The Artful Presenter

Believe it or not, this jumble of scribbled notes and random thoughts eventually became a slide deck. 

My previous posts have been focused on the composition of slides rather than the content of your presentation. My apologies.

The most important part of creating your presentation is to connect with your audience. The best way to do this is to tell a story. This means creating a narrative that your audience can relate to. 

Dr. Nick Morgan of Public Words notes in his blog post, “PowerPoint’s dirty little secret” that, “…storytelling power is undercut by PowerPoint deck building.” When you’re creating a slide deck, it’s easy to lose sight of the overall story of the presentation. Dr. Morgan suggests, “don’t start with PowerPoint at all. Tell your story first.” 

I recommend story boarding your presentations on another medium before you go to PowerPoint. I use a pen and paper and create something like a brainstorm cloud to arrange my ideas. Then this eventually becomes my slide deck. 

I’ll spare you the entire deck, but here’s a sample of one of the resulting slides:

Remember that to tell a story that engages and enchants your audience. Once you’ve developed that story, then move on to your slide deck.