Presentations
Awesome post on Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic in presentations.
Coming out of LBO finance, I was definitely a 7 major bullet points and 14 minor points per PowerPoint slide kind of guy. And that presentation style actually served me reasonably well as I was presenting the ideas behind TheLadders.com to VCs and industry people who wanted to know the intricacies of our plan.
But what I've increasingly discovered as I need to explain our business to a wider and wider audience, is that the minutiae of bullet-point-itis frequently ends up obscuring the story, not illuminating it.
It was brought home to me most clearly when I saw Seth Godin speak.
In Seth's entire presentation there were perhaps 4 words on the wordiest slide ("As Seen on TV" if I recall) and none on most of them. He used pictures to tell his story, and because we didnt have to spend half the time reading his slides, his story came across so much more clearly.
Looking back now, I suppose that's the true lesson to be had from the Gettysubrg Address Powerpoint. Let your story tell the story, and don't let the clipped format of bullet point slides hamper it.
