George Lois, who spoke last week here at Edelman, is a more interesting and entertaining speaker than most. I really can’t say enough about him and his career, and yet…he presented with slides…badly.

I have to cut George a great deal of slack though: As far as I know, he doesn’t present that often, and he certainly didn’t create bad PowerPoint slides for this talk. What he did do though, was put up the actual spreads from his book, Damn Good Advice, to speak about the pithy numbered lessons in it.

And herein was the problem… 

What George may or may not realize is that as entertaining as he is to listen to, and as good a writer as he is, his audience can only do one thing at a time:

LISTEN or READ

An audience cannot do both!

During George’s 1.5 hour talk, I spent far too much time reading his book spreads rather than listening to him! And the reason is that I simply succumbed to human nature:

Reacting to visual change in my environment (a new screen on information), I gave my attention to this new stimulus and read what was in front of me. And unfortunately, I was close enough and the screen was high res enough to allow me to read. I tried to read as quickly as I could, but I still ended up missing a good portion of George’s opening words for each segment. Every time a new “slide” went up, I stopped listening to him for as long as it took to read or at least skim the text on the screen. Did he offer the magic secret to successful advertising in these moments? I’ll never know…

Glance Media

So, what could he have done? He could have very simply designed slides that were, in Nancy Duarte’s words, “glance media”—visuals that could be processed and read in mere seconds. If he had, I could have re-engaged with George and his spoken words almost immediately after glancing at the screen. His slides could have looked like this…

Or, since this particular rule concerned a story about the famed designer, Willam Golden, it could have looked like this, which might have communicated the story more visually and been stickier…

In either case, with slides like this, much more of my attention would have been on George himself from start to finish. And if I wanted to read his words, I could have read the book later (which I did anyway!)

I’m far from the first to make this observation. Nancy Duarte talks at length about glance media and slides that can be quickly read in her awesome book, Slide:ology, as does Garr Reynolds in his books. Many others have also written about the read/listen choice audiences must make. Still, speakers continue to shoot themselves in the foot by all but telling their audiences to stop paying attention to them in favor of the screen. If you’re boring and ugly, this might not be a bad strategy. But if you’re someone like George Lois, it’s a bit of a crime!

 

Guaranteed Laughs

And the client loved it.

So…if you’re having trouble getting laughs with a joke in a presentation, maybe try a sound effect?

I was at a presentation the other day given by the leader of a large office to her senior staff in which future strategies were being presented. An audience member asked how a certain part of this strategy would actually work, to which this presenter said without hesitation, “I don’t know.”

It was a wonderfully candid and honest answer, but in this situation it also served to let the group know that this company was a team and that one person was not responsible for all the solutions, answers and successes. The response also made it clear that the presentation being given was the start of a continuing conversation among those in attendance.

Though it may at first seem counterintuitive, saying “I don’t know” can actually increase your credibility when presenting. There’s nothing worse than someone desperately making up answers in order to appear in control, intelligent and all-knowing.

Here are a few answers to that question you genuinely don’t have an answer for:

• “I don’t know”
• “Tell me what you think”
• “Let me get back to you on that” (and do it!)
• “I’m going to be honest in telling you I hadn’t thought of that”
• “You raise a great question, and I’m not sure I have an answer for you at this point”
• “I can’t answer that today, but…” 

A presentation must change pace and shake things up at least every 10 minutes to maintain an audience’s focus and attention. 

The above rule of thumb is usually attributed these days to John Medina’s excellent book, Brain Rules, and is also discussed by Garr Reynolds, Nancy Duarte and others.

Certainly, it’s hard to disagree that our attention spans are shortening. (I probably don’t need to go into the Twitterfication of communication and media overload to make this argument.)

But how does this work in practice, and what can a presenter do to maintain his or her audience’s engagement?

A few weeks ago at Edelman, we held our annual NY office all staff meeting—essentially a 2 1/2 hour presentation for 600+ people. The greatest compliment we received afterward was one overheard in the elevator from one of our (very) young interns: “I thought I was going to be bored at such a long meeting,” she said, “but there were so many speakers with different styles of presenting and so many surprises that the time just flew by. I was totally engaged.”* 

So, how did we keep that Millennial from falling asleep? Here’s a condensed breakdown of our meeting…

• President’s introduction (no slides, pin spot lighting, 5 minutes)
• 16 short “case studies” presented in the audience by employees (no slides, 5 min.)
• New speakers (duo)/award announcements (1 slide, 3 min.)
• Video (2 min.)
• Video (2 min.)
• New speaker (4 slides; 5 min.)
• President (3 slides; 6 minutes)
• New speaker (12 slides, 4 min.)
• New speaker (12 slides, 4 min.)
• New speaker (12 slides, 4 min.)
• President (4 slides, 8 min.)
• New speaker (6 slides, 5 min.)
• New speaker (1 slide, audience poll/participation, 6 min.)
• New speaker (10 slides, 6 min.)
• Moderated panel (18 min.)
• New speaker (award announcement, 2 min.)
• Video (2 min.)
• New speakers (trio) including video (6 slides, 7 min.)
• New speaker (no slides, 5 min.)
• New speaker (1 slide, 1 prop, 7 min.)

Techniques for Implementing the 10 Minute Rule

Here’s a list of things you can do to break your presentation up and maintain engagement. I’ve bolded every technique we used at our offsite meeting… 

• Black slide
• Video
• Change of speaker/guest speaker
• Audience question/poll
• Q&A
• Workbook exercise
• Change of lighting/set
• Prop/visual aid
• Write on whiteboard/easel
• Hand out a prize
• Physical audience participation (i.e. standing or moving)
• Move to a new location in room
• Play a song or other audio 

And here’s my list when I present… 

• Black slide
• Video
• Change of speaker/guest speaker
• Audience question/poll
• Q&A
• Workbook exercise
• Change of lighting/set
• Prop/visual aid
• Write on whiteboard/easel
• Hand out a prize
• Physical audience participation (i.e. standing or moving)
• Move to a new location in room
• Play a song or other audio 

So, if you still think that you can get up with 100 slides and do nothing but talk for 2 hours, then you better be this guy…

*Actually, to be honest, there was one point where our intern did admit that her mind started to wander. Can you guess where…? 

I was asked once if I thought a certain company I worked with was innovative. I said, “yes,” although the company didn’t always show it.

If you’re going to make the claim that your company is innovative (and what CEO today would not?), then you need to take every opportunity to show the world and your clients that you are staying ahead of, or at least with the curve. Does your office look modern and fresh or like an insurance company from the 1970’s? Does your website look original and contemporary or does it look like you just changed the colors on a $29.95 template?

And what about your presentations?

Do you walk into a room with a 5-year old Dell and Death by PowerPoint 2003 or do you present with a sexy MacBook Air and Prezi? Do you hand out a 75-page deck plastic comb-bound at Kinko’s or do you leave behind a Galaxy Tablet with your portfolio and presentation? Do you whip out out an old BlackBerry in a meeting or a new Droid?

I know, staying up to date with technology and hardware is expensive, but if you can’t outfit your entire 1,000 person company with new laptops, maybe you can spend a few thousand on a few MacBook Airs that can be checked out from IT each time someone has a pitch. For the cost of flying in that consultant from Tokyo, maybe do a video conference and use the savings to hire a presentation designer or firm.

One of the first Prezi presentations I saw was when Chris Anderson of TED, gave a brief talk about the international reach of his organization. He used a map of the world and flew around it, playing video clips from the various locales that TED events have taken place in. Chris didn’t say, “TED is innovative.” In just one small way, he demonstrated it.

Here’s another Chris Anderson talk in which he uses Prezi:

*    *    *

“Innovation” is a huge, loaded minefield, but one of the kings of innovation is the design firm IDEO. If you want a good “Innovation” read, I highly recommend their book, The Art of Innovation.