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the Extreme Presentation process and change some things. Begin by trying the one - sen- tence exercise again. Can you rewrite the sentences so that they are newsworthy, inter- esting, important, and well supported by your data? Sometimes we undersell our own content, and rephrasing our messages can help avoid this. But on other occasions we may have to go back and do the S.Co.R.E. card exercise again. Or maybe you need to focus on a different business problem. You might even have to go back and revisit the objectives for the presentation, perhaps because the data you have does not support as aggressive an objective as you set initially. But this iteration is good — it just makes your presentation stronger.
Once you have a one - sentence message for each page, think about what page layout design would best communicate or support this point, and then sketch the layout for each page, using paper and pencil. We noted above that to ensure that your page passes the squint test, you need to make sure that the layout of the page reinforces the main message of the page. This is what you are doing here. Appendix C contains thirty - six examples of slide layouts that pass the squint test. (PowerPoint versions of these layouts are available at www.ExtremePresentation.com .)
Rather than drafting your layouts in PowerPoint right now, it is probably better to hold off from using any kind of presentation software a little longer, because inevitably you will spend too much time designing slides at this rough draft stage, and therefore you will be unwilling to toss out earlier versions to try again.
Once you have a rough sketch of the layout of each page, place the sketches side - by - side across your desk, and you will have a storyboard for your presentation. Scan this story- board to make sure that there is enough variety in page layout, from slide to slide. If there isn ’ t, this may be an indication that your presentation is repetitive; consider combining some of the pages or changing their design.
When we do this exercise in our workshops, we almost invariably come up with pres- entations with single - digit page counts — where the typical presentations were between twenty - fi ve and fi fty slides long, with 100⫹ page presentations not unheard of.
Before going any further, you may wish to review the front - to - back Extreme Presentation case study of “ SuperClean Vacuums ” in Appendix B .
The Importance of “ Roadmapping ”
When you use lots of detail on your slides, particularly conference room style slides, you will need to guide your audience ’ s eyes across each slide. There are three things you can do to help with this. First, you can number the elements of the page in the order that you want your audience to look at them. Second, you can give them spoken guidance, to help “ roadmap ” the slide for them. As you present the slide, say, for example, “ First look at the top left of the slide — the chart there shows the increase in employee attrition. To the right of that, you can see . . . . ” And so on. Finally, you should lay your slide out so that there is a natural fl ow around the slide. This does not have to be always from left to right,
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or from top to bottom. In fact, if you can vary the fl ow from slide to slide, it makes for a more interesting presentation.
We can see such varied fl ow in good artwork. Consider the Thomas Cole painting in Figure 8.20 . This beautiful painting, hanging in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is part of a four - painting series called “ The Voyage of Life, ” all painted in 1842. The title of this particular painting, the second in the series, is “ Youth. ” First, look at the angel at the bottom right of the painting. Next, look at the hero of the painting, the youth to the left of the angel, who is setting off in the ship of life. The river, fl owing to the back left of the picture, seems like it will take the youth toward the castle in the clouds, which represents his youthful dreams and ambitions. There is indeed a path through the fi elds beyond, barely visible, and seemingly heading toward this castle.
But, in fact, the river itself take a sharp turn before that path and fl ows across the middle of the painting, behind the trees, to the right side, and appears again above the angel.
The mist above the river there gives a hint of what is to come in the next painting:
FIGURE 8.20. Thomas Cole’s “Voyage of Life” Series, “Youth”
Source: Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Youth, Ailisa Mellon Bruce Fund, Image Courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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a waterfall, with the now older hero cascading down helplessly in his boat, representing the turbulence and doubts of adult life.
Notice the fl ow we have followed. We started at the bottom right, moved across the bot- tom and up the left side of the painting to the upper left (the castle in the clouds), then back down across the middle and out the right side. On your own slides, any fl ow will do, so long as it fi ts the content of your page, and so long as you guide your audience clearly.
Ideally, you will want to vary the fl ow from one slide to the next, which is more interest- ing than having every slide read from top to bottom or left to right.
Final Details
At this point, you are ready to create your slides. Create your own layouts, or use any from Appendix C . Incorporate all the elements you gathered in Chapter 7 into these layouts. 18
Once you are done with this, there are certain elements that are important for every page: title, guide marks, annotations, source, and page number. These are illustrated in Figure 8.21 . The title of the page should, like the layout, reinforce the main message of the page. This will be helpful in your presentation and also ensures that the point of the page will not be misunderstood when people read your handout when you are no longer around.
If you need it, you can also add a subtitle. Some people — from certain consulting fi rms — have a habit of putting a descriptive title at the top of the page and the conclusion or main message at the bottom. This seems to me to give the impression that you weren ’ t really sure what the point of the page was until you fi nished it. Better to start out with the point, and then have everything on the page reinforce it.
The importance of “ roadmapping ” was mentioned above. Using numerical or alphabeti- cal guide marks can help with this. You can direct your audience to “ Look fi rst at box ‘ a, ’ ” for example. As noted above, callout boxes or annotations are helpful for drawing attention, and also for ensuring clear communication to people who read your handout without the benefi t of the presentation.
Finally, make sure that each page lists the source for the data on the page — this is impor- tant for credibility — and also that each page is numbered. If you are handing out more than one page, then you need page numbers to ensure that everyone is “ on the same page. ” (Figure 8.22 contains a post - checklist for evaluating each of your slides.)
18www.Powerframeworks.com is a subscription site that offers over a thousand different layouts, many of which pass the squint test.
18www.Powerframeworks.com is a subscription site that offers over a thousand different layouts, many of which pass the squint test.
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FIGURE 8.21. Final Details
Your page is not complete until you can answer “yes” to each of these questions:
Does the layout of the page reinforce the main message of the page?
Does the page have a title, and does the title reinforce the main message of the page?
Do all the elements on the page reinforce the main message of the page, as expressed in the page title?
Does the page contain lots of relevant detail?
Is your page properly “ roadmapped ” ? (Are the elements on the page numbered in the order that you want your audience to look at them?)
Are the data sources identifi ed?
Is the page numbered?
❑
❑
❑
❑
❑
❑
❑
FIGURE 8.22. Checklist: Evaluating Your Slides
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In the Collection of The Corcoran Gallery of Art. Accession Number 76.15. Artist: Frederic Edwin Church. Title: Niagara. 1857. Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 42 1/2 3 90 1/2 inches. Courtesy of Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Credit Line: Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund.
FIGURE 8.23. Frederick Church’s Painting of Niagara Falls
It takes effort to create excellent visual communication — to fi nd a good combina- tion of simplicity of design and complexity of detail. Look at the picture in Figure 8.23 . This is Frederick Church ’ s famous painting of Niagara Falls. It represents an impressive demonstration of simplicity of design and complexity of detail. Church put a tremendous amount of effort into this painting. He made six separate visits to Niagara Falls. He drew hundreds of preliminary drawings. He painted twenty - one trial “ sketches ” — which were really complete oil paintings in themselves — to try to out different angles, times of day, and so on. The fi nal version, which hangs today in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and is seven - and - a - half feet wide, took him six weeks to paint (Johnson, 1998).
What ’ s the point here? If you ’ re working on getting good detail into your presentation, you need to put a lot of effort into it. Not necessarily as much as Frederick Church put into his painting, but more than we usually do in banging out the typical PowerPoint slides. This is because we are not just putting in the detail, but we are also organizing the detail so that it makes sense to the viewer. Fortunately, since you are creating far fewer slides, and perhaps even only one, then you can spend a lot more time on each, and very likely the total amount of time you spend on your presentation will be less than you would otherwise — and yet your presentation will be far more effective.
We are almost fi nished. But after all this work, someone in your audience could still sur- prise you with some unanticipated opposition and wreck your presentation. What can you do to avoid that? The last chapter in the book will address this question, and also discuss how to measure your presentation ’ s effectiveness.
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