymic images that trigger the audience’s urge to be a co-creator (for example, the White House is a metonym for American politics). If you want to commu- nicate that your IT spending over the past two years has increased by 57%, write just “57%” and impart the rest orally. If you want to talk about an impending upheaval, show a picture of a family sitting in front of a house with all of their belongings in removal boxes.
Use images of patterns – concentric circles, arrows, matrices, timelines, mountains, etc. – to show modes of thought that you are either stuck in or need to adopt.
Use a giant font size. This forces you to write as few words as possible.
One – and only one – point per slide.
