Death by PowerPoint: How to Use Slides Without Killing Your Message
Slides are a tool. Use them when they serve your message. Skip them when they don’t.
Welcome to the sixteenth lesson of The Persuasive Presenter course. As always, there’s a quick video introduction followed by a deeper dive in text.
Watch, read, and let me know what you think in the comments.
Peter Norvig’s Gettysburg PowerPoint parody worked because everyone recognized the crime being committed.
You can’t take one of the most powerful speeches in history and turn it into bullet points without destroying everything that made it powerful.
And yet, that’s exactly what most presenters do. Not to the Gettysburg Address, of course, but to their own content.
They take ideas that could be compelling and memorable, then bury them under slides filled with text, bullet points, and clip art. They turn persuasive arguments into forgettable decks that people skim while half-listening.
The solution isn’t: “Never use slides.” It’s first to understand what slides should and shouldn’t do. And then decide whether to use them at all.